If your new year’s resolution involves improving your writing, here’s a good place to start – an idea you may not have considered:
It sounds almost counterintuitive.
Reporters who want to become better writers often think in terms of classes or workshops or coaching by veteran writers. And all of those are good things. But maybe one of the best ways to improve your writing is just to read.
But don’t all journalists read a lot? Actually, no. We do read reports and meeting minutes and the results of Google searches. And of course, our own newspaper.
That’s a start. But are you reading some of the nation’s top journalists and other really good writers? How often do you read something and say, “Wow. That’s really good. I wish I could write like that.”
It has never been as easy as today for writers everywhere to read the best journalism produced in the world. So let’s spend a few minutes looking at why this is so important and how you can improve your writing, just by reading.
The first step is expanding the amount of great writing you are exposed to every day. The best way to do that is through social media. On Facebook, follow The New York Times and The Washington Post. On email, sign up for newsletters from these papers that will deliver a sampling of great writing to your inbox every day. And on social media, follow some important news feeds for community journalists. TCCJ has compiled a list for you here. Click on several of these that look interesting. In a few minutes on email and social media, you can have an exciting sampling of great writing coming to your computer every day. Often, you’ll just skim through without reading anything – but if you read three or four great news stories or feature stories or depth journalism pieces a week, your writing will definitely improve over the next few months.
Just by reading. Nothing else.
Of course, you can maximize the experience by collecting great sentences or great leads or passages of description you admire. Within a few months, you would have, say, a collection of maybe 20 leads you love.
Then, when you’re stuck, go back and read through that list. Find something you can model your own lead on.
That isn’t plagiarism, unless you copy word for word.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, schools taught writing by what they called “copywork.” Students just copied from books acknowledged to be great writing. It considered an effective way to teach students handwriting as well as grammar, punctuation and syntax. Good writing is more than copying, but it can be a great first step toward improving your style – sort of like using training wheels when you are learning to ride your bike. Copywork meant that students had to read good writing and then copy it – and perhaps absorb the style and feel of well-written prose.
You’re not going to copy great writing, but you should at least be reading it.
When you read good journalism – not necessarily study it, but just consume it as a reader, you’ll get a better feel for what to write about. One of the best places to get story ideas is from great stories. You’ll see all kinds of articles you can localize for your paper. Or at least the article you read will spark an idea that you can develop for one of your own.
How can you ever write great prose unless you read it? Sports psychologists have urged basketball players to practice free throws in their heads, imaging themselves with perfect form, launching a shot that swished the net. And those who practiced in their minds were as successful as those who practiced in the gym. The pictures in our heads help to determine our performance – so we need to get lots of “pictures” of good writing into our minds.
And while you should read great journalism, you shouldn’t limit yourself to journalism. Read novels and non-fiction, too. You can learn a lot about descriptive writing and dialogue from a well-crafted novel.
The novelist William Faulkner came to the same conclusion about the value of reading: “Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.”
Also consider poetry. There’s no better way to develop a feel for language and meter and word-choice than poetry. Go to a used book store, where you can find a poetry anthology that some poor undergraduate probably paid more than $100 for. You can probably get it for less than $5. Then try to read a couple of poems a week – maybe even memorize some lines that you especially like.
Novelist Stephen King has said that “the real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing.” He’s right. Journalists tend to be of a practical turn of mind, so we think of writing improvement in terms of workshops and classes. But don’t overlook settling back with a good magazine article or a well-written news story or a novel – even a poem – as a way of improving your journalistic writing style.
This column is usually about issues that rural newspapers can and should cover, but if you’re a rural editor or publisher, you have an issue of your own: adapting to the digital age.
The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism is exploring how technology is changing journalism and the news business, and recently interviewed more than 50 “experts from across the publishing industry, academia, and foundations” (I was one) to answer the question: How are small-market newspapers responding to digital disruption?
The first step in answering that query should be understanding that the conventional industry definition of “small market” – circulation under 50,000 – is a blunt instrument that avoids the distinctions among dailies, many of which have circulations under 10,000; weeklies, some of which exceed 10,000; and the diversity of rural America. To their credit, that is essentially the first finding listed by researchers Christopher Ali and Damian Radcliffe in their Nov. 15 report.
“We need to talk about the experience of local newspapers in a more nuanced manner,” they write. “There is a plurality of experience across the newspaper industry, not to mention across small-market newspapers operating in different towns across the United States. Overgeneralization about the newspaper sector loses important perspectives from smaller outlets.”
One pitfall of that overgeneralization is the widespread notion that newspapers are dying, and the researchers say “The newspaper industry needs to change the ‘doom and gloom’ narrative that surrounds it. . . . Outlets need to be honest with their audiences about the challenges they face, but they can also do more to highlight their unique successes, continued community impact, and important news value.”
I think community newspapers can reasonably assert that they are essential to local democracy and fostering a sense of community, and are the strongest part of the traditional news business, retaining a much larger share of their audience than metropolitan papers have in the last decade. The researchers don’t go that far, writing, “Local newspapers may be in a stronger position than their metro cousins.” (Emphasis added.)
The distinction may lie in the differences among communities, and between dailies and weeklies. Small dailies seem to have had a tougher time competing lately for several reasons; for example, many are close to larger dailies and serve communities that are covered by television stations, and many are owned by publicly held corporations or venture-capital firms that are more likely to put shareholders ahead of community service than local, independent owners.
Such ownership is less common among weeklies, few of which have TV competition and enjoy a local-news franchise that digital operations have not greatly invaded (though I do cite one example in the article, at http://bit.ly/2jteYSq). As the researchers note, community newspapers “experienced notable resilience thanks in part to exclusive content not offered elsewhere, the dynamics of ultra-local advertising markets, and an ability to leverage a physical closeness to their audience.”
