Ferment in the field: Professionalism under fire

Ullamaija KivikuruNSS Intensive course in Lusaka

Professionalism: Starting point

Theory <Journalism> Practice

Theory: concepts and Practice: realknowledge institutions life with its

concerns and needs

Thinking Action

Idea of profession as solution to combine them

First wave: Professional ideals in journalism (Jay Blumler)

• Traditional:– eyewitness (on-the-spot reporting or an illusion of it)– observer (does not take stand)• Blumler:– entertainer– social critic– ”member of kibbutz”, participant

Transfer of professionalism(Peter Golding)

• Institutional transfer (leads to ”wholesale” acquisition of modes, practices, standards & imported material)

• Educational transfer (scholarships, expert teachers, import of training schemes and teaching materials, North/South)

• Skills orientation takes easily over, and mainstream professionalism is not adjusted according the the quests of society.

Our time: Civic/public/citizen media, social media: the concept of professionalism under scrutiny

• Audience participation in ’new’ journalism • The public takes over: participatory platforms

(Indymedia Movement, etc.)• Community media (based on voluntarims)

But:

Some forms of professionalism tend to emerge with time (community media, OhmyNews, etc.), both on skills and theory level

Sociology of professions: Main traditions

• Functionalist-idealist view (Durkheim, Weber, Parsons) professions as specialization and development in society

• strengthening social cohesion, replacing pre-industrial moral order and religion

• optimistic vision, part of modernity (“Journalists as marketers of modernity”)

• Critical-realist view (since 1960s) professions as bastions of elitism• weakening democracy, making citizens to passive consumers • turning into new religion

There is always a link to power

• Authoritarian • Commercial • Paternal • Democratic • Postmodernist

(Raymond Williams, Hannu Nieminen)

Said about professional journalism

• Citizenship civic journalism and social media shrink the profession • Liquid media work disperse the profession

• Self-regulation codes of ethics and courts of honor support narrow autonomy

• Professional autonomy helps industry against democracy • Self-regulation removes media outside democratic control

• Journalism education professional training nurtures narrow professionalism

• Multimedia needs in curricula push liberal arts aside

So what?

• Such dilemmas and paradoxes are real and healthy as intellectual stimulation for the field which suffers from self-sufficiency and technological fascination.

• Challenge to professionalism is welcome as a cure against the “fortress journalism” syndrome