Podcasting as a performative discourse
A model for the analysis of changing journalistic
practices in new media
Image: Ira Glass by Kevin Kwada (2008), kevinwadaart.wordpress.com
Dedicated to the patience of my family and friends, who if they lost faith, never showed it,
MA Thesis
Supervisor: Michael Stevenson Author: Michael G.J Royall
Degree program: MA Media Studies (Journalism) University of Groningen, Faculty of Arts
Student number: 2587521 Date: 27.09.2017
Reason can only follow paths that the imagination has first broken. No words, no reasoning. No imagination, no new words. No such words, no moral or intellectual progress.
- Richard Rorty, The Fire of Life (2007)
ABSTRACT
How can we understand the way journalism changes when it is practiced in a new medium? This exploratory study presents a model for the analysis of such change, taking the emerging podcasting genre of non-fiction audio narrative as its case study. The model presented builds on a pre-existing understanding of journalism as a performative discourse (Broersma, 2010). I argue this
conceptualization allows the identification of journalism’s instruments and goal(s) relevant to the performance. The journalistic performance is successful when it succeeds in having its interpretation accepted as truth, thus creating meaning. I introduce the notion of ‘performative instruments’ to denote the tools used to achieve that goal, and combine this with the concept of technological affordances to create a model of how the studied podcasting genre creates meaning. Building and applying this model for analysis necessitates historical and contextual analysis of both journalism and podcasting’s lineages, as well as some important related fields such as radio and digital culture. I suggest that though the studied podcasting genre does not break with the validity of objective observation, it does use the performative instruments of transparency, intimacy, reflexivity and narrativity to turn its interpretation into truth and create meaning, and that it does so in an epistemological paradigm that is moving away from all-knowing authority derived from objective observation and towards an emphasis on reflexivity and personal experience as the location of authoritative knowledge. I elucidate the model with a close reading of several strong examples from the podcast shows This American Life, Serial and Radiolab. Finally, I come to the conclusion that the study of journalism might benefit from acknowledging the special relation journalistic language has to what we conceive as being real, and that the power of its discourse is subjected to changing epistemological circumstances.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the first episode of Serial (Koenig, 2014), the most downloaded podcast show in history, journalist Sarah Koenig tells us what it was like to meet Adnan Syed, the subject of her investigation, for the first time. She gives a description of him, telling us what strikes her about Syed. And one of the things she says you “can’t miss about Adnan” are his eyes: “Giant brown eyes like a dairy cow.”
It’s such an utterly harmless image, this benevolent farm animal, the dairy cow, which in my mind, always lives in these big green, open pastures, straight from a brochure advertising holidays in Ireland. But the reality is that Syed was convicted for murdering his high school girlfriend, and burying her in a six-inch grave in Baltimore in 1999. He’s been in prison for years and just like a lot of actual dairy cows, he probably hasn’t seen any pastures in a long time.
Koenig’s show, Serial, is a 12-part podcast investigating this cold case. Of the countless leads she follows trying to find out whether he was wrongfully convicted, it’s these peaceful bovine eyes that prompt what she describes as her “most idiotic lines of inquiry.” It leads Koenig to ask: “Could someone who looks like that really strangle his girlfriend? (Serial, 2014)”
a genre that, like any genre, is indebted to traditions that went before it in other media. This podcasting genre of non-fiction audio narrative has grown to develop its very own assemblage of techniques that allows it to practice journalism in a way that creates an addictive, immersive and for some, controversial experience. And that ‘new’ way of doing journalism is as important to investigate as ever.
It has been often noted that journalism is currently facing a crisis or major
transformation.1 The profession commands less and less respect and trust, while the
internet puts severe economic pressure on their traditional business model (Van Zoonen, 2012). Meanwhile, producers of new media are also engaging in journalism. Some of these new media, such as podcasts, are relatively successful.
While journalists are constantly looking for new ways to reach their audience, almost nothing has been written about the journalistic nature of some of the most popular podcasts, which succeed in dealing with non-fictional narratives while
engaging millions.2
Siobhan McHugh (2016) calls this specific genre “non-fictional audio storytelling formats.” They are true stories in the sense that they share with journalism promise of telling us something that was not made up but actually happened in the world, as such stepping into an arena where uttering fiction entails lying—and thus their words acquire a specific kind of moral weight, an allegiance to a common-sense understanding of what is true and false (in comparison with i.e. fiction or art). Indeed, many of those telling these podcast stories routinely refer to themselves as ‘reporters’
1 For the most recent overview and subsequent nuance of the idea that journalism is in crisis, see Waisbord, S,
(2017) Afterword: Crisis? What Crisis. In C. Peters & M. Broersma (Eds.), Rethinking Journalism Again: Societal
Role and Public Relevance in a Digital Age (205-15). Oxon: Routledge.
and their activities as ‘reporting’.
In this study, I create a model that proposes a way of understanding how journalism is changed within this genre of podcasting. Building on the notion of journalism as a ‘performative discourse’ (Broersma, 2010), I identify several tools that are used in this genre to turn an interpretation into truth, introducing the concept of ‘performative instruments’, which are here: transparency, reflexivity, intimacy and narrativity. They are, I argue, facilitated by the specific technological affordances of podcasting, as well as the cultural context in which they are consumed and produced.
There has not yet been any academic work done specifically on how podcasting deals with journalism. The space I research in this study is where this emerging podcasting genre of “non-fictional audio storytelling” meets the field of journalism. It is an analysis of how a practice, journalism, is remediated in a new medium— podcasting. How do these texts of non-fictional audio storytelling deal with journalism? Do they adhere to the same norms, follow the same routines, use the same kind of speech as journalists?
And then there is another issue. Once we find a common thread, how will we identify, or make sense of, the ways in which it is morphs or changes in podcasting? How do we compare a practice with a genre, within an—as of yet still relatively undefined—medium? To avoid seeing only apples and oranges, we need to find correct grounds for comparison.
Understanding journalism as a ‘performative discourse’ offers such grounds. Broersma (2010) sees journalism not as something reflecting empirical facts or social reality but, like all language, it is an interpretation of reality. As Broersma (2010) argues, he considers the notion of performative discourse to clarify the study of journalism “because it draws attention to both the news item (the text or radio or television story) and the context in which a journalistic story is produced (Broersma, 2010, p. 18-9).” His understanding of journalism as something that happens in the interaction between its textual form and cultural reception creates a common ground with other genres (in other media) that also offer interpretations of reality as true.