But the health of a newspaper also depends on the health of its community, and almost half of America’s rural counties are losing population, as we reported on The Rural Blog at http://bit.ly/2AZ5KB3. That phenomenon is undermining many rural papers, and even in places where population is holding steady or growing, papers face challenges of change in local advertising markets.
The researchers write: “Although local businesses may be more likely to retain traditional analog advertising habits, the increasing homogeneity of our consumer experience (manifest, for example, in the rise of Amazon and Walmart) is reshaping local advertising markets. As local businesses are replaced by larger national chains with national advertising budgets, this reduces local newspapers’ advertising pools.” Walmart is infamous among newspapers for spending very little of its ad budget with them.
One point Ali and Radcliffe don’t mention is that many rural counties are becoming bedroom communities, which undermines commuters’ local connections. My research has found that the longer the commute, the less likely rural Kentucky residents are to subscribe to the newspaper where they live.
Like their metropolitan counterparts, “Small-market newspapers are experimenting with multiple means for generating revenue, including paywalls, increasing the cost of print subscriptions, the creation of spin-off media service companies, sponsored content, membership programs, and live events,” the researchers write. And they report that more papers are charging for obituaries.
Many such experiments are driven by corporate owners, but “There is no cookie-cutter model for success in local journalism,” the researchers write. “Each outlet needs to define the right financial and content mix for itself. This may seem obvious, but during our interviews some editors whose papers are part of larger groups were critical of corporate attempts to create templates—and standardize approaches—that remove opportunities for local flexibility.”
The report notes my concern that too many rural newspapers depend on single-copy sales rather than subscriptions, which may lead to sensationalizing front pages to generate sales and leave the papers more vulnerable to upstart competition, perhaps making them more editorially timid when it comes to local issues.
The comprehensive report deals with social media and other digital details, the changing nature of journalists’ jobs and their craft, and how small-market newspapers can prepare for the future. It’s a highly valuable report that should be read not only by publishers and editors, but by their staffs.
Any good piece of research recommends further research. Ali and Radcliffe note the lack of “a regular detailed census of local newspapers, split into different sub-markets, to understand and map a more holistic picture of the U.S. newspaper industry. Unfortunately, many existing surveys are being rolled back, meaning that our knowledge of this space will diminish unless others step in.”
Our Rural Blog item on the study, with links to it and a sidebar study, is at http://bit.ly/2AiSnQ0. If you do or see stories that belong on The Rural Blog, email me at al.cross@uky.edu.
A year ago this month, Donald J. Trump surprised most of the world and probably himself by winning the presidential election. He couldn’t have done it without rural America.
The numbers in the exit polls were clear. Trump won 62 percent of the rural vote, more than any modern president. And here’s the statistic that shows just how rural his victory was: If you divide up the vote by the rural continuum of the Department of Agriculture – which has nine steps, from most rural to most urban – the smaller a place’s population, the stronger its vote for Trump, with one very small exception inside the error margin.
Trump’s percentage continued a recent trend of Republicans winning more and more of the rural vote. The biggest gain was actually made when Mitt Romney ran, but rural turnout was down significantly in 2012, especially among Democrats, so that boosted Romney’s percentage. But there was a better rural turnout in 2016 – and that was a key to Trump’s victory in the big swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
That surge in turnout, and rural America’s choice of a man who is probably our most urban president ever, suggest that some big and bad things have been going on in our rural communities – some things that made them vote for him.
There are many was to measure those things, but the most important may be the simplest: Each year from 2012 through 2016, fewer people lived in rural America than the year before. Those losses were pretty small, but there had never been a decline in the total number of rural people, just in the rural percentage of the U.S. population.
Rural America is losing population mainly because it lost, during the Great Recession, jobs and businesses that have not come back. One year ago, employment in metropolitan areas was almost 5 percent higher than in the first quarter of 2008, the official start of the recession. But outside metro areas, employment was about two and a half percent less.
We have seen that decline all over rural America, in closed factories, vacant storefronts and streams of workers commuting to more urbanized places. In many places, there is also a social and cultural decline, indicated by above-average drug use and divorces, poor health, increasing mortality rates among middle-aged whites, and a workforce that shrinks as disability payments expand. The Wall Street Journal did a good job documenting this several months ago in a package that said the statistics of rural America resemble those of inner cities 30 years ago.
This isn’t just about statistics. It’s about feelings, which are usually more influential in an election. In rural America, there is a documented resentment of urban elites, including the news media — reflecting a feeling that rural areas aren’t getting a fair shake from government and its trade deals, and are looked down upon.
So, onto this landscape strode a brash billionaire whose TV reality show and business career had made him a household name, offering few specifics but promising to “make America great again” and acting as a tribune for disaffected people who were hungry for a politician who would improve their daily lives. In more than 40 years of covering politics, I have never seen a candidate who generated the reaction, depth of support and enthusiasm as Donald Trump, especially in rural areas.
There were half a million more rural votes last year than in 2012. In urban areas, there were two and a half million fewer votes. That second number illustrates the low enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton.
Some have also argued that Trump’s victory had a lot to do with race and ethnicity, and there was evidence of that in rural areas, mainly dealing with immigration.
Rural Midwestern towns that have attracted many more immigrants—particularly Latinos—were Trump strongholds in the primaries and caucuses. Just before the general election, Gallup polls showed Trump doing well in racially isolated white communities, and the pollsters concluded that Trump voters in those places appeared to be less motivated by economic concerns than by issues of race, ethnicity and immigration. Other researchers before and after the election came to the same conclusion about the national vote.
