Abstract
When WikiLeaks published more than half a million confidential documents, not only the political world, but also the journalistic world was turned upside down. The year 2010, the year of WikiLeaks was a phase in which journalism needed to cope with a new medium which crossed some of the borders of journalism. This study aimed at defining how Dutch newspapers coped with this new player in the field. Is journalism seeing it as a threat? Would WikiLeaks not form a threat to journalism, where does it stand in the field of journalism? The theory of boundary work and Bourdieu’s field- theory is used to examine this. Emphasis is laid on how WikiLeaks is portrayed as journalism, using five traits of journalism, formulated by Mark Deuze: Public Service, Objectivity, Autonomy,
Immediacy and Ethics. These values have been examined using a quantitative content analysis. This method is also used to see how WikiLeaks is incorporated in journalism, by testing intertextuality. This study showed that Dutch newspapers portrayed WikiLeaks mildly negative on the traits of journalism, especially on Autonomy and Immediacy. However, by using it as a rightful source, journalism
acknowledges the website a place in the field. It will be argued that the relationship between Dutch newspapers and WikiLeaks is therefore complicated.
Keywords: WikiLeaks, boundary work, field-theory, new media, traditional journalism, values of journalism
“Can it possibly be true? It’s a worry, isn’t it? That the rest of the world’s media is doing such a bad job, that our li le group of ac vist is able to release more of that type of informa on than the rest of the world press combined?”
Julian Assange TED Global, 2010
Contents
Abstract ... 1
List of Figures ... 4
Tables... 4
Figures ... 4
Acknowledgements ... 5
1. Introduction ... 6
2. Theoretical framework. ... 9
§ 2.1 Boundary work ... 9
§ 2.2 Journalism defined ... 12
§ 2.2.1 Journalism as profession ... 13
§ 2.2.2 Journalism as a field ... 14
§ 2.2.4 Journalism as ideology ... 17
§ 2.3 Boundary work in journalism ... 19
§ 2.3.1 Boundaries of the journalistic field ... 20
§ 2.4 WikiLeaks and journalism ... 21
§ 2.4.1 WikiLeaks defined as new medium ... 23
§ 2.4.2 WikiLeaks and Deuzes traits ... 23
§ 2.4.2.1 Public service ... 23
§ 2.4.2.2 Objectivity ... 24
§ 2.4.2.3 Autonomy ... 25
§ 2.4.2.4 Immediacy ... 26
§ 2.4.2.5 Ethics ... 27
§ 2.5 Summary ... 28
§ 3. Research Design and Methodology ... 30
§ 3.1 The case ... 30
§ 3.1.1 The organization ... 31
§ 3.1.2 Content ... 32
§ 3.1.2.1 Collateral Murder ... 32
§ 3.1.2.2 Afghan war logs ... 33
§ 3.1.2.3 Iraq war logs ... 33
§ 3.1.2.4 Diplomatic cables ... 34
§ 3.2 The data ... 35
§ 3.2.1 Newspaper selection ... 35
§ 3.2.2 The sample ... 35
§ 3.2.3 Archiving and managing the data ... 37
§ 3.3 Research method ... 37
§ 3.3.1 Content analysis ... 37
§ 3.3.1.1 Operationalization of content analysis ... 38
§ 3.4 Ethical considerations ... 39
§ 3.5 Reliability and validity ... 40
§ 3.6 Limitations... 40
4. Results ... 43
§ 4.1 Deuzes values ... 43
§ 4.1.1 Newspapers ... 45
§ 4.1.3 Episodes ... 46
§ 4.1.4 Subjects ... 47
§ 4.2 Intertextuality ... 49
5. Discussion ... 51
§ 5.1 Deuzes values ... 51
§ 5.1.2 Public Service ... 51
§ 5.1.2 Objectivity ... 53
§ 5.1.3 Autonomy ... 54
§ 5.1.4 Immediacy ... 56
§ 5.1.4 Ethics ... 58
§ 5.2 Boundary work ... 59
§ 5.3 Intertextuality ... 62
§ 5.3.1 Covering the documents ... 62
§ 5.3.1 Reference to Julian Assange by NRC/Handelsblad ... 66
§ 5.4 Remarkable findings ... 67
§ 5.4.1 De Volkskrant ... 67
§ 5.4.1.1 Participation ... 67
§ 5.4.2 Episodes ... 68
6. Conclusion ... 70
§ 6.1 Summary ... 70
§ 6.2 Reflections ... 71
§ 6.3 Limitations and recommendations ... 72
§ 6.4 Wrapping up: What is WikiLeaks? ... 73
Appendices
Appendix A – Code book and code form Appendix B – Additional figures
List of Figures Tables
Table 3.1: Periods of the publications of the leaks by WikiLeaks 36 Table 3.2: Inter-coder reliability, based on ten percent of the data 40
Table 3.3: Coding scheme 42
Table 4.1: How newspapers valued WikiLeaks based on Deuzes traits. 45 Table 4.2: Articles in which WikiLeaks is used as a main source versus articles in
which the opposition is used as a main source. 49
Figures
Figure 4.1: Number of articles published throughout the year 2010, starting from
the 5th of April until the 31st of December. 43
Figure 4.2: The amount of values, formulated by Deuze, named in percentage
of the total number of articles. 44
Figure 4.3: The absolute number of mentions of Deuzes values. 44 Figure 4.4: Total journalistic value Dutch traditional journalism has given
to WikiLeaks per trait, formulated by Deuze. 44
Figure 4.5: Attitude towards the journalistic value of WikiLeaks throughout 2010. 45 Figure 4.6: Attitude deviation from the mean per analyzed newspaper. 46
Figure 4.7: Attitude towards WikiLeaks per episode. 46
Figure 4.8: Deviation from the mean of the attitude per episode. 46 Figure 4.9: WikiLeaks valued on Deuzes traits per episode overview. 47 Figure 4.10: Mentions of values in articles about the documents. 48 Figure 4.11: Mentions of values in articles about WikiLeaks 48 Figure 4.12: Mentions of values in articles having meta-discussions. 48
Figure 4.13: Mentions of values in other articles. 48
Figure 4.14: Attitude towards WikiLeaks subject. 49
Figure 4.15: Attitude towards WikiLeaks based on Deuzes values per subject. 49 Figure 4.16: Number of sources named besides WikiLeaks and the opposition 50
Acknowledgements
Finally, I am closing the book of my academic schooling. The past two years have been the best in my life, but I am looking forward to continue in journalistic practices. This thesis has been hard for me to finish, juggling my (very practical) work at de Stentor and diving into the theories. Fortunately, my boyfriend and fellow-student Leon has pulled me through the numerous semi-panic attacks and comforted me with his kind words.