Journalism thanks its position in society, its existence, to its ability to provide the forms in which these interpretations of reality appear, and can become seen as true. The success of a journalistic utterance depends on it being accepted as truth: a “[news] article is a convincing representation when it successfully establishes a feeling of truthfulness. By doing so it transforms an interpretation into truth—into a reality on which the public can act (Broersma, 2010, p. 17).” Here we see the peculiar relation that journalism has to ‘reality’ and ‘truth’—it is both a ‘making-of reality’ and a ‘defined-by’ it.
reader. When we understand journalism as a performative discourse, the text, its forms and styles, become the anchor of the analysis. They become meaningful in the way they relate to the cultural context. As Broersma (2010) argues: “The textual structure of a news item—its form and style—represents the authority that stems from its social configuration (p. 19).”
Journalism’s freedom to ‘create reality’ (turn interpretation into truth) is checked by the control that dominant forms of thought about truth and falsehood carry out over the journalistic field—internally through routines and professional norms, externally through its vulnerability to critique by society. These processes are reflected in journalism’s forms and styles, which indicate adherence to the routines, norms and societal position and are thus, crucially, its source of authority.
The locus of journalism’s authority lies, as the literature I consult in this study shows, within the notion that objectivity offers a portal to truth, and in extension the context of modernity and enlightenment from which this approach springs, as well as its related institutions of (democratic) politics, governance, science and so forth.
However, journalism scholars have long seen adherence to objectivity as a common thread amongst different journalistic forms, which had led to difficulty because of the many interpretations of this notion of objectivity, as well as the danger of evoking a normative ideal of journalism. Performative discourse allows one to acknowledge the importance of objectivity for journalism, its origin and current place in society, but it also allows us to see objectivity as an instrument to a goal that all
journalistic publications share: the goal of having interpretation accepted as truth.3
3 I want to nuance this statement: there are interesting exceptions, such as satirical news publications, or
When we see journalism as a performative discourse, we can start observing an exchange taking place between textual factors and cultural context. Of course, the performative nature of language can be extended to other discourses and fields of communication. But it is succinctly apt for journalistic utterances, which subject itself to the moral judgment of the epistemology of common sense. If a journalistic performance fails, there are consequences for the journalist, its publication and journalism’s believability as a whole.
Performative discourse thus gives us the framework of attributing the abstract categories of goal and instrument to journalism and consequently grounds for comparison with other discourses that share part or all of its goals. In the sections that follow, I first consult some relevant literature in order to understand the details of this mechanism in journalism. I show how objectivity is crucial to the form, style and authority of journalism, and what the effect is of a changing cultural and technological context on this discourse’s believability for the general public.
The model I build is an argument that points toward a development that is peculiar to podcasts, but relevant for many other currently ‘new’ journalistic endeavors. Whereas ‘modern’ journalism arose in a time where all-knowing authority through science and impersonal objectivity enjoyed great prestige, we are now seeing increasing critique and disbelief towards this kind of authority across the population, and a development towards what Liesbet van Zoonen (2012) calls I-pistemology, which is a greater belief in experience and the self as trustworthy source of knowledge.
performance is overwhelmingly powered by performative instruments that fit a different, more I-pistemological or reflexive notion of what constitutes an authoritative source of knowledge (Beck, 1992; Van Zoonen, 2012).
The result of this thesis is the model I have already mentioned above. It was built through analyzing relevant literature and theory on journalism, podcasts, radio and new-media studies, as well as studying several podcasts within the genre of non-fiction audio narrative.
This study is structured in a way that first shows which literature and theories I have used to build the model. Then, I expound the details of this model. Finally, in the analysis section, I show how the model can be used to understand how journalism is renegotiated within this podcasting genre through analyzing different episodes from three podcast shows: This American Life, Radiolab and Serial.
This research is by all means an exploratory study. Through applying a journalism theory (performative discourse) on a genre of podcasts, I propose a model with which we can understand how journalism is changed within this new medium. It’s an effort of which I hope it will open a door to understanding the various and future mutations of journalism in other new media as well.
2. METHODOLOGY
In this study, my results are synthesized in a model that illustrates how podcasts create meaning. More specifically, it shows how the podcasting genre of non-fictional audio narrative’s key features work to create knowledge that is accepted as valid within a changing epistemological context. In doing this, I build on work done on performative discourse by Broersma (2010) and I-pistemology by Van Zoonen (2012).
The following image is a representation of the key components of this model: podcasting’s technological affordances and performative instruments. The model shows how the technological characteristics of the medium facilitate a specific podcasting genre (that of non-fiction audio narrative), which I argue uses the instruments of reflexivity, narrativity, transparency and intimacy to present itself as an authentic, valid source of knowledge.
Before engaging with the research, it is important to explicate the motivation for some structural and methodological choices made in the presentation of this study. The model, or results section of this thesis, is positioned between the theoretical framework and the analysis as such: (1) theoretical framework, (2) model, (3) analysis. Though this order might seem unorthodox considering the fact that the results are a product of the work done both in the theoretical framework and the analysis, I have set up the research in such a way that the analysis is an illustration of how one might apply the model to individual podcast cases.
These choices were made with the goal of the study in mind: to apply and expand existing theoretical vocabulary for the analysis of journalistic practice in new media. The necessity for this is based on two observations. Firstly, journalism is faced with a dual challenge of a rapidly evolving technology and a changing cultural mood. Secondly, that journalism is being ‘remediated’ in new media, seemingly cultivating a ‘new’, different interpretation of journalistic logic (Deuze, 2006). This research is an attempt to come to terms with both these developments through what amounts to a case study of the rise of a specific podcasting genre.
The model I build is based largely on results attained through qualitative research. It comprises of a combination of literature reviews, in which I contextualize and theorize the practices of journalism and podcasting, as well as textual analyses of different episodes from three prominent podcasting shows in the genre of non-fictional narrative audio.
podcasting. Now, why does this necessitate a qualitative textual analysis versus, for example, gathering data through surveys with podcast producers and/or listeners (see i.e. Markman & Sawyer (2014) and McHugh (2016) for examples of this approach)? And if I must analyze the text, why don’t I choose to, for example, encode and quantify textual indicators of journalistic practices?