One thing last year’s election did was wake up a lot of national journalists to the problems of rural America. The Wall Street Journal is not the only national news outlet that’s paying more attention to rural places and their problems. My friend Chuck Todd of NBC said on election night, as Trump began to win, “Rural America is basically screaming at us, ‘Stop overlooking us!’”
So, rural issues should get more attention, especially with a president who owes his victory partly to rural America. But politicians sometimes have to be reminded who they owe, and I think that is the case with rural America, because it is so diverse – too diverse to have a strong lobby that speaks for it.
Agriculture interests can help, but they can also hurt, by focusing more on increasing farmers’ wealth and just paying lip service to the needs of rural communities. There is a bipartisan Congressional Rural Caucus, but it has only 43 members – almost exactly 10 percent of the House of Representatives. Rural America is 15 percent of the population, and it needs a stronger voice. Rural newspapers could help provide it.
With the high school football playoffs almost on us and prep basketball about to tip off, now is about as good a time as any to consider again about how to beef up your online sports readership.
And while it may seem sometimes you’re having to rob Peter to pay Paul when it comes to developing your online presence or preserving your established print product, here are some digital strategies that with the resources you probably already have can help you make inroads to both. Think of it as having your cake and eating it, too.
Reinvent your game coverage
First thing, consider using your social media coverage as your mainstay on game night. Weeknights or weekends, your readers are going to be coming and going, and whether they’re at the game, on the road, or partying down, you can keep them engaged with your social media coverage of the games. Some suggestions:
●Don’t do play by play. If they’re at the game, they saw it. If they’re at home, they may be listening to radio. If they’re partying or waiting on their spouse to finish paying the tab somewhere, PxP may not grab their attention.
●Do think analysis and context: Give them what they can’t always get from watching live or listening, much less waiting in line somewhere. Make your observations significant. Think of your role as that of a radio analyst, and give them what your competitor may not be able to: if the girls’ point guard just made a nifty pass for an assist, or the receiver had to outleap a defender to snag a pass, tell your reader “Lindsay Baskins’ threads a pass to Ashley Robbins for a layup. Lady Tartars up 42-30 at 2:13 in the 1st QTR,” or “’Dillas’ Ray Renfro outleaps a defender for a 15-yard gain to the Wampus Cat 10-yd line, ‘Dillas up 10-7 late in the third.” Or tell us the coach is getting heated, stamping her foot or throwing his towel after having to bench a player for foul trouble or a holding penalty negates a gain. That’s detail the broadcast may miss, and it’s stuff many radio competitors won’t or can’t deliver anyway in a stream. Make it worthwhile for your reader to follow.
●Do get the greatest saturation by combining some social media platforms. Most of your readers have Facebook; fewer use Twitter, but those that do will likely rely more on it that Facebook. And you can do both simultaneously by combining your accounts so that what you post to Twitter pops up in your Facebook posts. A tip: choose the Twitter-dominant route so that your posts will be short and sweet, and there are likely other social media combinations you can explore. Here’s a how-to link for posting Twitter to Facebook: https://support.twitter.com/articles/31113
●Do have the final score ready immediately at game’s end, along with some context – “The ‘Dillas 27-24 win over Itasca puts them at 10-1 and headed to the first round of playoffs against Cairo or Attapulgus on Nov. 12.” You might even mention – briefly- who the star player was, but that’s all you need. Click “send,” head for sidelines or locker room for post-game interviews, and then head to the house to cool your heels. Yes, take a break. Here’s why:
●Don’t worry about publishing a late-night or next-day story online. Readers who haven’t listened can go online and find the score, your summary, and the important stuff in your social media thread. And tell them to be looking for additional coverage
The game story: Out with the old, in with the new
For most weekly, twice-weekly or bi-weekly newspapers, your publication cycle won’t dovetail smoothly with traditional game story coverage. Worst case scenario, your paper hits the news racks or the front lawn smack dab in the middle and you’re faced with the prospect of publishing an account that’s days old when its hot off the presses. That’s still a must read for parents and grandparents but the interest from many of your readers will be fading. So what’s a body to do? Ask a staff that’s already stretched thin to write multiple accounts? That doesn’t go over so well, so here’s a modest proposal:
●Take a features approach to your published game story, and hold its posting until the evening before or the day of distribution. After you post the social media accounts, let them stand as your first-day coverage for those catching up.
●Focus your print coverage on a features approach that includes players’ and coaches’ reactions, how they’ll incorporate what they did or didn’t accomplish into the next contest, or, if the season’s over, how they reflect on how it’s all come down.
●Do think features, not news, with alternative ledes that tease the reader and play down the time lag between the timing of the event and your coverage of it.
●Use your previous social media coverage as a tool in constructing your story. In it you’ve already got a timeline of sorts. Once you work the most significant pics or stats from the previous game into developing story, you’ve summarized what happened a few days ago and also offered readers a fresh slant. If you’re fortunate, you’ll have the opportunity to use that approach for a great advance story for the upcoming contest.
●Make that story your sports centerpiece and post it online to coincide with the print edition. You can generate additional buzz by posting it the evening before distribution.
●Do make sure you continue to promote that coverage through your social media and house ads in the paper.
Old news can be good news
If you’ve got a digital whiz in your shop, you can use your old digital files to your advantage by hyperlinking to previous coverage that allows readers to pursue their interests and beef up your readership.
●If you’re telling a story about the season’s highs and lows, provide hyperlinks that allow readers who missed the earlier stories to pursue them.