I would like to thank dr. Todd Graham, my supervisor, particularly. He has been very helpful to me, supporting my whims, giving constructive feedback, having faith in me and of course, having a lot of patience. I would also like to thank dr. Chris Peters for co-reading my thesis.
1. Introduction
Before April 6th 2010, not many people outside the United States had heard of WikiLeaks. The website had been publishing leaked documents, but never found a way to get the attention it was aiming for. In April that year, WikiLeaks decided to publish a video called ‘Collateral Murder’, in which a helicopter is seen killing two Iraq citizens and two employees from press agency Reuters. It was sent by a whistleblowing U.S. soldier named Bradley Manning (or now known as Chelsea Manning). All news media covered the story, and began recognizing WikiLeaks for its earlier leaks, not knowing what was still to come. On July 25th, the big hit came. WikiLeaks had been secretly working with The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel to publish almost 91,000 classified documents about the war in Afghanistan. Then, on the 22nd of October, almost 400,000 cables about the Iraq war were released and on the 28th of November, WikiLeaks started to publish 250,000 diplomatic cables.
The number of classified documents was unprecedented. As founder Julian Assange notes in the citation above, the website has published more classified information than all the press in the world combined. The effects were major, because now citizens were able to look into these confidential documents. And if the news is publicly available, journalism would be in an awkward position, because it would not be the exclusive information provider it formerly was. What function does journalism have if all information is available online, for everyone to read and to form an opinion about?
For more than a decade now, journalism has found itself endangered. The rising of the internet and its endless possibilities for publishing has formed a threat to what we know as traditional
journalism. Before this digital development, journalism had flourished, by having a history of professionalizing to some extent (Frith & Meech, 2007, Koene, 2008 and Frost, 2000), founding values on which it agrees on (Deuze, 2005), and has had an unwritten agreement with its public to perform well (Sjøvaag, 2010). It could not have come at a worse time for the fourth estate. Now, it finds itself in a place where it has to reinvent itself, in order to guard itself from new emerging forms of media. New journalistic practices found their way, like bringing news via Twitter in only 140 characters, blogging about social relevant issues and, the focus of this study, publishing classified documents directly to the public. Journalism competes with forces which do not, or to a certain extent, account for the values of journalism. Where journalism had once the exclusive authority to bring news, everybody with an internet connection is free to publish the news.
The whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks found itself in the position of journalism in 2010, when it gained access to classified information from the whistleblower Bradley Manning. As a firm believer in freedom of information, founder Julian Assange decided to publish these documents directly to the public, but did ask three major newspapers to help him with the interpretation. Not without a reason: these newspapers handed the website publicity which it would never have gotten without them. Critics argue that WikiLeaks could not be viewed as a journalistic medium as a result,
but there are voices that opt for the opposite (Rosner, 2011, Coddington, 2012). WikiLeaks makes newsworthy information available to the public, it checks the authenticity and reliability of the documents, it protects its sources and it has ideals of transparency. But if WikiLeaks is journalism, then journalism might need redefinition.
Since the emergence of the internet, journalism has to cope with new media like WikiLeaks.
As they may hold different values, but gain power among the journalistic field, they form a threat to traditional journalism, with its unwritten rules and ethics. What purpose do these norms have for blogs, tweets and other new media? And why should journalism hold on so tightly to these ideals? If the norms change, then journalism is to change. But journalism is an old practice and might be hesitative to change.
Continuous participation is one of the main reason why journalism is threatened by new media (Lewis, 2011). This is especially true for the website WikiLeaks, where citizens can participate in newsgathering. The portrayal of a new medium like WikiLeaks is particularly interesting to uncover how old media react to new media. Indeed, the essence of the website is to bring information directly to the people. How does journalism react when a non-journalistic organization performs journalistic practices, which were formerly exclusively performed by journalism?
Research done by Coddington showed that The Guardian and The New York Times valued WikiLeaks differently on values held by WikiLeaks (2012). He showed that The New York Times was more negative towards the website than the British newspaper. Both researched newspapers were from countries involved in two wars which were covered by WikiLeaks. Coddington found that the norms on which these newspapers based their value of WikiLeaks were nation-bound. As American
newspaper The New York Times was more negative based on nation-bound norms, and the United States were closely involved in the war, there seems to be a connection between the involvement in the wars and the value of WikiLeaks. It is useful to see how a newspaper reacts when it is from a country that is not as involved in the two wars. This gives us a better view on how journalism in general, reacts to a controversial new medium such as WikiLeaks.
This study aims to find the attitude of Dutch traditional journalism towards WikiLeaks. This attitude is based on traditional norms of journalism, formulated by Deuze (2005). How does
journalism attribute these journalistic values to WikiLeaks? Are they negative, neutral or positive towards the website and what does it mean for the journalistic value of WikiLeaks, according to mainstream journalism?