The reason I opt for a qualitative, textual analysis of podcasts is, as becomes clear in the theory section, the fact that I have not yet encountered any studies in which Broersma’s (2010) notion of performative discourse is applied to understand the remediation/transformation of journalistic practices in new media.
This, I believe, is a gap in journalism scholarship, as performative discourse offers several advantageous perspectives that elucidate developments in the field. Firstly, performative discourse is a practical, theoretical tool that incorporates and acknowledges the contingency of objectivity in journalism. It is a perspective that offers the possibility to incorporate past (and perhaps future) insights from sociological, cultural and journalism scholarship, through the power of its pragmatism: performative discourse focuses on how journalism gets its job done. For now, it is useful to define this ‘job’ as turning its interpretations into truth, which is widely applicable across journalistic genres. How this goal is achieved was, as I show in the theory section, different in the past and might change in the future. One might even apply the same mode of thinking to discourses that do not attempt to turn their interpretations into truth.
this thesis is thus an attempt to make some of these possibilities explicit by talking about journalism’s goal and instruments, which I call performative instruments. As might be clear from what I mentioned above, this does not imply that I understand journalistic discourse as being deterministic in any way. Neither does it mean that journalism’s only goal can be turning its interpretation into truth—though the literature does show it is characteristic for both modern and premodern journalism (Schudson, 1995; Matheson, 2000). Nonetheless, what the notions of goal and instrument simply point out is: that which must be achieved in order fulfill a certain function that a discourse develops in interaction with its context. Both are thus organic in the sense that they are subject to change and their environment—though they might be perceived as normative within society (Matheson, 2000). In the theory section, I show how this process works for the notion of objectivity, which functions as a source of authority for, I argue, different types of performative instruments which modern journalism uses to turn its interpretations into truth.
Thirdly, performative discourse focuses on journalism as a discourse. In other words, it tries to understand the journalistic performance that happens in the moment of interaction between reader/listener/viewers and the text. As such, it introduces a fruitful way of understanding the connection between text and context in the form of— along with the previously mentioned mechanisms—the source of authority that is necessary to make the performative aspect successful. Put differently, it allows the linking of formal and stylistic characteristics with the source of authority that allows them to work. This enables us to make sense of the text within the larger picture and ask what demands authority in current and past epistemological paradigms.
that “critical research is based on the idea that thought is fundamentally mediated by relations and that data cannot be separated from ideology (p. 42).” In this thesis, I start from such a critical paradigm, beginning with Schudson’s observation that “the power of media lies not only (and not even primarily) in its power to declare things to be true, but in its power to provide the forms in which the declarations appear (Schudson, 1995, p. 105).”
Crucial for the method chosen to answering our research question is the postmodern notion of the crisis of representation, “which refers to the idea that all representations of meaning depend on their relations with other signs and representations (Tracy, 2013, p. 45).” As such, I situate journalism in a field of contingent power relations, as a cultural production that also actively seeks to legitimize itself to its listener, reader or viewer (Bourdieu 1991; 2005).
Within this theoretical context, the podcasting genre of non-fiction audio narrative becomes a practice that is adjacent to, and competing with, the field of journalism (as well as many others such as fiction and radio), while also being a medium for journalism. Understanding how journalism is changed through podcasting thus might mean extracting some kind of ‘podcasting performative discourse’ from amongst the many practices and traditions that overlap with it.
these examples illustrate the mechanics of the performative instruments, which I argue are characteristic for the podcasting genre of non-fiction audio narrative.
The analysis of these shows will be a close reading, or rather close listening of these texts. Such an exploratory approach will by definition by qualitative. In order to understand how the podcasts fulfill their performative function, I use a three-leveled approach. At the first, macro level, there’s the perspective that the creation of meaning is based on an intimate, interdependent connection between discourse and its context, and the recent epistemological developments in society described by Van Zoonen’s (2012) notion I-pistemology.
The second, meso level, is the level of the medium and its relation to the text. This level is a crossroads of language, technology and cultural context. To elucidate some of the processes that take place here, I first discuss what the technology of podcasting affords. Then, I introduce the notion of performative instruments, which are concepts that become useful for the creation of meaning in the specific constellation of language, technology and cultural context.
thought within which neutrality has persuasive power is then what we might call modernity, or a discursive space wherein the benefits of the scientific method and rationality are implicitly acknowledged and presumed to be shared by speaker and listener—think for example of the positive connotations the word ‘rational’ can and often does have in everyday speech, and the inverse connotation that ‘irrational’ has. In other words, the concept of performative instruments is a theoretical tool that allows a subdivision of values that are connected within the same paradigm. Fairness, balance, and public service are all concepts that are all tied up with the notion of objectivity. Their presence in journalistic texts (through formal and stylistic characteristics) aids the success of the journalistic performance—the creation of authentic, valid knowledge. As mentioned above, I discern four different performative instruments at work within the podcasts I analyze: transparency, intimacy, narrative and reflexivity.
The third, or micro, level of analysis consists of tools that are used to elucidate the connections between the text itself and each previously mentioned level. It is thus a close reading which is founded in the paradigm of deconstruction and différance, more strictly speaking the operating of binary oppositions in texts, such as freedom/captivity, objectivity/subjectivity and their related meanings (Derrida, 1982).
presenting the truth clearly, thus obstructing transparency, this is reversed in the podcasting genre of non-fictional audio narratives, where, as I show below, the notion of reporting is broadened to include relaying one’s own experience and emotions concerning the subject—even to go so far as to use the author as the mediating principle of the narrative.
Of course, such a qualitative approach brings with it certain issues and questions. For example, one might argue that if performative discourse brings attention to the interaction of reader and text, then wouldn’t an (empirical) analysis of how these texts are received offer valuable knowledge? Moreover, isn’t qualitative, textual analysis inherently subjective? Lastly, doesn’t presenting one’s analysis after the results create a form of confirmation bias, in which I simply pick out the podcasting examples that conveniently confirm my theoretical groundwork?
3. THEORY
Podcasting, the persistent digital tortoise
In 2014, Serial created the latest podcasting hype. But it was not the first. Over the last decades, the medium has been the cause of several moments of collective excitement, causing some to wonder whether this meant a bubble or bust. However, as Farhad Manjoo wrote for the New York Times in 2015, podcasting is neither. Instead, it is “that rarest thing in the technology industry: a slow, steady and unrelentingly persistent digital tortoise… (Manjoo 2015).”