●If the ‘Dillas’ Renfro, who earlier outleaped that defender for the 15-yard gain, has been highlighted in previous games, give digital readers a link to that story and embed the link in his name, which should be highlighted: “Renfro outleaped a defender for a 15-yeard gain late in the third to keep the Dillas’ drive alive.” If you’re talking playoff prospects, and the ‘Dillas have already played Attapulgus, give readers their rein to revisit that game: “The ‘Dillas 27-24 win over Itasca puts them at 10-1 and headed to the first round of playoffs against Cairo or Attapulgus, which they defeated earlier in the season, on Nov. 12.”
●Be sure, if their opponent has been determined by press time, to update the story, but that extra reporting should be minimal.
In the end, you’ve got limited resources but greater expectations by contemporary readers, particularly younger ones you want to engage for the long haul, and many of whom expect or will appreciate timely and convenient coverage. These strategies will require some newspapers to re-think and alter their traditional approaches, and one size definitely doesn’t fit all. But these are steps that can help you attract emerging audiences with the resources you already have on hand.
When it comes to advertising sales, we’re still stuck in the 1980s.
How do we know? Because we’re still trying to sell space for ads in the newspaper – and we’re trying to sell to folk who don’t necessarily believe that print ads are effective.
So that means your ad sales team will often need to convince clients that newspapers can be effective for getting their message out.
So is this really a problem for newspapers? You bet.
A recent Borrell study asked marketers what types of media were most effective. The responses were social media, broadcast TV, search, email marketing, cable TV – newspapers are way down the list.
The Borrell study says that local advertising will increase next year, but the increases will go to online, local TV, outdoor and telemarketing. The study predicts a 10 percent drop for newspaper ads.
That’s at least partly because we are not evangelists for the power or print ads to actually sell people stuff.
So do your ad reps know – and share – information like this?
●There’s a direct correlation between non-subscribers receiving a newspaper and how much they spend. When non-subscribers get a newspaper, they make more purchases and spend more money.
●Newspapers are trusted. Consumers consider an ad in a newspaper to be more believable – 36 percent of adults surveyed found newspapers ads trustworthy, as opposed to 8 percent for TV and 15 percent for internet.
●Consumers are more likely to act on information in newspapers and their websites regarding products and services.
●People actually pay more attention to newspaper ads. You don’t tune them out or go to the bathroom while they are on or fast forward through them like you do with TV.
●Other ads, like in social media or TV or radio, are intrusive. Shoppers today want to seek out ads on their own.
●Your ad placement in a newspaper lets you target your intended audience.
●Newspapers are the best at reaching seniors, retirees and middle-income households – often the customers most sought after by many businesses.
●And it’s not just that people read your ads, but the people you want to read your ads are reading them – the influencers in your community. Influencers are the “information hounds” who are more heavily represented in the audiences of print and online newspapers than in the audiences of social media and TV. What these folk say, matters. And they are reading newspapers and their ads.
●Newspaper ads work, and that’s what advertisers want. You can say what you want about overall circulation, but the fact is that 79 percent of newspaper readers take action on an ad sometime during the month.
Especially with younger ad clients, we have to convince them that advertising in print really does work. A good way to do that is to put together an effective advertising pitchbook, which includes information about your newspaper, your rate card, information like that above on the effectiveness of print, and testimonials (with pictures) of satisfied advertising clients. For an overview of successful pitchbooks, see this presentation by TCCJ’s Chuck Nau.
Does your newspaper have a motto? Or a slogan? Do you know the difference?
Mottoes, slogans and marketing pitches were common in the days when most big newspapers had competition, as they tried to give themselves a distinguishing character. As the big newspaper markets became monopolized, there was less need for them, but now, when every information source competes for audience with every other source, even in small towns, slogans and mottoes are worth reviving, and some papers are doing it.
The Washington Post’s nameplate got an underline on Feb.: the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” That’s the most prominent example of newspapers adding a promotional explanation of what they do or what they stand for. Two papers from Warren Buffett’s BH Media Group have similar slogans: The Bristol Herald Courier says it offers “Truth. Accuracy. Fairness” and the Omaha World-Herald says it is “Real. Fair. Accurate.”
Such slogans or mottoes are needed at a time when the very idea of independent, professional journalism is under attack from the highest levels of government and partisan media. Print circulation is down, but newspapers still have broad audiences and provide most of the accountability journalism that the writers of the First Amendment had in mind. Slogans and mottoes can not only remind the public of newspapers’ importance, but remind newspaper staff of ideals and principles they should follow.
Executive Editor Marty Baron’s “first principle” for the Post staff is “Tell the truth as nearly as it may be ascertained.” He said the paper started working on a slogan before the last election, “trying to come up with some words that would capture the essence of our mission in a way that you might even put it on a T-shirt. We had a lot of ideas and it was all over the place.” The choice was made by new owner Jeff Bezos; Baron told me he thought the line was “a little dark.” Yes, but it displays nicely in the reverse type the Post uses on its mobile site. The line had been used by Bob Woodward, the Post associate editor who as a reporter with Carl Bernstein broke open the Watergate scandal.
What’s the difference? The Post’s slogan brought to mind other newspaper mottoes or slogans, many at rural or community newspapers, and I wrote about it on The Rural Blog recently. The blog post is at http://bit.ly/2f1cWqs. It linked to an explanation of the difference between a motto and a slogan; here’s a capsule version:
A motto contains a belief or an ideal that can serve as a guiding principle and the identity of a newspaper. The Amarillo Globe-News still uses a saying coined by publisher Gene Howe, who died in 1952: “A newspaper may be forgiven for lack of wisdom, but never for lack of courage.”