As WikiLeaks provided a ton of information for journalism to publish about, the website could also be seen as supporting journalism, by being a source. The second aim of this study is therefore to see how the website is incorporated in news articles about the information published by WikiLeaks. Is the website used as the main source, or are other sources more salient? This is done in order to see how seriously the website is taken by mainstream journalism. Would WikiLeaks not be treated as a rightful source, it might mean that journalism is hesitant to incorporate the website in the journalistic
field. This might give us insight in how journalism copes with the new medium WikiLeaks. Does traditional journalism consider it as a journalism or do they see it as a threat?
Which relationship do mainstream news media adopt towards whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks?
The answers to these questions help us to define the current state of journalism. Some scholars have argued that journalism is defending itself from new media, by reinforcing its traditional norms (Lewis, 2011, Domingo et al., 2008). This study aims to provide insight into these mechanisms, as WikiLeaks might be particularly threatening to mainstream journalism. This study does not try to define
contemporary journalism, but aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion about journalism in this new age.
A second aim of this study is to provide insight into the website WikiLeaks. Although it reached its climax during 2010 and 2011, it still is a force in the political and journalistic field. Its phenomenon is greatly praised and copied all over the world, with whistleblower Edward Snowden as the most recent example, disclosing classified information about mass surveillance programs of the NSA. Whistleblowing is of all times, but the scale has grown exponentially with the rising of the internet. It is therefore interesting to see how this development interacts with journalism, considering that now, journalism is not needed to be the mediator between the whistleblower and the public.
In this study, a quantitative content analysis is done on news articles from Dutch quality newspapers to uncover the portrayal of WikiLeaks by journalism. The choice is made to take on a theoretical approach on how journalism is perceived in general. What is journalism and how did it become the way it is now? Boundary work is a theory which helps to define whether journalism differentiates itself from new media (Gieryn, 1983). It is an instrument to see whether it perceives other forces as a threat to its traditional values and norms. Also Bourdieu’s field-theory will be a guidance to decide where the website stands in the field of journalism (Benson & Neveu, 2005).
WikiLeaks will be defined as a medium and arguments will be presented on how WikiLeaks could or could not be viewed as journalism.
In Chapter 3, I will discuss the research design. Here I will give a general view of the case WikiLeaks and I will set out the methodology used in this study. Chapter 4 will present the results of the analysis, which will be further discussed in Chapter 5. The findings will be discussed in a broader view in the Chapter 6, the conclusion, where I will -be reflecting on the study and give suggestions for further research.
2. Theoretical framework.
As the whistleblower organization presents news content and has thrown numerous news bombs into the world, one might see WikiLeaks as a new force in the field of journalism. This study aims to uncover how old media consider a medium like WikiLeaks in the new, digitized field of journalism.
Which relationship do mainstream news media adopt towards whistleblower organization WikiLeaks?
Before we can answer that question, we must know what mainstream news media are. What is journalism? Whereas new media adopt new values, or prioritize journalistic values like immediacy above others, old media change as well. So a better question might be: what was journalism and how is it changing? What does a rich, open source of information like WikiLeaks mean in relation to the authority of traditional journalism? Therefore, this study aims to define traditional journalism, which seems to be specifically useful this age to see how journalism changes.
Would journalism view WikiLeaks as a threat to its conventions, it might try to distant itself from the medium. One of the means by which journalism might differentiate itself from the life- threatening new media is by boundary work. Gieryns theory about defining oneself in relation to the other, therefore excluding people or organizations from ‘the group’ of journalists (1983), is useful to see whether journalism defines itself in relation to other new media, like WikiLeaks. If WikiLeaks could be considered as journalism, it would form a major threat, because it brings news in its purest form: it presents facts. Facts which journalism had its exclusive right to, just about a decade ago. Is journalism different and how is it different? Does it try to appear different? The theory of boundary work is used to uncover whether journalists consider themselves different from the emerging new media and on what grounds they think they are.
In this section, several concepts will be discussed. First I will give a short introduction into the theory of boundary work. It will give a general view of what boundary work is, how boundaries are formed and why boundary work is done by people or institutions. In the second part traditional journalism will be discussed and defined. Because defining journalism is hard, if not impossible, several conceptual theories will be discussed, namely journalism as a profession, as a field and as an ideology.
Once figured out what journalism is, we are able to define the boundaries of it and able to see how those boundaries might be worked by mainstream news media. This part will be a more practical approach of boundary work done by journalism. In the last part of this section, WikiLeaks will be discussed in relation to journalism. The organization will be defined and tested on the key concepts of journalism.
§ 2.1 Boundary work
In this new digital age, new way of communication are emerging. New media present information which was formerly presented by newspapers, radio and television stations. These traditional media seem to hold on to their traditional values, such as not providing full names of suspects (ethics) and
being neutral (objectivity). Those values are considered the highest, but are not always followed by new digital media. Those might prefer being the fastest, rather than being ethical or objective.
News organizations like to believe that there is a difference between journalism and new semi- journalistic practices, like weblogs or Twitter. These media present the news, but journalism is more than presenting news. Journalism holds a high moral compass, which new (citizen) media might not consider. But those new media are proposing a threat to traditional journalism. News consumers in the digital age just want their quick news updates. Does it really matter what kind of ethics are held?
Traditional values are the things that separate journalism from non-journalism. Values are a way to defend the boundaries of journalism, one could say that those values are the boundaries of journalism.
Before the digitization process, about a decade ago, those boundaries were already blurry. Even then, everybody could be a journalist, whether they did or did not have a degree. But in the age of
digitization, boundaries are blurring even more, and it seems to cause “repeated calls for more strident regulation of primarily one institution – the news media” (Zelizer, 2012, p. 629). The standards are, despite many aims of scholars and students within the discipline, still too complex to define unambiguously (Deuze, 2005).