The growth has indeed been somewhat glacial, as podcasts were long seen as a ‘difficult’ medium. This was not without reason. It used to take considerably more technical knowledge, as well as physical steps to download and listen to a podcast
on the go.4 However, despite the fact that the hype around Serial has now cooled, its
growth has not. Podcasting is still attracting more listeners, and the diversity and familiarity with podcasting is reaching the point of it becoming a bonafide mainstream medium, be it among the younger demographic.
As mobile phones become increasing ubiquitous, this is reflected in the way
4 Compare manually subscribing to a podcast online and then physically hooking your MP3-player up to your
podcasts are listened to: mostly on mobile devices, as opposed to personal
computers, and this share (65%) is still increasing.5 Moreover, in 2014, Apple
included a dedicated Podcast app in its iOS.
Podcasts are becoming slowly integrated in daily media habits. The 2017 Infinite Dial research, a commercial survey, reports that four out of ten Americans (40%) say they have now ever listened to a podcast. This is an increase of 13% compared to 2013 (Edison Research, 2013). By 2016, six out of ten Americans were familiar with the term ‘podcast’ (Edison Research, 2017). Those who listen on a weekly basis (15%), are power users, listening to an average of five podcasts a week (Edison Research, 2017). Just under half of those who have ever listened to a
podcast, listened to the entire episode.6 This has to be seen in a context where most
of the top ten podcasts last between 30 minutes and an hour (Podtrac, 2017).7 That’s
something quite unusual in an environment where an increasing number of media are vying for the consumers’ limited amount of attention.
2016). Meanwhile, top podcasts are demanding these high CPM rates despite the fact that big advertisers are holding back on investing, because of the difficulty in tracking results of the medium (Perlberg, 2016).
Finally, this brings us to another remarkable development in the world of podcasting: those high CPM rates are charged for the top programs in a context where podcasting download figures are extremely top-heavy.
The number one podcast publisher, National Public Radio (NPR), has more unique streams and downloads globally (97,182,000) than the three runners-up combined (Podtrac, 2017). Crucially, NPR is not the only public broadcaster in the top ten. In fact, the industry rankings are dominated by public broadcasters: six out of
the top-ten podcasts are public broadcasters.8
In short, the amount of people integrating podcasts into their daily consumption patterns is increasing. And the mode of consumption is different than how we surf the web: the format is able to retain the attention of these listeners for relatively long times. Last but not least, we see that the programs that people are listening to are not equally spread out across the large number of shows available, but that shows at the top of the ladder pull an exuberantly large share of the listeners. And the top is dominated by public broadcasters.
For those interested in how journalism is practiced in new media, the fact that many of the most popular podcasts deal with non-fictional audio narratives is something that cannot be ignored. In May 2017, for example, the top ten podcasts were as shown in Figure 2 below (Podtrac, 2017).
Podcast Publisher
1. This American Life This American Life/ Serial
2. Stuff You Should Know HowStuffWorks
3. Radiolab WNYC Studios
4. Ted Radio Hour NPR
5. Up First NPR
6. Planet Money NPR
7. Fresh Air NPR
8. S-Town This American Life/Serial
9. Freakonomics WNYC Radio
10. The Daily The New York Times
Figure 2 Podcast Industry Ranking according to Podtrac, US Audience, May 2017.
Changing non-fictional audio storytelling
This concentration of public broadcasters at the top is interesting, because it suggests the main podcasting genre has changed since the days it was seen as a something closely tied to the world of blogging. Indeed, it is illustrative of the success of a specific kind of audio narrative format, which as I show later, has sprouted from public broadcasting lineage.
In an article published in 2016, Siobhan McHugh interviewed five prominent editors in the podcasting industry. She argued that her interviews showed:
…a belief of senior commissioning editors that podcasting is fomenting a new, more
informal genre of audio narrative feature centered on a strong relationship between host
and listener, with content that is ‘talkier’ and less crafted (McHugh, 2016)
The podcast as a medium is facilitating the success of a new kind of audio narrative feature, which is creating a listening experience that differs from other forms: a closer relationship between host and listener and more informal.
This kind of ‘narrative feature’ is both a departure from as well as a product of podcasting’s blogging lineage. The invention of the podcast is attributed to Dave Winer, creator of the RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and Adam Curry (former MTV VJ), initially as an open-source project (Berry, 2006). Winer linked RSS to audio, allowing one to subscribe to audio files. Initially its enthusiasts believed it would disrupt and transform radio, in effect changing audio distribution from few-to-many into a democratic, open world of voices (Berry, 2006).
These features at the top, such as Radiolab and This American Life, have an informal, conversational approach, but they’re often heavily edited for narrative flow. They incorporate multiple voices and stories, and most importantly: they largely deal with non-fictional subjects.
Journalism in trouble
The rise of this genre is taking place in a context where traditional journalism itself is struggling. Not only is the economic model of the 'old media' under pressure, but traditional news media are caught between two developments: on the one hand, their neutrality and objectivity is being questioned by the great flow of new sources online, breaches of trust and commercialism (Gronke & Cook, 2007). On the other, the foundation of journalism's place in society is the idea that they in theory have the capacity to be neutral arbiters of meaning (Schudson 1995) (Matheson, 2000). Some argue that this very idea of objectivity itself is losing authority, and claim that we are heading towards emphasis on personal experience (Van Zoonen 2012).
If podcasting both has roots in new media, as well as being proclaimed a new platform for quality journalism, what is it exactly that allows it to successfully navigate an environment that is in so many other ways hostile to what are seen as the 'traditional' bearers of 'quality' journalism? How does the way these podcasts deal with non-fictional narratives relate to the way news media present themselves as a viable source of information in society?
journalism’s place in society, in order to understand how it operates and why some are saying it is facing a crisis. I will then go on to look at podcasting as a new medium: what is the relation of its technological particularities to the way it tells stories? Lastly, I will use this information to build a model with which I will analyze several strong examples from prominent non-fictional works of audio storytelling podcasts.
The model I develop is based on the research below. It takes as its starting point the idea that if journalism is a performative discourse, we can understand reconfigurations of journalism in other discourses—such as non-fictional audio storytelling—by analyzing them through the perspective of performativity.