Slogans can serve the same purpose, but tend to be simpler and catchier, and used more as marketing tools. The best are those that serve not only as a slogan for the public, but a motto, perhaps implicit, for the staff. One of my favorites is used by The Blackshear Times, a Georgia weekly: “Liked by many, cussed by some, read by them all.”
Some slogans or mottoes are implicit, as in the simple warning of hard-nosed editorial policy at the Aspen (Colo.) Daily News: “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen.”
Whether you call it a motto or a slogan matters less than having a line that accurately describes your newspaper. The most common slogans for rural papers are like the one used by the Mason Valley News in Nevada: “The only newspaper in the world that gives a damn about Yerington.” It’s a natural; most newspapers’ reason for existence is to publish news of their locality, and in most cases they own that franchise. The Greene County Democrat in Alabama, which competes with the Greene County Independent, puts it more subtly: “Serving Greene County Like No Other Newspaper.”
Some mottoes are blunt and simple, like that of The Star in Johannesburg, South Africa: “Tell it like it is.” Another conveys the same principle, but in more friendly, flowery fashion. It was written by British poet and politician Lord Byron (1788-1824): “Without or with offense to friends or foes, we sketch your world exactly as it goes.” Andrew Jackson Norfleet adopted it when he founded The Times Journal in Russell Springs, Ky., in 1949. The weekly still posts it on its editorial page.
Another idea: Speaking of editorial pages, that’s where newspapers can best explain who they are, even if they don’t have regular editorials.
If I were a newspaper editor again, my paper’s home page would have a button called “How We Work,” taking readers to a policy statement on the editorial page, explaining our editorial philosophy, policies such as correcting errors and separating news from opinion, a call for readers to let us know when we fall short, and a link to The Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, with a few examples, such as:
Our first obligation is to the truth, not in an absolute, philosophical or scientific sense, but “the truths by which we can operate on a day-to-day basis;” and the essence of journalism is a discipline of verification, using an objective method. The authors explain: “Being impartial or neutral is not a core principle of journalism. Because the journalist must make decisions, he or she is not and cannot be objective. But journalistic methods are objective.” I doubt most readers understand those important distinctions, so we need to explain them at every opportunity. They need to know we’re on their side, and how we work.
I grew up whistling Dixie. Literally. It was one of the first songs my daddy taught me, and I liked it. A third-culture kid growing up in British Commonwealth countries, it gave me a connection to my home state of Louisiana. It evoked images of grand plantation homes like Tara in Gone with the Wind, as well as more humble memories of my grandparents’ farm in the rural South. More than anything, though, I just liked the tune.
While many of my ancestors fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, I never thought they were fighting for slavery. Most of my people were country folk, and while segregation was common, we weren’t taught to hate colored people. In fact, my dad told stories of earning some pocket money as a kid by picking cotton alongside African-Americans. He never claimed to be better than they were. There was social separation, yes, but overt racism, no.
Fast forward to my college years, after my return to the United States, and I began to see things differently. We were told to lock our car doors if we were going through the “dark” side of town. When an African-American (male) friend gave me a ride back to Houston late one night, someone told me that I could have put myself in danger by riding with a black man because someone might see that and I “might get shot.” I couldn’t believe it.
At the same time as I was coming to grasp with the reality of racism in the U.S., however, I also saw groups of black college students congregating together on the steps of the student center, without any white students. I pondered this, wondering why African-Americans would fight so hard for desegregation and then separate themselves out.
Later, I figured out that “social separation” was not always forced, but just a matter of cultural differences; or it was easier for some people to do than the hard work of trying to build bridges. I was fortunate to have friends of many races, cultures and backgrounds, but that wasn’t the case for most people. Most people, I learned, gravitate toward others who are most like themselves.
Over the years, I have learned a lot about the differences between North and South, especially with regards to race relations. I can speak with more authority now that I have spent time in cities across the country, and have a child who is of a different race. Up until this year, she has been in Title 1 schools where Caucasians were a small minority. That has given me perspective as well.
While cities across the South are tearing down their Confederate monuments, the truth of the matter is that racism is not a Southern thing (nor just an American thing, for that matter). It is alive and well in the North, even if it’s not out in the open. Some of the most virulent racists I have ever met have been from Northern states. “Social separation” doesn’t begin to describe the hatred for minorities that filled their hearts.
To white people who would say that prejudice works both ways, yes it does. When my daughter is ridiculed at school for having a white mom, I feel it. And yet, when I make the effort to break down those barriers, and those kids and their parents realize that I’m okay with their ethnicity, any tension that might have been there is immediately erased.
Most African Americans sporting Black Lives Matter t-shirts aren’t violent BLM activists. After decades of incidents like the beating of Rodney King, and statistics showing that blacks are more likely to be killed by police, they are genuinely afraid of white people in authority. Just like Rosa Parks determined that she had a right to a public bus seat, many minorities feel they must continue to speak up for their rights to have a place in American society. Just as white people are frequently told to stay out of black neighborhoods, for fear of violent acts towards them, so black people and other minorities are told to be cautious when passing through all-white communities.
It is a sad statement on American society that we live in so much fear of one another. It is also sad, however, that we feel the need to erase the past in order to move beyond it. The violent protest by white supremacist groups over the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, shows that historical monuments hold significance for some groups.
The very fact that those monuments are now creating a rallying point for hate groups may be a good reason to take them down…or not. I think it’s up to each local community to decide which monuments to keep and which to remove. Yet, I hope that any tearing down can be done peacefully and respectfully; for only when we respect our history can we learn from it. After all, the bigger issue is not really about the statues themselves, is it? It’s about who we are and what we stand for, and that is a lot more evident in our everyday lives than in monuments of people from the past.