However, technological developments in the late 20th century, continuing through the 21st century, have threatened the autonomy of the journalistic field. Information that was formerly
presented only by traditional media, is suddenly omnipresent. To create a news medium nowadays, the only things needed are a website and a couple of willing editors. The monopoly on information which traditional media once owned has disappeared, because information is found everywhere. Journalism seems to be losing its raison d’être. As Lewis puts it:
In the local information market, news media dominated the means of media production, access to expert source material, and distribution to wide audiences—which translated to tremendous capital […] The emergence of digitally networked media, however, changes this equation—in essence, obviating the “problems,” or economic and opportunity costs, of attempting to communicate on a broad scale. In a world of ones and zeros, information is no longer scarce, hard to produce, nor difficult to repurpose and share.
(Lewis, 2011 p. 4)
To understand the process of boundary work in journalism, the concept must be defined. The theory, often called professional boundary work, is used among various fields of science, e.g., sociology, linguistics, communication, anthropology (Grbić, 2010). Gieryn started the theory of boundary work with his influential study Boundary work and the demarcation of science, with which he sought characteristics of differentiation of science from non-science (1983). The idea leans on the perception of humans as social creatures, and that people have a need to define themselves in relation to another.
Boundary work is about groups of people, whether or not defined as a group, which on the one hand
aim to generate positive feelings about themselves and on the other excluding others (Grbić, 2010). As Grbić continues, she finds that “in this respect, boundary work plays a critical role in constructing
“identities,” in attaining status, and in determining what we notice and what we ignore”.
Gieryns theory, as said, has been used among various fields, and proves to be eminently suitable for research about professionalization processes. Creating boundaries around professions is helpful to exclude people or organizations who or which do not meet the conditions of the profession, in this case, the values and norms that are held by working journalists. In this way, the profession itself can segregate itself from “providers of ‘similar’ services who falsely claim… to be within the
profession” (Winch (1997, p. 17) cited by Bishop, 2004, p. 33).
These values and norms might be the cement that holds the field together. To find out how those boundaries are created and maintained in journalism, we need to find out what the premises are to formulate those norms and values. Schudson has provided a few of those conditions which
encourage to explicit norms (2001). Two of them he names ‘Durkheimian conditions’ derived from sociologist Émile Durkheim. It is not a coincidence that he was one of the first scholars who was aiming to create boundaries, as he was striving to make sociology a scientific discipline. His legacy was to differentiate his field from other practices such as psychology and anthropology by inventing a specific methodology for social sciences (Calhoun, 2002). Durkheim found that in every society there are groups of people, or institutions that have a need to separate themselves from other groups (Allan, 2005), which is driven by ‘a profound feeling of themselves and their unity’ (Durkheim, 1997[1893], p.122).
Durkheimian conditions for forming norms in a specific field mostly have to do with group identity and requires horizontal solidarity according to Schudson. One Durkheimian condition speaks of ritual solidarity, which is encouraged by moral norms and is aimed at a feeling of togetherness within the group. It is “to celebrate itself, to honor its members” (p. 152). The second Durkheimian condition is a way to differentiate one group from another, a way to make clear what is considered desirable and what is not, what we think is best, in opposition to them. It concerns norms and values within a group, especially those which are not to be found in any other group. It is “a function of a kind of group egoism” (p.152). In journalism this means that journalists identify themselves with other (mostly mainstream) journalists, but try to exclude themselves from e.g. papparazi, as their workethics are different (Bishop, 1999). So not only do groups need cohesion within the group itself, but also to define itself in relation to other fields of practice.
The latter condition Schudson describes considers norms as a boundary. Different groups may have some of the same values, and in that sense groups can overlap, but the ones in which they differ defines where the one group ends and the other begins.
Boundary work is about gaining identity, about defining itself and defining another. It is about classification, about who meets the values and who does not. But classification is not at all a definitive process, it is dependent on social and intellectual developments. And because classification is
changeable, boundaries can shift as well (Grbić, 2010, Fakazis, 2006). Despite the fact that boundaries are not static, aiming to define them can be helpful to distinguish journalism from non-journalism, and can help us to decide whether WikiLeaks operates within the boundaries of journalism. Therefore, we must define journalism.
§ 2.2 Journalism defined
New ways of communication mean new attitudes, and might mean new norms and values. Indeed, those norms and values help to define the boundaries of journalism. Where old media still hold on to their ethics, by using no full names of criminal suspects for example, citizens using new (social) media do not have a code of ethics and do not mind to publish full names, or even linking to their Facebook profiles.
How do new values held by new media differ from traditional values? Are there even traditional values? Deuze thinks there are, but points out these are unofficially set (2005). He names five core values and ideals as traits, which he considers are universally accepted as ideals of
journalism. Interpretations and practices may differ, but these ideals remain the same around the globe, as Weaver discovered (1998). Because the ideals are applied differently around the world, it is
impossible to speak of a universal ideology, but we can view those five characteristics as a ‘dominant occupational ideology of journalism’ (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996).
• Public service: journalists provide a public service (as watchdogs or ‘newshounds’, active collectors and disseminators of information);
• Objectivity: journalists are impartial, neutral, objective, fair and (thus) credible;
• Autonomy: journalists must be autonomous, free and independent in their work;
• Immediacy: journalists have a sense of immediacy, actuality and speed (inherent in the concept of ‘news’);
• Ethics: journalists have a sense of ethics, validity and legitimacy.
(Deuze, 2005, p. 447)
This is a not often outspoken set of beliefs that carries professionalism in journalism (Deuze, 2005, Allan, 2005), since it ought to be self-regulatory (Frost, 2000). But journalists live in the public eye, and have therefore “strong reasons to seek publicly appealing moral norms” (Schudson, 2001, p. 165).
This will later be worked out further, but for now, these five traits will serve as the values of traditional
journalism.
Although these values imply that journalism is defined, it is widely believed that the field of journalism is a complex space. Journalism is still a concept with no formal definition. We are able to view journalism as a profession, a field, an ideology or other conceptualizations which have had interest of scholars. Each of these concepts will be discussed further in this chapter.