In this context, I argue that whereas journalism’s performativity is founded for a significant extent on the authority of the neutral observer, the podcasting genre of non-fictional audio narrative finds its authority in a reiteration of this classical journalistic paradigm, explicitly using what I call the ‘performative instruments’ of narrative, reflexivity, intimacy and transparency. In doing so, it meets changing cultural expectations about what counts as an authoritative source of knowledge, while still adhering to journalistic norms and routines that take its performative power from the notion of objectivity. In other words, the podcasting genre of non-fiction audio narrative shows signs of straddling both an old and emerging epistemological paradigm.
Loss of authority
entertainment, news and life, as well as shifting social configurations such as an increasing individualization, the public’s relationship with media has been changing. The concoction of technological and social developments has facilitated an altered stance vis-à-vis the epistemological heritage of modernity in society, illustrated by the loss of authority that traditional institutions such as journalism now suffer (Beck, 1992; Van Zoonen, 2012).
Recently, populist parties in both Europe and the United States have begun adopting an actively anti-‘mainstream media’ stance. Parties such as Geert Wilder’s PVV in the Netherlands had relatively successful election results while fostering narratives that the ‘mainstream media’ chooses to demonize them, while at the same using the media’s logic to create publicity through controversy (Bakker & Vasterman, 2013). In the United States, Donald Trump became president while pursuing a campaign that vilified media traditionally considered trustworthy. This campaign against ‘the media’ continued after he took office, as the elected president went on to call major news outlets such as The New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS and CNN “failing”, “fake news” and “enemy of the American People (Flood, 2016).”
anymore in public policy, opinion or politics, and paints a picture of a world unhinged—one which can be shaped to one’s own liking through manipulating existing power structures, such as those of media and politics.
At the same time, trust in traditional institutions, such as politics, government and science, has been on the wane. Liesbet van Zoonen (2012) shows how, though statistics have been relatively stable over the years, there are many phenomena which show how the nature of trust in traditional institutions is changing. Some examples she gives are disbelief in climate change, resistance towards vaccination programs and other instances of distrusting official knowledge such as creationism. Van Zoonen (2012) accredits this seeming contradiction to differentiations between first and second orders of trust (a distinction developed by Coleman (2012)), which explain why trust in government might be falling in Europe and the US, but trust in democracy is stable (Van Zoonen 2012). Trump’s election and Brexit are interesting occurrences in this context, as both were interpreted as protests against elites.
Meanwhile, Van Zoonen (2012) shows how (dis)trust in media is equally complicated, with significant differences between countries. Trust in the media in Northern European countries for example, is on average higher than that in the UK (Van Zoonen, 2012). In the US, trust that the mass media report the news “fully, accurately and fairly” has declined from 53% in 1997 to 40% in 2015 (Jones & Saad, 2015).
media are distrusted and others not, but that the notion of objectivity itself, in the sense that an expert, impersonal observer can be a valid source of truth, is losing authority.
In what context has this development occurred? Over the last decades, media has penetrated almost every aspect of modern life through the instant accessibility granted by new (mobile) technology. The concept of ‘mediatization’ is illustrative for a critical perspective on media’s effect on a macro scale (Strömbäck, 2008; Mazzoleni, 2008). Mediatization is generally defined as “a process where the media increase their influence at the expense of other actors in society (Falasca, 2015, p. 585),” such as for example democratic politics. Mediatization thus focuses more on the negative effects of media and is part of a tradition of critical media scholarship. At the basis of this perspective lies the notion of media’s pervasive presence in society, and the fact that media are guided by a logic and needs that differ from political logic (Falasca, 2015). This ‘media logic’ has different various dimensions to it, as politicians (but also businesses and private persons), can use or leverage this logic in order to influence their public perception. PR and spin, for example, have become a crucial part of election victories.
In line with this critique is also McAllister’s (2007) observation of how electronic media have played a role in the ‘personalization’ of politics—what McAllister calls perhaps “the central feature of democratic politics in the twenty-first century (p. 585). It entails a shifting of focus away from parties and policy and towards individual politicians and leaders.
sensationalism (for example the framing of politics as a contest or race in order to engage viewers/readers) and commercialism. Scholars such as Herman & Chomsky (1988) have set this kind of media logic in a more ideological context, arguing that notions that determine choice of subject and manner of framing (such as objectivity and neutrality, which often entails showing both sides to an argument), combined with the commercial aspect of media (having to sell advertisements etc.) and other factors, mean that (news) media, though claiming to serve society through adhering to principles as fairness and neutrality, actually contribute to maintaining an (unwanted) status quo through these very principles.
Krotz (2008) sees mediatization is “one of the four fundamental meta-processes that have shaped, and continue to shape, modernity—along with globalization, individualization and, especially, commercialization (Livingstone, 2009, p.5)”. Media, as it becomes an increasingly large part of our daily experience as well as the larger, historical developments, are thus a crucial part of the context within which the shift of epistemology, as proposed by Van Zoonen (2012), takes place. This larger context is one where the side effects of modernity continue to shape modernity.
Whereas the credibility of mystic and religious explanations for the complexity of life have waned in modern society (as per the process of disenchantment observed by Max Weber), they have not been replaced by an unwavering belief in science, scientists and their truth claims (Aupers, 2012). This paradox is explained by the two faces of science, which “depends not [only] on the inductive accumulation of proofs but [also] on the methodological principle of doubt (Giddens, 1992, p. 21, cf. Aupers, 2012, p. 25).
This methodological doubt, which is at the center of the cultural logic of modernity, leads (in the absence of mystical explanations) to an epistemological insecurity (Aupers, 2012). While this takes away credibility from traditional institutions, it combines belief in the truth of personal experience with a radical skepticism of authority. Coincidentally, this also gives rise to, as Aupers (2012) argues, a growing culture of conspiracy theories.
In this context, mediatization is indeed an important process, as the more media reports on science and paradoxes within institutions, the more they become transparent. As conflict and disagreement are a focus for many media institutions (a go-to narrative frame to pull in the audience), it means that inconsistencies are actively being highlighted (Aupers, 2012).
Concrete manifestations of this kind of skepticism towards traditional authorities can be found in different levels in society. Most recently, the 2016 election of Donald Trump (on a platform of ‘anti-elites and the ‘lying mainstream media) and the victory of the yes-vote in the Brexit referendum could be seen as indicators of such skepticism.