I will always be from the Land of Cotton and have no regrets about my Confederate heritage. Out of it has come a tradition of Southern hospitality and respect for others, including those of color. But today, I will say a virtual goodbye to Dixie and hope that the Confederate flag will wave only in museums, rather than being waved by people whose mission it is to hate. Look away, look away, look away, Dixie Land.
Public records are the foundation for reporting a range of stories important to your readers.
Police reports reveal a string of continuing break-ins in a neighborhood. Minutes from a school board committee reveal discussions and eventual recommendation to close an elementary school. Letters sent from a state agency to landowners identify potential locations for off-site location of spent fuel from a nearby nuclear power plant.
All of these stories crossed my desk during my tenure as editor of the
Red Wing (Minn.) Republican Eagle. As you might suspect, none of the news sources willingly volunteered the information. We relied on open meeting and data practices laws to get the information. Our newsroom credo: The more roadblocks thrown our way to gain access to public information, the more aggressive we became in our efforts.
At the same time, newsrooms should not report public records with reckless abandon. As with any right, newspapers have an accompanying responsibility.
Consider our front-page report of a 7-week-old boy who was revived after suffering cardiac arrest. The “heroes” included the foster parents along with the Red Wing police lieutenant and other emergency personnel who responded – all whom we identified.
One name was purposely absent from the story – the name of the child, who was under foster care. We also didn’t publish the child’s name in the ambulance runs printed on a separate page.
In this case, we decided the potential hurt to the natural parent outweighed the public’s right to know the identity of the infant. We made the decision after speaking with personnel at the county social services.
This was one of those rare cases where we withheld information.
Our reticence stemmed from the fear that one or more of the child’s parents might be living in the area. Identifying the child, who was born with medical problems, would raise the obvious question among acquaintances of the family: Why was the boy not in his parents’ home?
The county welfare director confirmed our suspicion. In nearly all cases foster children are placed with families in the home county. That was true here as well; one of the youth’s natural parents lived in our home county.
In the final analysis, we asked ourselves whether we still had a compelling story without identifying the child. As the welfare director said, “It was a great story. The crew did a terrific job.”
Editors and reporters should remain vigilant in monitoring public information and the needs of readers. As with this instance, decisions to publish should be based on the merits of each case.
Flexibility is the best posture. Editors should try to blend policies to best serve community needs. But public information should be sacred ground to newspapers. It should be to readers as well.
If editors bow to readers’ wishes – and they were able to eliminate publication of news at the ease of a phone call – imagine the vast incompleteness of reports. An entire newspaper’s content would become suspect.
Readers often ask why newspapers stand firm on access to and publication of these records. It’s much like the proverbial “if you give an inch, they’ll take a mile.” If the press agrees to one concession, all too often an individual or agency will try to stretch the rules. Soon laws are enacted with additional restrictions on what once was routinely public data.
Newspapers should stand firm on the premise that readers are best served by a full menu rather than a selective serving of public data. Your argument is strongest if you deliver prompt and accurate reports.
Computerized content analysis software, or CATA, offers intriguing insight into the publication of normative deviance on the websites of American community and non-local newspapers. CATA of news factors, ANOVAs, and Pearson’s correlations indicate that community newspaper websites remain “relentlessly local,” but are otherwise as focused on normative deviance as metropolitan and national publications. Put another way: Once localness is established, online community newspaper content is statistically indistinguishable from online metropolitan and national newspaper content.
Media sociologists are fond of theoretical models that analyze and describe journalistic behavior as a highly routinized group mentality (Gans, 1979; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009; Sigal, 1973; Tuchman, 1978; White, 1950). One such theoretical model, gatekeeping theory (Lewin, 1947; White, 1950), has evolved into a consideration of normative deviance (Jong Hyuk, 2008; Shoemaker, 1996; Shoemaker, Chang, & Brendlinger, 1987). The concept is twofold. First, journalists construct news around events, behaviors, ideas, or groups that break established social rules or norms. The goal is to establish potential threats to either the physical security or ideological status quo of the community; this behavior is rooted in a basic sociological need for safety and security (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). Second, gatekeeping theory assumes media practitioners have little practical interaction with media audiences, and thus little public input into news creation (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). This line of inquiry intersects with two intriguing concepts in communication research.
The first concerns the news factor approach, largely pioneered in Europe (Badii & Ward, 1980; Eilders, 2006; Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Joye, 2010; Kepplinger & Ehmig, 2006), which can effectively measure deviance. Bridges and Bridges (Bridges, 1989; Bridges & Bridges, 1997) argue that particular news factors appear in a wide range of American media. Second, audience interaction can be easily measured via American community newspaper websites; these publications are famous for consistent and strong ties to the opinions, needs, concerns, and interests of local communities (Burroughs, 2006; Funk, 2013b; Garfrerick, 2010; Hansen, 2007; Lauterer, 2006; S. C. Lewis, Kaufhold, & Lasorsa, 2009; Reader, 2006). Studying how community and non-community newspapers utilize those news factors on their websites would provide intriguing insight into gatekeeping theory, normative deviance, and the study of community news.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Gatekeeping Theory & Normative Deviance
Gatekeeping theory evolved from a wartime food consumption study by Kurt Lewin (1947) and subsequent adaptation to communication studies by David Manning White (1950), who found that a newspaper wire editor named ‘Mr. Gates’ made both objective and subjective decisions about what news to publish. While White speculated that Mr. Gates’ individual preferences influenced his editorial choices, further research indicated that journalists adhere to highly socialized and routinized patterns common throughout the journalism industry (Bleske, 1991; Bowman, 2008; Cassidy, 2006; Gans, 1979; Gieber, 1956; Hirsch, 1977; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996; Sigal, 1973). Individual choices matter little, these theorists argued, because a journalist’s demographic identity is secondary to entrenched journalistic standards and a largely inflexible conceptualization of ‘news.’