§ 2.2.1 Journalism as profession
As boundary-work is often called ‘professional boundary work’, and we speak about boundary work in journalism, we seem to consider journalism as a profession, though many scholars doubt about the definition of profession in relation to journalism (Aldridge & Evett, 2004, Lewis, 2011, Frith &
Meech, 2007). Using the concept of a profession sets up problems. Defining journalism as a profession implies universal practices, councils, graduate studies and shared sets of belief (Witsche & Nygren, 2009, Freidson, 2001, Lewis, 2011). Would it be a profession, then it would have an agreed upon epistemology, which can be taught and examined. Therefore, professions are able to exclude people or institutions from the profession, based on a lack of ethics or knowledge. But journalism is no such thing. Schudson notes that “nothing in the training of journalists gives them the license to shape others” (2001, p. 9). Everyone can be a journalist, especially now, when people can log on to their computers and just write a blog. The authority journalism once had is in the process of disappearing, and in order to stay needed, journalism needs to have a unique selling point. It needs to separate itself from other digital media to keep hold of its role as a public service, or as a profession.
Professionalism asks for a definition of journalism, but the line is still “perpetually blurry and dynamic” (Carlson, 2007, p. 265). Several entities have tried to professionalize in some way or the other, like offering graduate studies in journalism (Frith & Meech, 2007) and setting up ethical codes and counsels (Koene, 2008, Frost, 2000). But tensions arise when trying to control a field which is considered as the ‘fourth estate’ (Hanitzsch & Wahl-Jorgensen, 2009). How to professionalize a discipline which is considered independent? Indeed, there is no such thing as a formal counsel for journalism which can impose journalistic ethics, because it would greatly harm its independent status as a self-regulatory entity, which journalists so heavily rely on (Witsche & Nygren, 2009, Frost, 2000).
However, journalism has been professionalizing to some extent, differing from country to country (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). As this study aims at Dutch journalism, we might look at how it
professionalized so far. According to Hallin & Mancini, Dutch journalism is part of the Democratic Corporatist Model, which is characterized by strong professionalization and institutionalized self- regulation, in opposition to the Atlantic model, which has non-institutionalized self-regulation. It means there are formal counsels which are patrolling the ethics of journalism, but they are not entitled to impose consequences when breaking the rules. Therefore, we cannot speak of full
professionalization in terms of regulation in journalism.
Another premise of professionalization is setting up studies for journalism. If there is an
agreed upon epistemology, then journalism can be taught. We can see that for a few decades now, graduate studies are set up in several countries (Frith & Meech, 2007), including The Netherlands, meaning that journalism is a skill or science that can be examined. Indeed, we see that journalism has had its share of professionalization, but scholars agree that this process has yet to be completed.
Lewis argues that we might not look at whether journalism is a profession or how it becomes a profession, but more importantly, we should look at what circumstances lead to attempting to professionalize a specific field or occupation. Lewis cites Sarfatti Larson because of her major influence on the sociology of professionalization:
Because “to maintain scarcity implies a tendency to monopoly,” occupations professionalize to the degree that they can build and sustain exclusive control over expertise in the market or status in a social system.
(Sarfatti Larson, 1977. p. xvii in Lewis, 2011)
Inherent to its process, professionalization means defining itself in relation to another. A professionalization process could therefore originate in a desire to obtain acknowledgement for specific codes and practices. It is a means by setting up routines and ethical values to acquire social authority. Journalism has had social authority, but more importantly, has had jurisdiction and has therefore never needed to fully professionalize (Abbott, 1998).
Now more than ever, traditional journalism needs recognition as an occupation with shared knowledge and values. Losing the authority it had, it can only fall back on its professional standards, which are most likely different from the emerging new media. By setting up values, routines and ethical values, new forms of journalism might be put to the periphery (Witschge & Nygren, 2009, Domingo et al., 2008), therefore shutting them out. By complete professionalization journalism acquires control over the field of knowledge, it is a way to close the occupation (Abbott, 1998). It could therefore be seen as boundary work in itself.
By further professionalizing, journalism could distance itself from new emerging media. It could exclude them from the occupation of journalism, based on a shared set of beliefs, education and a list of rules. Fully professionalizing seems therefore particularly needed in this digital age. So is this process accelerating? Are traditional news media changing their values or are they strengthening the old ones? It seems like the ongoing digitization strengthens their importance, as though journalism is trying to regain control over its monopoly (Lewis, 2011, Domingo et al., 2008). It could be a sign that traditional journalism sees civic journalism as a threatening development.
§ 2.2.2 Journalism as a field
Since the occupation of journalism prescribes no specific conditions to enter, i.e., no journalist needs a journalism degree and there are no mandatory ethical codes to conform to, there is neither a way to objectively determine whether a new medium or organization is within the borders of the field.
Emphasis is put here on field, as it is Bourdieu who theorized about competing powers within
journalism. Competing, that is, as actors in a field try to win or maintain space within the borders of a field. Although Bourdieu’s field theory is interesting to research “highly structured and fairly
unchanging social-cultural constellations (fields)” (Hanitzsch & Wahl-Jorgenson, 2009, p. 98), it might also be useful to use this theory in combination with boundary work, since the journalistic field
consists of actors within certain borders.
Field theory is mostly about power relations, about controlling a cultural space. It is about old and new actors, which compete for power within the field. As boundary work is about creating walls which segregate people or institutions to be in or out of an occupation, it also seems to be about who has the power to decide where the walls may be. And then it might be particularly interesting to see how this relates to the control of a field, e.g., what role does professionalism have in a field? And if WikiLeaks does not meet the values and norms of the occupation of journalism, could it become a part of the -much wider- field?
Just like Schudsons conditions for explicating norms (2001), field theory builds on studies of Weber and Durkheim, “portraying modernity as a process of differentiation into semiautonomous and increasingly specialized spheres of action”. Field theory is most of all relational, as Bourdieu argues, and to exist socially, one must differentiate himself from others. Unlike professionalism, the process of creating a field is an unconscious process without strategic intention (Benson & Neveu, 2005).
