"This book examines how journalism can overcome harmful institutional issues such as work-related trauma and precarity, focusing specifically on questions of what happiness in journalism means, and how one can be successful and happy on the job. Acknowledging profound variations across people, genre
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s of journalism, countries, types of news organizations, and methodologies, this book brings together an array of international perspectives from academia and practice. It suggests that there is much that can be done to improve journalists’ subjective well-being, despite there being no one-size-fits-all solution. It advocates for a shift in mindset as much in theoretical as in methodological approaches, moving away from a focus on platforms and adaptation to pay real attention to the human beings at the center of the industry. That shift in mindset and approach involves exploring what happiness is, how happiness manifests in journalism and media industries, and what future we can imagine that would be better for the profession. Happiness is conceptualized from both psychological and philosophical perspectives. Issues such as trauma, harassment, inequality, digital security, and mental health are considered alongside those such as precarity, recruitment, emotional literacy, intelligence, resilience, and self-efficacy. Authors point to norms, values and ethics in their regions and suggest best practices based on their experience." (Abstract)
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"Free journalism is indispensable for monitoring the actions of political representation, holding it accountable, exposing the misuse of power, and defending public interests. Fulfilling these roles assumes that journalists can do their job and pursue public-interest stories to the best of their abi
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lities without fear of retaliation. In this chapter, building on the Media Pluralism Monitor data, we discuss the key issues of concern related to the journalists' safety, focusing on the attacks in the offline and online environment and the political elite's hostile criticism of the media. We analyse these issues in the context of Greece, Slovakia, and Spain, which share several common features regarding their media environment. Yet, these countries differ in risks to journalists' safety. We find, however, that despite different risk levels, the safety of journalists has been deteriorating in all three countries over the years. These findings have important implications for policymakers." (Abstract)
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"The implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for newsrooms across the world range from severe economic hardship to increased threats to press freedom. The “perfect storm” that engulfed the media and journalists globally has threatened and continues to challenge their existence, and the core of the
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ir mission to serve the public interest. This study maps the impact of external political, economic, legal and societal factors on journalistic freedom and the way(s) news organizations and journalists operate in times of global crisis in four Southern European countries. It provides a fuller cross-national perspective on the complex relationship between media, journalism and politics in countries with existing democratic deficits. Findings are based on 32 semi-structured interviews with journalists working in four Southern European countries, namely Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus and Malta, conducted in 2022. We find increased economic challenges to their fragile media markets, high level of state intervention, political parallelism in coverage of the pandemic and beyond, and numerous threats to the autonomy of journalists that hamper journalism and question its development in the future. The study’s implications are relevant to different contexts, particularly in countries where journalism and media face similar challenges." (Abstract)
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"This chapter identifies what motivates and professionally satisfies an engaged journalist. Instead of happiness, it suggests the notion of contentment." (Abstract)
"This article discusses the relationship between the post-2008 global economic crisis and trauma journalism through a quantitative study of reporters covering austerity’s everyday manifestations and examines the effects on the media professionals involved. The findings indicate that journalists wh
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o cover economic crisis-related incidents suffer specific symptoms of trauma. As such, the study re-conceptualizes the economic crisis as primarily affective for media workers, it establishes a direct correlation between the economic crisis and emotional trauma, and provides an insight into the kind of trauma that stems from covering austerity and its impact on society. A regression analysis of symptoms indicates trauma journalism as an emerging field of research into the economic crisis." (Abstract)
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"Across the globe, governments have issued emergency and drastic measures aimed at tracking the spread of COVID-19 and safeguarding public health. Notwithstanding the necessity and importance of some of these measures, this work argues that numerous governments around the world used the pandemic cri
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sis as a pretext to push through restrictions that hamper critical journalism. Drawing from worldwide press freedom monitoring tools and platforms established by various credible global organizations, this study shows that the pandemic crisis exacerbates existing obstacles to press freedom and adds new dimensions to the already documented threats. This is evident not only in authoritarian states, but also in western democracies. Most of the threats documented specifically aim to silence digital journalism, which has gained significant momentum as a result of the pandemic crisis. Overall, the main target of this work is to offer an enriched conceptual approach to the types of threats that press freedom faces in the context of global crisis situations." (Abstract)
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"Nos encontramos ante un hecho incuestionable: desde hace décadas el proceso de concentración mediática es la norma en los estados contemporáneos y el poder político se ve supeditado a las líneas editoriales de los oligopolios mediáticos que tratan de conducir y representar a la opinión púb
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lica desde la opinión publicada. Así, las corporaciones de medios se han convertido en armas de propaganda de un modelo que se resiste al cambio y son el sustento del imaginario imperante en torno a la felicidad proporcionada por el consumo. La ausencia de regulaciones efectivas y la concentración mediática rompe el equilibrio de poderes que define a los sistemas democráticos. Transparencia mediática, oligopolios y democracia ¿Quién nos cuenta el cuento? pretende desvelar esta situación mediante la aplicación del Indicador de Rentabilidad Social en Comunicación (IRSCOM®) desarrollado por Laboratorio de Comunicación y Cultura (COMAndalucía) de la Universidad de Málaga, una herramienta que busca hacer transparente el comportamiento de los medios y permitir la introducción de mejoras mediante el reflejo de sus fortalezas y debilidades, posibilitando asimismo la implementación de políticas públicas eficaces en pos de la transparencia mediática y la rentabilidad social de la Comunicación. La obra acomete en una primera parte el estudio de la situación del mercado de medios radifónicos y de televisión en España y, en una segunda parte, el diagnóstico de situación en buen número de países latinoamericanos y de la Europa mediterránea que permitan la aplicación de este indicador en sus respectivos países. «Relevar los déficits democráticos, resaltar sus fallos normativos y de control, es ya iniciar el camino para la fijación de unas alternativas democráticas en políticas públicas de comunicación." (Prólogo de Enrique Bustamante)
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