That modern society’s complexity plays a large role in the epistemological shift towards I-pistemology (Van Zoonen, 2012) is illustrated by the fact that many of modernity’s institutions do indeed face very real problems, as argued by Beck (1992). Some examples are the media’s increasing centralization of ownership, where a growing number of media concerns is owned by a dwindling number of media moguls, with negative consequences for their ability to stay unbiased (Hanretty, 2014). Moreover, there have been several instances where prominent media have breached the trust of the public during the last decades,
Some of the instances in which media have broken the public’s trust are the News International phone-hacking scandal ca. 2011 and uncritical coverage of the run-up to the 2001 Iraq war by large media outlets such as the BBC and CNN. In this context, scandals or controversies concerning failure to communicate truth, breaches of public trust, are figuratively speaking both put under a magnifying glass by the media’s focus on conflict and disagreement.
However, insecurity does not only affect epistemology, but it also influences the belief that one can make a difference: the public’s political agency or confidence. As Coleman (2012) writes, experiencing the political word in mediated form has a corrosive effect:
often than they directly encounter political institutions or events, persistent images
of the world as a mean place, popular narratives of politics as inherently deceitful
process and persistent accounts of policy failure undermine efficacy. It’s not that
people disbelieve the news that they consume, but that its long-term impact upon
their political confidence is corrosive. They come to believe that if the world is as
they see and read about it, scope for making a positive difference is slim (2012:
41).
Coleman’s (2012) argument illustrates the connection between the loss of trust in traditional institutions and the fact that an increasing amount of life is experienced in mediated form (Beck 1992; Van Zoonen, 2012).
The link between these macro processes of mediatization and a shift of authority from traditional institutions to the self becomes clear when we take into account a view of media’s role in life as one of circulation and feedback between the ‘fabric of daily life’ and larger historical processes. It demands, as Lievrouw & Livingstone (2006) argue, looking at:
The artifacts or devices used to communicate or convey information; the
activities and practices in which people engage to communicate or share
information; and the social arrangements or organizational forms that develop
around those devices and practices. (Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2006, p. 2, cf.
Livingstone, 2009)
valuable entry points into this dynamic.9
The ‘all-knowing authority’ of traditional institutions is thus on the wane, not as “an antidote to modernity,” but
. . . a radical and generalized manifestation of distrust that is deeply embedded in the
cultural logic of modernity and is, ultimately, produced by ongoing processes of
modernization in contemporary society (Aupers, 2012, p. 23)10
For journalism, this means that the context in which the profession rose to its current position in society has changed. It is not necessarily so that objectivity itself has lost credibility, but the belief in the capacity of journalists to be objective, to have access to this kind of knowledge has.
Digital culture
Over the past three centuries, we’ve seen a worldwide shift from a print culture in the
19th century, to a 20th century electronic culture and now a digital culture in the 21st
century (Deuze, 2006, p. 1). As Van Zoonen (2012) argues, the Internet is a catalyst in the shift towards I-pistemology. It is a technology that allows users to find confirmation in sources that match their experience, breaks down the barrier between publisher and consumer and makes a virtually endless world of sources available.
abovementioned transitions: from newspapers to television/radio and now digital communications technology. Each of these different media influenced and was influenced by the culture in which it was used, fostering certain “values, practices and expectations” regarding the way people interact through them (Deuze, 2006, p1). Put differently, journalism now manifests itself differently through Internet than it does and did in newspapers, and there are reasons to argue that ‘offline’ journalism changes
also because of the arrival of this new medium into the social sphere.11
Though it is difficult to speak of a clearly demarcated ‘digital culture’, it is
possible to identify emerging values, practices and expectations that might function as theoretical tools to understand the changing context journalism is subjected to. Deuze (2006) offers an understanding of digital culture as “undetermined praxis […] conceptualized as consisting of participation, remediation, and bricolage (p. 1).” He writes:
. . . in the proliferation and saturation of screen-based, networked, and digital media
that saturate our lives, our reconstitution is expressed as: 1. Active agents in the process of
meaning-making (we become active participants). 2. We adopt but at the same time modify,
manipulate, and thus reform consensual ways of understanding reality (we engage in
remediation). 3. We reflexively assemble our own particular version of such reality (we are
bricoleurs). (p. 66)
‘networked individualism’ (Deuze 2006). We might think of peer-to-peer networks, social networks, forums, comments sections, open-source programming and phenomena such as Wikipedia as illustrations of how this kind of almost symbiotic social activity is central to digital culture.
Remediation concerns the manner in which new media “diverges from, yet also reproduces older media, while old media refashion themselves to answer the challenges of new media (Deuze, 2006; Bolter & Grusin, 1999)”. Deuze (2006) notes how in digital culture there is an element of distantiation inspired by private interests, or: “a manipulation of the dominant way of doing things in order to juxtapose, challenge, or even subvert the mainstream (Deuze, 2009, p. 69),” this is also akin to the notion of disruption.
As an example of remediation and distantiation, Deuze (2006) considers the example of blogging, and its position vis a vis journalism. For bloggers, their personal voice and opinions are an added value which distinguishes them from traditional news media (Deuze, 2009; Neuberger, 2004). Yet one of their main activities is sharing and commenting on content from the mainstream media. As such, bloggers combine personal distantiation from journalism while remediating “some of journalism’s peculiar strategies, techniques and even content (Deuze, 2009; Lasica, 2001).”
recent, examples that illustrate how the process is used. One might think of how through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, the notion of social is renegotiated in a way that online, it’s meaning becomes altered to fall in line with the activities of sharing, liking, retweeting and having ‘friends’, among other actions social media users have become accustomed to.
Sherry Turkle’s (2015) research among users of digital technology in social settings points towards how the presence of smartphones affects the quality and nature of traditional social settings such as face-to-face conversations, boardroom meetings, mealtimes and other interactions that are essential components of daily life. One example she gives is how some of her college-aged interviewees referred to the ‘rule-of-three’: which implies it is polite to, at the table, only look at one’s smartphone if there are at least three other people ‘with their heads up’ (or not looking at their device). Turkle (2015) discusses the phenomenon of how many of her interviewees feel ‘safer’ communicating through text because these communications can be honed and perfected, preferring to evade the unpredictability of face-to-face conversations. While a smartphone might also offer the possibility of calling (for example when breaking up with a significant other), many admit having chosen to break up through text, regardless of the fact that they acknowledge the former option to be more adequate. This is an excellent example of how social insecurities or difficulties can determine the use of digital technology.
technologies within their interaction with social and cultural context.