A field might be a group or groups of people, a network or configuration. Fields can stand apart from each other, but might overlap, and there could also be fields within fields, according to Benson &
Neveu (2005). Bourdieu notes that a field consists of actors who “share presuppositions about the nature of the field” (cited in Vos, 2011).
These shared presuppositions – a shared understanding of institutional roles, epistemologies, and ethical ideologies (Hanitzsch, 2007) – constitute the cultural capital of a field, which makes it autonomous or distinct from other fields. This cultural capital is also ‘a powerful force of inertia’ (Benson, 1999: 468).
(Vos, 2011, p. 851) The cultural capital is the binding force within a field. Next to the cultural capital stands the economic capital, generally meaning money. Actors who possess the most capital, cultural as well as economic, are likely to be in the center of the field. In journalism, The New York Times and The Guardian might be two of those actors. These news organizations generate enough profit to maintain it and carry professional values and ethics, which are considered the highest in journalism (Benson & Neveu, 2005).
As Benson argues in the citation above, it is the cultural capital which constitutes as ‘a powerful force of inertia’. Indeed, it is the shared belief that ‘our knowledge is best’ which forms a great force of resistance against new actors who try to break into the field. When institutional roles
(like the authority of traditional media), epistemology (routines of practices) and ethical ideologies (like objectivity) are being threatened by those new actors, a struggle for power within the field emerges (Vos, 2011, Benson & Neveu, 2005).
But what kind of actors are residing in which part of the field? Which organizations are outside the border, which are on it, and which have got so lucky to get in? To determine that line could bring us closer to determine where the boundary is of what is considered journalism. According to Lewis there are three types of actors within the field, namely:
- A set of core institutions, e.g., legacy news media and professional associations - A wide array of peripheral members, e.g., less prestigious journalists/organizations startup websites, and semi-institutional bloggers
- Relative outsiders, e.g., citizen journalists and non-institutional bloggers
(Lewis, 2011, p. 10)
The latter are the ones who may or may not try to break into the field, but have the possibility to transform the field, dependent on their power (Lewis, 2011, Russell, 2007, Vos, 2011). Their power may be decisive for this transformation, as Russell argues.
New agents, he [Bourdieu] argued, can be a force for transformation or conservation. At the managerial level, as Bourdieu framed it, individual agents are more likely to act as a force for transformation through their efforts to make their mark through distinctive creations. New agents with ‘‘ruling class’’ contacts and resources often have more motivation and capacity to bring about change, whereas less well-connected and less wealthy entrants will be less apt to take risks or to challenge the status quo.
(Russell, 2007, p. 289)
Regarding the field as a wide spectrum with variable agents, could be useful considering boundary work. Lewis also views this as an opportunity to open up the research about boundary work, but notes that the theory may be less helpful in explaining spaces between fields, the competition between fields and the edges of the field (Lewis, 2011, citing Schudson & Anderson, 2008, p. 98).
But those edges of the field might be specifically interesting for this research. Following Russells view on the kinds of actors within and on the borders of the field, we might determine where the whistleblowing organization WikiLeaks is standing. Is it the kind of actor that may have a hit at breaking into the field? Indeed, many of the characteristics of the Russel names new agents must have to bring about change, could be attributed to WikiLeaks. It has brought a distinctive creation and does have ‘ruling class’ contacts, working together with three the most powerful news organizations of the world. Would WikiLeaks not be considered a news medium, as later argued, it might contribute to the
field, as it delivers information and works as a reliable news source. As Bourdieu’s field theory does not speak only about visible actors, it could be a network or configuration as well (Benson & Neveu, 2005); we may look beyond the media spectrum itself and look at some newbies who influence the field. Therefore, we might categorize the website in one of the named actors Russell described.
As stated earlier, new actors might have the power to transform the field. But Vos argued that the inertia, or resistance of established actors within the journalistic field, might be just as powerful.
Through the means of cultural capital, actors within a field use their power to reject new actors. One of the mechanisms in this cultural capital is professionalization. Cultural capital is knowledge, which is formed through education and according to certain rules within the field. (Hanitzsch, 2007).
In this sense, professionalization and field theory come together. As said, established actors use their cultural capital to reject new actors from outside the borders. New actors in this age are new digital media. Key word in those media is participation. By participation, citizens feel engaged in political matters, which is one of the most significant goals of journalism (Lewis, 2011). But, as Lewis further argues, participation might also be the greatest threat for the professionalization process of journalism. As professionalism is closing an occupation in order to retain expert control, participation would mean opening an occupation to strive for distributed control (emphasis maintained). By participation, information control is given to society. Journalism would then lose the authority as information providers, as citizens become engaged in the news production. Traditional media are therefore hesitative in taking participation seriously (Robinson, 2010).
While professionalization is to maintain control over information, participation aims for more distributed control. Dependent on their power, new actors, i.e., new media, could change the field, and those new actors in the journalistic field happen to advocate increasing participation. Lewis argued that participation could be in direct opposition of professionalization (2011) and it would therefore form a direct threat to the authority of traditional journalism.
If new media succeed in breaking into the field and bring about participation, professionalism would fall, and it would bring down (a part of) the cultural capital. If participation is aiming at distributed control, i.e., control over information for everybody, there would no longer be a border between journalism and society, so would there still be a field? Russell also wonders if new media are representing unofficial deregulation, “blowing the field open and distorting it through the pressures exerted by the vast numbers of news audience-participants” (2007).
§ 2.2.4 Journalism as ideology
As Lewis argued, the process of professionalization closes an occupation, which is done by setting up boundaries around the occupation. Those boundaries segregate one group from another, which means there is a group and there is a line between one group and the other. The definition of this group is dependent on how it is identified, with its group values, ideals and practices. If groups are defined, like Schudson argued, by consensual ideals, there must be a core ideology within the group, which
separates it from other groups of practices. To find these ideals, one is bound to view journalism as an ideology. But what is the ideology of journalism? Or would we find that journalism is an ideology?
