Mediální organizace
PhDr. Monika Metyková, PhD
University of Sussex
Email: 32153@mail.muni.cz; m.metykova@sussex.ac.uk

Individual influences
oGatekeeping
o Individual level influences – gender, ethnicity, political views, journalists' background

Models for individual influnces
lJournalists' surveys – 2 contending models:
1. their task is similar to that of a mirror – reflect, support and reproduce society's values and
goals
2. similar to a tool/hammer – help reform or redirect society
Cohen (1963) 2 basic models:
1. neutral reporter
2. participant
Weaver&Wilhoit (1996):
1. interpreter role (interpret and analyze, scrutinize government)
2. disseminator model – getting info to the public quick and to the large public
3. adversary model – critically investigate government and business

Research on individual influences
lThree specific issues:
1. journalists' individual characteristics
2. whether/how these influence news content
3. the extent to which journalists may possess characteristics that differ from the general public
and which may be influential in newsmaking
lThe role of personal background is of relatively minor importance

Influence of gender
l Van Zoonen and feminist critiques of the media
l Key question: Will increased numbers of women working in the media bring changes to news content?
l Increasing numbers of women in the journalistic profession in the last few decades have had no
significant impact on news content
l More attention and space is paid to women's issues – this, however, is possibly due to the need
to attract female readers/viewers
l Professional values and criteria are gender neutral

Journalists' personal characteristics
l Surveys suggest that journalists are more liberal/left-leaning than the general population
l Personal influence depends on the profile and status of the media worker
l Non-news genres provide greater scope for expressing personal opinions

Influential journalists
•David Frost – Nixon interview
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuwfBbZUEPM
•Martha Gellhorn
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj9D3GIczW4

Professional values and competencies
l Have normative and ethical dimensions
l Formal professional education increasingly important role
l Anglo-American model of journalism: objectivity and watchdog role
l Online environment – same professional and ethical values?

Falk and Grizard: The Glass Ceiling
In 1984 in an article in the US weekly AdWeek a female respondent referred to an invisible barrier,
to a glass ceiling that prevents women from being promoted to senior positions. According to her,
women get to middle management positions and are then stuck there. This situation persists even
today and in some cases women earn less than men. Falk and Grizard believe that there are four
types of reasons why the glass ceiling still persists:
1. Stereotypes according to which women are not capable of being leaders.
2. Limited promotion and recruitment opportunities.
3. Women are streamlined to positions that do not lead to top management.
4. Human resources policies lack behind – they do not do enough to enable women to combine work and
family care.
Analyze Fortune 500 data for 2002-2003 – media, telecomms, publishing – only 15% of women in
leading positions.

Lavie and Lehman-Wilzig: Gender and News
l 16 female and 25 male Israeli newspaper editors
l Gender differences in criteria of newsworthiness and selection
l Absence of significant otherness
l Reasons for the small number of Israeli women in editorial positions – organizational factors not
prominent

ORGANIZATIONAL INFLUENCES
l John Lloyd (senior journalist with the Financial Times):
'Context is often by far the most important thing about news. … The most powerful context is often
that provided by the news organization for which the journalist works; in this case the context is
the network of assumptions, political beliefs and moral position which the organization holds.'
l News organization's line or attitude (not only internal but also projected externally)

Social control in the newsroom
l Socialization within an organization
l Internalize the norms, rules etc. of the organization

Types of media organizations
l Public vs. private sector media
l Commercial media – dominant – income from audiences and from advertisers
l Private sector media often equated with maximum or absolute freedom of expression – supposedly
free from any special interests or influences
l Most mass media owned by a handful of corporations

Women in politics - fiction
oWest Wing:
ohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaiWWBWGm3k
oBorgen:
ohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz_SyOXB1kM

Public service broadcasting
l Particular roles
lIncluding gender/race etc. equality

Relationships in the organization
l Lot of research on the relationship between reporters and sources, less on reporters and
editors/editors-in-chief or other senior management
l Incentives and control (material or other), possibility of self-censorship
l Long-standing potential oversupply of journalists

Newsworkers' autonomy
l Editors and other senior journalistic staff have more discretionary power
l Foreign correspondents and senior staff spend less time in the newsroom and are seen as
possessing a relatively high degree of individual discretion in pursuit of their daily newsmaking
practices
l Star journalists – special powers

Digital media
l Potential for radically new citizen-based information and communication services (undermining the
traditional role and dominance of commercial media organizations or even professional journalism)
l Production of contents for multiple platforms – new specialist roles and skills sets for
journalists – multiskilling ad the integration of newsrooms – demand for more versatile and
flexible journalists
l Audience fragmentation
l Targetted news/advertising
l Integration of editorial and business roles

Curran Media Organizations in Society
l An overview of major issues:
l Cultural industries – features of commodities produced by them
l News media: ownership, organizational and occupational issues
l Sources, access and news
l New technologies and their influence

PUBLIKA



Aggregate of readers, viewers or listeners
Approaches to its study:
- structural (composition of the audience)
- behavioural (effects of media messages on individual behaviour)
- cultural (meanings of contents and processes of media use in social and cultural contexts)

A market approach to audiences
Dual significance of the audience:
1. potential consumers of a media product
2. a product itself that is sold to advertisers
- for advertisers particular segments of the audience are most attractive – age, gender and income

Research on Audiences
Secondary data:
Ratings (% of population that listened/viewed programme) and reach (net number or percentage of
people who have seen a particular piece of broadcast output)
Circulation and Readership – náklad a čtenost
http://www.abccr.cz/overovana-data/periodicky-tisk-1/?filterYear=2011&filterMonth=2&notVerified=1

Academic research on audiences
oEffects – hypodermic needle
oUses and gratifications: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity, surveillance
(polysemy – Stuart Hall encoding/decoding)
oSocial uses of media – Lull – communication facilitation, avoidance, social learning, competence
oEthnography: identity, everyday life, reception