Deuze’s (2006) third component of digital culture, bricolage, refers to a practice of remixing, borrowing, assembling, reconstructing and reframing “artifacts, ideas, signs, symbols and styles in order to create new insights or meanings (2006).” An illustrative practice of bricolage is the creation and sharing of internet (image) memes, which in one of its many forms involves re-appropriating existing images (i.e. from pop culture or so-called ‘stock images’) for jokes or political purposes. Another example of the Internet user as bricoleur would be a user of Reddit, Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat, as it implies collecting and composing one’s own information stream (though with media such as Facebook, the algorithms mutate this form of bricolage agency so as to include an unknown factor).
This practice of 'bricolage' is a certain type of activity that introduces a new form of agency into news consumption (Deuze, 2006). Bricolage might lead to the reception of a diversified range of voices on the one hand, or on the other, to a remaking of these individuals into fragments and tribes, caught in the echo chambers created by social media algorithms.
For journalism, we might say digital culture presents a rivaling field of knowledge, though one that has within it the subtle nuance of that it does not fully depart from existing practices, expectations and values, but remediates and reinterprets them.
Objectivity
If digital technology is facilitating a rival field of knowledge, then it is important to understand exactly how journalism has—both now and in the past—created a space for itself in society where it could lay claim to the ability to provide authoritative knowledge. In the following two sections, I provide a brief historical overview of journalism as a sociological, linguistic and technological phenomenon, showing how journalism arose in a context of competing knowledge claims. Finally, I argue with Broersma (2010) that journalism should be understood as a performative discourse, and add to this that such a perspective offers a valuable framework for analysis, as it is receptive to analyzing how practices transition and change between different media.
At the core of journalism’s claim to authority and place in society lies the notion of objectivity, the implied capability of journalists to provide an unbiased representation of the truth (Schudson, 1995) (Matheson, 2000). To ensure objectivity, journalists follow all kinds of rules and routines in both the way they work and select subjects, as well as their writing, style and form, which has, among other terms, been referred to as the objectivity regime, or the strategic ritual of objectivity (Tuchman, 1972; Schudson, 1995; Broersma, 2010).
biased or prioritizes other motives than those we feel they should follow, such as sensationalism for financial gain or malicious influencing of the public. Good journalism works for the greater good, it's objective and unbiased. It follows various normative ideals we as a society have loosely defined, such as public service, speaking truth to power, fulfilling the role of 'fourth estate'—though the extent and implementation of these ideals differs across the world (Hallin & Mancini, 2004).
The spread of 'unbiased journalism' is for a significant part due to the evolution of the enlightenment concept that objective observation leads to progress and knowledge. It arose during the fast-paced change of the 19th century, in which new technologies and scientific discoveries were revolutionizing society, as well as the beginning of an integration of market rationality in democracy (Matheson 2000). By the 1920s, at least some intellectuals saw journalistic objectivity as an extension of the scientific ideal. As Schudson (2001) writes:
…objectivity seemed a natural and progressive ideology for an aspiring
occupational group at a moment when science was god, efficiency was cherished,
and increasingly prominent elites judged partisanship a vestige of the tribal 19th
century. (p. 162)
‘There is but one kind of unity possible in a world as diverse as ours’, Walter Lippmann wrote. ‘It is unity of method, rather than of aim; the unity of the disciplined experiment.’ Lippmann wanted to upgrade the professional dignity of journalists and provide training for them ‘in which the ideal of objective testimony is cardinal’ (Lippmann, 1920: 67, 82 cf. Matheson 2000).
humanity to a higher level. It was the time where specialization in efficiency in factories lead to reduction of costs and greater productivity, as well as counter movements lamenting the effect of this development on society, such as most famously the Luddites, and romantics such Jacques Rousseau propagating the return to nature and the sublime instead of lifeless rationalism. Indeed, as is not uncommon with these kind of historical developments, the spread of objectivity in journalism was a messy and ambiguously motivated process.
We see neutrality and objectivity as inherent to what makes a journalist. However, the context in which journalism spread gives an indication of the
contingency of the value of objectivity.12 The spread of market rationality, for one, can
be seen as a facilitating factor, as well as innovations in printing presses. Objective newspapers could be sold to a larger audience than their partisan counterparts (Chalaby 1996). Moreover, to prevent the spread of radical political ideas, some states, such as the United Kingdom, implied a tax on newspapers (Herman & Chomsky). This made them more expensive to produce and thus increased their reliance on advertisers, who prefer newspapers with a wider distribution.
'Objective journalism' was an Anglo-American invention, originating in the 1830s in the United States, and soon also became an accepted approach to reporting in the United Kingdom (Chalaby, 1996). Before objectivity slowly began to change the textual forms and profession of journalism (first in these two countries, then later in its own adaptation in Europe and beyond) newspapers were mainly partisan publications, their style and form vastly different from what we are now familiar with as journalism (Matheson 2000).
12 For more on a non-essentialist view of values, see Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity,
Meant to be read from start to finish, writers for these pre-modern newspapers used discourse appropriate to both the subject reported on and within the borders of polite society. Schudson (1995) and Matheson (2000) give interesting analyses on these early documents. To begin a news story with first the plain facts, for example, without any adornment was unheard of. Articles on legal issues were documented in legal language, naval stories in marine language and so forth, while reports on political speeches were in early journalism not much more than complete transcriptions (Matheson, 2000). Schudson (1995) argues that journalists in these early days did not have a social position or adequate language to add comments to these kind of speeches, and that this language was only developed incrementally.
It was only when the notion of 'an objective observer' became thinkable that journalists could gain the social authority to, for example, add comments to political speeches (Schudson 1995). Still, when techniques such as the interview were first carried out, they were considered to be rude, and forms such as the news pyramid to be tactless and ungraceful (Matheson 2000). Nonetheless, it developed into an accepted discourse. This Anglo-American notion of journalism then started to be exported to Europe. There, it clashed with the more literary sensibilities of journalists there, who deemed the concept of a neutral reporter to be vulgar (Chalaby 1996).
(Steffens, 1931 cf. Matheson 2000). Objectivity became an ideal. Thus, though the origins of the ideal of objectivity in journalism might be contingent on different political, economic and power motivations and developments, it lead to the foundation of journalism as a profession that was afforded certain amount of independence, social importance and capital precisely due to this claim to objectivity (Matheson, 2000).