One explanation for that homogenization is normative deviance (Miliband, 1969; Paletz & Entman, 1981; Shoemaker, 1984; Shoemaker & Danielian, 1991; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009), which argues that media homogenization is rooted in a psychological need for safety and stability. Media fill a primal need to monitor potential predators and default to the same basic patterns and trends in news coverage. In today’s world, a variety of real and imagined problems qualify as threats to either the personal safety of media consumers or the ideological status quo of society (Shoemaker, 1996; Shoemaker, et al., 1987). For example, violent behavior among anti-abortion protestors has been associated with greater news coverage than ordinary demonstrations or rational political discourse concerning abortion (Boyle & Armstrong, 2009). Socialist electoral candidates are considered newsworthy threats to the status quo (Daley & James, 1988), deviant events concerning clergy are ‘triggers’ for inter-media agenda setting (Breen, 1997), and deviant news literally drew eyeballs in an online eye-tracking experiment:
Watching the environment enables human beings to run away from or fight against threatening events. Those who monitor their surroundings carefully can adapt themselves to the environment better than those who do not monitor their surroundings. According to Shoemaker [1996], this biological instinct to monitor the surroundings accounts for human beings’ interest in news.” (Jong Hyuk, 2008, p. 42)
Shoemaker and Vos (2009) make two further stipulations: Deviance is derived from a lack of interaction between news producers and news audiences, and that deviance can effectively be measured through the study of news factors.
News Factors
News factors research focuses on condensing news articles into common, discreet pieces; this approach lends itself well to the study of normative deviance, as those individual pieces can serve as scales for deviant content.
The news factor approach stems from a pivotal study by Johan Galtung and Mari Ruge (1965), who analyzed coverage of three overseas crises in four Norwegian newspapers and outlined 12 ‘news factors’ common to crisis coverage: frequency, threshold, unambiguity, meaningfulness, consonance, unexpectedness, continuity, composition, reference to elite nations, reference to elite people, reference to persons, and reference to something negative. They found that the more factors a potential news item contained, the more likely that item would receive coverage (Galtung & Ruge, 1965).
Replications abound. Harcup and O’Neill (2001) found the majority of those 12 factors applied to daily news coverage in United Kingdom newspapers; unambiguity was particularly common, although the framework had some difficulty describing entertainment news, references to sex or animals, or news motivated by a photograph. Joye (2010) refocused Galtung and Ruge’s (1965) study from crisis news to disaster news in Flemish newspapers and found proximity, geographically and culturally, as the predominant motivator for coverage of European or western disasters and marginalized news coverage of Asian, African or Latin American disasters. Kepplinger and Ehmig (2006) argued that news factors could serve predictive purpose rather than simply offering post-production illustrative detail, while Lewis and Cushion (2009) found breaking news so prevalent on 24-hour British television news networks that factors of ‘unpredictability’ often usurped ‘predictability;’ breaking news can be banal, in a sense, as long as it was current first and foremost. Of note, too, are considerations of Islamic religious values serving as news factors in Arab newspapers (Elliott & Greer, 2010; Mowlana, 1996). Alternate sets of factors have evolved as well (Corrigan, 1990; Gladney, 1996; Schulz, 1976), and as previously mentioned, Bridges and Bridges (Bridges, 1989; Bridges & Bridges, 1997) studied proximity, prominence, timeliness, impact, magnitude, conflict and oddity.
Community Journalism
What distinguishes community journalism as a genre, and as a relatively stable market product, is its extant and explicit focus on a local community, local readers, and local issues. Scholarship has repeatedly identified the ‘relentlessly local’ focus of community journalism (Lauterer, 2006), which are commonly operationalized as publications with less than 50,000 regular circulation. Such publications are principally devoted to local readers (Bowd, 2011; Funk, 2013b; Garfrerick, 2010; Hansen & Hansen, 2011), dedicated to helping local communities survive crises (Dill & Wu, 2009; Hansen & Hansen, 2012), interested in maintaining positive working relationships with local audiences and local elites (Donohue, Olien, & Tichenor, 1989; Reader, 2006), and have historically attempted to preserve community identity when faced with wartime atrocities or Cold War propaganda (Bishop, 2009; Carey, 2013).
As Gene Burd (1979) has noted, however, “definitions of community [are] crucial to journalistic training, practice and performance. In fact, the separation of community from any type of journalism may be a contradiction” (Burd, 1979, p. 3). This mirrors arguments by Benedict Anderson (2006) that community and news media are co-constructed and intrinsically inseparable. This expands the potential definitions of ‘local’ and ‘community journalism’ into new and niche markets, both on and offline. Community news media catered to the online role playing realm of Second Life (Brennen & dela Cerna, 2010), niche homosexual media (Cover, 2005), and local health activism publications (McAlister & Johnson, 2000). American community journalism also has been suggested as a model for media development in China (Lauterer, 2012). The definition of ‘community journalism,’ even, is flexible and more closely rooted to community service than any particular variety of localness (Lowrey, Brozana, & Mackay, 2008).
Research Questions
Two primary research questions consider variance of news factors across circulation categories and potential correlations between news factors. These RQs utilize terms that will be operationalized in the methodology section, along with an exploration and literature review of computerized content analysis.