In a political-philosophical view, Sjøvaag puts journalism in the metaphor of the social contract (2010). She argues that, in order to maintain a social contract between press and audience, journalism needs to hold on to its professional ideology and ethics. The contract prescribes rights and obligations, so that a trust bond is created between media and its consumers. Would the press fail to live up to its expectations, it breaches the social contract. As professionalization aims to define journalism in relation to other practices or occupations, ideology is needed to keep the trust of its consumers. In other words, journalism needs professionalism to maintain itself, but needs ideology to maintain its audience.
Turning back to theory about classification (Grbić, 2010, Fakazis, 2006), and considering the social contract, the public holds the power to classify particular forms of journalism as reliable and others not. But as argued before, classification is changeable, and forth, reliability and public
expectation might alter. As public expectation changes, journalisms ideologies might change. We can see that already, by looking at contemporary newspapers. They are using Twitter as a source,
sometimes even attaching them to the news article. When communication changes, society changes (Shirky, 2008), and therefore, public values might change as well. As the audience considered Twitter as a reliable source, why would traditional journalism stay behind?
With these new ideals, an evolution might be caused (Allan, 2013). The fittest ideologies would survive, and those ideologies may enter the field of journalism. The social contract prescribes that journalism needs to satisfy its public with certain values. As argued before, these values are held on to forcefully (Lewis, 2011, Domingo et al., 2008), and Sjøvaags social contract might be one of the reasons why. Journalism is just holding on to its obligation to its audience.
This obligation is all about the performance of journalists, and according to Allan, journalism has historically been about performance. It contributes to giving truth to society, and in doing so, it keeps up certain conventions, to maintain its professionalism.
Precisely what counts as journalism in a given context is a matter of performance (albeit not consciously so on the part of the individual in question), where certain normalized, even ritualized conventions are reaffirmed as appropriate or desirable.
(Allen, 2013:145) These conventions follow norms and values about what (good) journalism is. The performance is part of a paradigm, of what journalists perceive as the ideal routines. Holding on to those routines give journalists a certain protection from criticism, embarrassment, or lawsuits (Schudson, 2001).
But with upcoming new media, new values are introduced (Elliot, 2008). Those routines and norms might alter the paradigm of journalism. The performative process with its normalized routines, as mentioned above, will need revision, according to Allan. As he compares contemporary journalism
with the rise of jazz music, he notes that journalism could become more improvisatory than is
acknowledged. WikiLeaks, Allan argues, might have the potential to reinvent journalism in the public interest. He believes that this notion of performance might be changed through the rise of new media, especially WikiLeaks. The belief that news reporting is an established practice and it should meet normalized conventions, might make way for an improvisatory form of journalism. He notes that the website is challenging the prescribed ideals of professionalism, as WikiLeaks hands original source material to its readers (2013), in opposition to the ideal that journalism ought to be the gatekeeper between the source and his readers. Eide believes this on taken role is one of the most important reasons why journalism exist.
And the worst case scenario, in the journalistic view is if the powerful are allowed to address the innocent people directly, without any journalistic intervention. Journalists are crucial intermediators and interpreters between the mighty and the people, according to the professional ideology of journalism.
(Eide, 2007:23) This idea of journalism as a mediator is in essence an ideology, he notes, and he argues that journalism as an ideology holds the notion that society consists of three sorts of people, namely the powerful, the ordinary people and journalist (Eide, 2007). Journalists see themselves as mediator between power brokers and the people. Would they lose this role, Eide argues, it might cause a direct threat for journalism. As WikiLeaks is giving the people direct sources, traditional journalism loses its power in between the people and the powerful, unless we consider WikiLeaks as journalism. Although there might be reasons for traditional journalism to consider this undesirable, it could mean a transformation of journalism itself. WikiLeaks is a mediator, and decides what is important for the people to know.
The website would be sharing the same ideology, namely, to mediate between the people and the government (or any other powerful organization). It could therefore hold the power to break into the journalistic field.
§ 2.3 Boundary work in journalism
Gieryn (1983) founded his theory of boundary work following the demarcation of science. Scholars later adapted the theory for other fields of practices, including journalism studies. Several of them have searched for the boundaries of journalism using Gieryns theory (Fakazis, 2006, Bishop, 1999, 2004, Coddington, 2012). There are, according to Gieryn, three reasons why members of a profession would build and maintain boundaries. The first is to expand their authority into other fields of
professions, which are now occupied. The second is to obtain a monopoly of authority and of resources, so that others can be defined as ‘outsiders’ or ‘pretenders’. And third, it protects its professions autonomy. It “allows members of a profession to maintain control over the occupational roles they play” (Bishop, 2004, p. 33). Fakazis called boundary work in journalism “a project of
demarcating, defending, expanding and contesting the limits of legitimate journalism in order to consolidate and protect authority and the economic, political and personal benefits it confers”
(Fakazis, 2006, p. 6). Although the boundaries of journalism have always been blurry, (Carlson, 2007), online possibilities to publish make the call for definition louder (Zelizer, 2012), in order to distinguish non-journalist work online from ‘real journalism’, practiced by mainstream media.
We might define those boundaries following Deuze’s earlier mentioned traits of journalism (2005). Would a certain medium not meet the traits, it would fall outside the borders. If a medium lacks public service, for example, then it would not be considered journalism. In this view, media need to fulfil five values, namely: public service, objectivity, autonomy, immediacy and ethics. But these concepts are ambiguous and objected to a certain classification. We cannot label anything as purely objective, it might also be neutral or impartial. A news organization might be considered objective in journalism, but perceived differently by scientist. And labeling any news organization is subjected to human judgment, therefore subjective in itself.