The objectivity ideal turned journalists from partisan writers and authors with literary ambitions into anonymous experts in neutral observation, which gave to access to the ability to represent reality. According to Schudson: “The power of media lies not only (and not even primarily) in the power to declare things to be true, but in its power to provide the forms in which the declarations appear (p. 109).”
What made journalists to self-consciously articulate their norms were the different Durkheimian conditions, or horizontal solidarity or group identity, and Weberian, or conditions concerned with “hierarchical social control across an organization at one point in time or across generations over time (Schudson 2001).”
However, to what extent is it possible to be 'objective'? For some time, journalism's claim to objectivity was thought to be captured elegantly by the developing technology of photography. Photography was seen to be ‘without syntax’ or ‘style,’ it was the perfect ideal for a reporter (Schiller, 1977). Like a photograph,
newspapers were able to offer a window on the world. In the 19th century,
newspapers in the US were often typified as “a daguerreotype of the social and natural world (Schiller, 1977: 93).”
therefore by intention or chance creates meaning. Language is a framing device in much the same way: it is not a window in the world. Words have no actual connection to reality other than the arbitrary assignment of sounds to phenomena, which are in their own form created as much by language's discerning capability as it is described. The advent of schools of thought such as (post)structuralism, postmodernism and cultural studies have offered academic frameworks within which the normative claims of objectivity, and in its extension scientific empiricism, are not necessarily doors to an absolute truth but, for example, a way of making sense of reality that is subject to historical contingency—it is the paradigm of knowledge we are now living in, one that has changed before in history, and will probably change again in the future (Kuhn, 1963). Knowledge, and language, in this sense is an instrument of power (Anderson, 1983), and which discourse or field has access to authoritative knowledge is therefore culturally and historically determined, instead of having claim to an absolute truth. Within this line of thinking, power relations or ideology at work in texts and discourse can be uncovered through contextual (discourse/cultural) analyses with tools such as close reading or deconstruction.
Bourdieu (2005) sees journalism as part of a larger power play between different fields, such as politics, literature and science. He defines the field as:
a field of forces within which the agents occupy positions that statistically determine the positions they take with respect to the field, these position-takings being aimed either at conserving or transforming the structure of relations of forces that is constitutive of the field (Bourdieu, 2005, p.30 cf. Broersma, 2012).
The non-essentialist, non-normative view on journalism offers fresh, valuable insights into how it operates as a discourse among others. Elizabeth Bird and Robert Dardenne (2009) argue journalists “operate as traditional storytellers, using conventional structures to shape events into story” (p. 205). However, due to the historical dominance of the objectivity regime, the use of narrative, myth, literary techniques and especially emotion have typically been associated with fiction and sensationalism, and has thus been a troubled subject within academic discourse on journalism (Peters, 2011; Wahl-Jorgensen, 2012; Harbers, 2014; Bird & Dardenne, 2009).
The role of emotion in journalism has long been underestimated, and it has often been conflated with sensationalism. However, as Peters (2011) argues, emotion is an essential part of journalism’s discourse mechanism. Emotion in journalism does a particular kind of work that is indispensable, what Peters (2011) calls creating experience of involvement, which—necessary as it is to create engagement—is always present in journalism.
Karin Wahl-Jorgensen (2013) illustrates how emotions are used in news narratives. She notes how journalism does not only rely on what Gaye Tuchman (1972) calls the strategic ritual of objectivity, but on an additional, complimentary ‘strategic ritual of emotionality’. Whereas Tuchman’s (1972) ritual of objectivity concerns practices to ensure neutrality and professional semi-autonomy, the strategic ritual of emotionality refers to the many ways that journalists incorporate emotions into their narratives despite their adherence to a normative objectivity ideal.
(Wahl-Jorgensen, 2013). This outsourcing of emotional labor happens through the mechanism of quotes, using sources to discuss their emotions and describing the emotions of others by the reporter (Wahl-Jorgensen, 2013). Outsourcing allows journalists to use fictional techniques, such as personalization and the building of narrative tension, to create an experience of involvement, while still sourcing their authority from claims to objectivity.
What becomes clear is that objectivity alone is not sufficient to understand how the journalistic text works, but that it is, nonetheless, central to its place and position in society today. Sure, we might distinguish between pre-modern, literary or partisan journalism, and modern journalism that’s determined by objectivity—but none of these descriptions capture either the variety of journalisms existing within their times, or sufficiently address the function of journalism in society across epistemological paradigms.
An understanding of journalism that does more accurately capture the nature of journalism as a practice, whose main goal is to be believed as telling us about real events, is Broersma’s (2010) notion of journalism as a performative discourse. At the core of Broersma’s theory lies the notion that a journalistic text turns an interpretation into truth, and thereby constructs meaning:
[A journalistic text] becomes a convincing representation when it successfully
establishes a feeling of truthfulness. By doing so it transforms an interpretation into
truth—into a reality on which the public can act. (2010, p 17)
They [news consumers] tend to believe accounts as long as they correspond to the
textual conventions they are familiar with, seem to match existing knowledge and cultural
frames, and are conveyed by media institutions and journalists they know and trust. In other
words, trust in news stories does not depend that much on their actual correspondence with
reality, but rather on the formal conventions in which news is “packaged.” (Broersma, 2010;
Ward, 2004, cf. Broersma & Harbers, 2014, p.5)
Journalistic texts achieve truthfulness by using forms and styles that, as Broersma (2010) argues, try to make us forget that their representations are interpretations. Performativity implies the power of language to both “describe and produce
phenomena at the same time (p.18)”.13 Journalistic forms and styles, its language,
reflects the routines that journalists have followed in their reporting and that they adhere to certain norms.
The interview, for example, is styled in such a way as to seem a mimetic representation of a conversation (Broersma, 2010). In order to make sense of events, journalistic texts frame and simplify according to socially accepted, authoritative principles, appealing “to cultural codes and the existing knowledge of the public (Broersma, 2010, p. 17),” such as, for example the notion of empiricism, neutrality and in extension the organizing principle of ‘news’, which carries within it values and expectations that assign importance to events according to their newsworthiness— but also, as discussed, narrative conventions or cultural codes from other fields of knowledge.
At the beginning of this section I started my review of journalism with the
13 This notion of how language acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy comes from linguistic scholars such as J.L. Austin