But, to be able to perform this research, the boundaries are considered as the five traits of Deuze. Although he noted that these notions are not static, they are perceived so in this research and interpreted in the traditional way. The notion of ethics will receive special attention, since ethics is formed through norms and values, and latter are closely linked to professionalism. As argued before, professionalization means boundary work in itself, and it might therefore be argued that establishing ethics is a major part of professionalization.
§ 2.3.1 Boundaries of the journalistic field
On the boundaries of the field are, as said before, new actors trying to break in. Old actors are in the midst of the field and new ones are on the borders. Some actors are successful in breaking in, some might fail and reside amongst the borders. This paragraph argues that exchanging capital might be decisive for crossing the border of a field, and therefore defines the line between being in the field and being out of the field.
A field is, as argued before, constructed through actors and holds economic and cultural capital. As economic capital generally means money, it could be considered as just capital. Cultural capital is everything that might be socialized, educated, or inherent to a person or institution. It means talent, knowledge, values and norms, and might be shared by different actors within a field (Benson &
Neveu, 2005). The difference between cultural and economic capital is its physical appearance. As cultural capital is formed by socialization, and is therefore abstract, economic capital is tangible.
If we then take a news article and presuppose that it is a form of capital, what kind of capital would that be? Cultural capital is needed to construct the news article. One needs to have learned certain conventions of writing a piece. One needs to have a certain talent and needs to have social skills to interact with his sources. But then again, a news article also enables to make money, and has some kind of monetary value.
It is safe to say that news articles, news photographs and anything that is produced by news media is a form of capital, and we might say that it is a combination of cultural and economic capital.
Exchanging news productions is a means of exchanging capital. As a field is a space in which capital exists, then exchanging capital between new and old actors might mean that those new actors have been pulled into the field by the old ones.
Using capital of new actors is a means of saying ‘we take you seriously’. And what we see is that the changing communicating society has affected traditional journalistic practices. We can see that in contemporary Dutch journalism, Twitter is becoming more and more incorporated, as it is used as a source, but also to give extra information, in the form of text box for example. It is not only used by mainstream broadcasters, such as the Dutch NOS and RTLNieuws, but also by newspapers such as de Volkskrant, NRC/Handelsblad and Trouw.
Though this form of incorporation is a means of using cultural and economic capital of citizens, engaging them in the news production, we can also see that other new actors get pulled into mainstream journalistic practices. A rather old, nevertheless relevant example of this, is the case of Princess Diana. As Bishop concluded, mainstream media were hesitative in admitting they were using the pictures made by freelance paparazzi photographers (1999). But by using the photos and paying for them, mainstream media have pulled the photographers into the field. They are exchanging capital.
Although old actors would not admit that they had worked together with the ‘bad guys’, they did engage them in their news production.
The same argumentation is to be held for WikiLeaks. As the website has proven to be a major source for mainstream news organizations, their capital has worked its way into the journalistic field.
And as its capital is becoming part of the field, WikiLeaks might have been pulled into the field as well. By using the website’s documentation, traditional journalism is saying that it takes WikiLeaks seriously. It is considered as a reliable news source, through their cultural capital.
As information found on the WikiLeaks website could be considered a form of capital, we might as well consider the WikiLeaks website as cultural capital in itself. It is constructed through the ideas of founder Assange and his companions. Their values, norms, education and every other
socialized aspect have formed the initiative for creating the website. But their information provided economic capital as well. Many newspapers have used its information for days, even weeks, to cover stories that often made it to the front pages.
§ 2.4 WikiLeaks and journalism
It is safe to say that WikiLeaks has been a great source for news media, but what role does it play in the journalistic field? As argued before, by using documentation provided by WikiLeaks, journalism brought its capital into the field. It could therefore be argued that WikiLeaks already is within the borders. But we might go even further. What we want to know is if WikiLeaks is a form of journalism,
because it would provide a major argument for mainstream media to work their boundaries. Would the website be journalistic, then journalism would need redefinition. This research aims at uncovering the means by which mainstream journalism portrays the website as journalism, but there must be grounds on which they would.
One of the earliest papers written on WikiLeaks, (it was in 2011, less than a year after the huge cable releases) considers the possibility of a journalistic organization. Rosner argues that it might be important to look at how WikiLeaks is taking form within the journalistic field:
“If what WikiLeaks does is journalism, then we need to accept and understand that journalism has a new face in the twenty-first century. If what it does is not journalism, then we need to analyse its place in society and where it fits between.”
Rosner (2011), p. 2
Coddington also believes that there is a way to look at WikiLeaks as a form of journalism:
“…WikiLeaks' core activities—gaining access to closely guarded information about important issues in the public interest, then publishing it—have traditionally been thought of as
journalistic in nature.”
Coddington (2012), p. 383) Would we consider WikiLeaks as journalism, what kind of journalism would it be? Due to extreme progression of possibilities for data storage and publication, online media rely more and more on data journalism, e.g., providing insight into the actual source (Kaul, 2013). Through convergence, media are able to provide links to original sources on which news articles are based, and by doing this, the audience receives a certain control (note that social media users were called ‘the fifth estate’ by Hidri, (2012)) to check on journalism. By giving the audience this responsibility, it also enhances
participation and therefore democracy.
We could say that WikiLeaks has been an eminent example of a source for data journalism (Rogers, 2011, Gray et al., 2012). But by saying this, we argue that WikiLeaks is not journalism, but simply a source for journalism. Indeed, the greatest news bomb WikiLeaks provided was during the time that the website worked together with established news organizations. Therefore, it could well be argued that WikiLeaks is a new kind of information provider for journalism.
The same argument stands for the notion that WikiLeaks might be some kind of replacement for the indigence of investigative journalism. This statement was also made by Rosner, (2011), as he argued that websites like WikiLeaks might be needed for the future of this time, money and effort consuming form of journalism. But then again, the website might only be supporting mainstream journalism instead of competing it.