RQ1: How does the publication of deviant, social significance, and egalitarian news factors vary across the websites of American community weekly, community daily, large daily, and national daily newspapers?
RQ2: How are deviant, social significance, and egalitarian news factors correlated with circulation size on the websites of American community weekly, community daily, large daily, and national daily newspapers?
Methodology
Content analysis is the systematic, inter-subjective study of content which is extant, and absent, within a media text. It is typically “systematic, objective, quantitative analysis” (Nuendorf, 2002, p. 1) that “limits itself to the produced content alone and draws conclusions based on what is there” (Poindexter & McCombs, 2000, p. 188). The goal is the valid and reliable translation of media content into useful statistical data. Traditionally, this has involved methodological categorization of data in media texts by trained coders following a strict codebook to derive quantitative data (Krippendorff, 2004; Nuendorf, 2002; Poindexter & McCombs, 2000; Weber, 1990). Computerized content analysis software, or CATA, essentially mechanizes and expedites the same process, concentrating both the strengths and weaknesses of the method.
CATA is capable of processing massive volumes of texts almost instantaneously, offering clear appeal to communication researchers; however, that analysis remains limited to what are essentially sophisticated word counts. Studies that rely upon even simple associations or context usually are beyond the software capabilities. One comparison of a traditional and CATA analyses concerning attribute agenda setting yielded vastly different results (Conway, 2006), and scholars are quick to advocate simplicity and specificity when dealing with computers (Krippendorff, 2004; Nuendorf, 2002).
The best method of ensuring validity uses words as the units of analyses. Proper computerized content analysis is achieved through the use of word dictionaries, essentially large word banks; the computer searches the text for every instance of every word in a word dictionary and groups those terms according to the researcher’s specifications.
For this study, word dictionaries will be constructed for each of Bridges and Bridges’ (Bridges, 1989; Bridges & Bridges, 1997) news factors; the program will count the frequencies of those words in the text, group those frequencies accordingly, and provide one frequency for each news factor in each category of media. The statistics are relatively simple. The challenge lies in ensuring that all relevant words are included and inappropriate words are struck from the word dictionaries; failing to do so could compromise the validity of the study. Once validity has been established, however, reliability is an extremely simple process. Computers cannot not be reliable. As a matter of design, they approach every data point in identical manner (Krippendorff, 2004; Nuendorf, 2002); there also is a substantial history of CATA in communication studies, particularly concerning rhetoric (Abdelrehim, Maltby, & Toms, 2011; Aust, 2004; Ballotti & Kaid, 2000; Cho et al., 2003; Conway, 2006; Crew & Lewis, 2011; Don, 2011; Gorton & Diels, 2010; Jarvis, 2004).
Operationalizations
Proper operationalization of terms is important for any study, but particularly a CATA analysis. As such, the first pertinent definition concerns normative deviance, as defined by texts on gatekeeping theory (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009).
Behavior, ideas, groups, or events are deviant when they break social rules or norms. Normative deviance is studied through news factors, a vein of academic research descended from the work of Galtung and Ruge (1965). Specifically, this study adopts and adapts Bridges and Bridges’ news factors (Bridges, 1989; Bridges & Bridges, 1997). This study organizes these factors into three categories that deserve explication here: Deviant Factors, Social Significance Factors, and Egalitarian Factors.
Deviant Factors: News that emphasizes aberration from regular routines or society, deviant news factors focus on various types of conflict and celebrity (i.e., prominence, conflict, oddity).
Social Significance Factors: Social significance factors relate to news factors that pertain to details of volume or scope. Not intrinsically deviant or egalitarian, they serve as descriptors of other deviant or egalitarian factors (i.e., impact).
Egalitarian Factors: News that emphasizes ordinary occurrence, egalitarian news factors focus on tangible details and regular interaction (i.e., timeliness, proximity).
The individual factors also deserve detailed operationalization. The deviant factors used here concern prominence, conflict, and oddity.
Prominence: Prominence refers to elite or infamous individuals, issues or institutions mentioned in an article. Prominence can be local, as in a mayor or a sports team, or non-local, as in a president or an ambassador.
Conflict: Conflict refers to open disagreement between persons, groups, animals or issues, against one another or nature. Clear, articulate opposition is required; however, conflict can be broadly defined. Conflict includes elections, sports games, crime, and severe weather.
Oddity: Oddity refers to news coverage which recognizes a rare or strange event or occurrence. Odd news is news because it is odd, not simply an unusual detail of regular news.
Social significance factors cannot be considered deviant or egalitarian. They are expressions of quantity or depth that enhance, augment, magnify, or devalue deviant or egalitarian factors. Originally, following Bridges and Bridges’ (Bridges, 1989; Bridges & Bridges, 1997) framework, factors for impact and magnitude were adopted for social significance; ultimately, due to CATA complications, magnitude was dropped from the analysis.
Impact: Impact refers to the effect or consequence of a news story, either damaging or enhancing, massive or miniscule. It is akin to intensity. An article about major or minor freeway closures could have impact, as could coverage of cancer treatments, legislative hearings, or congressional elections.
Egalitarian news factors consider the tangible, ordinary, and normal. They are sometimes considered “contingent conditions” (Shoemaker & Danielian, 1991). Both timeliness and proximity were ultimately broken into sub-categories.
Timeliness: Timeliness refers to the currency of a news story. News content relating to an event that occurred fewer than two days prior to the publication, or forecasting a news event fewer than two days in the future, qualifies.
Proximity: Proximity refers to the local-ness of a news item. Articles that mention a location, event, individual or institution within the immediate coverage area of a newspaper (operationalized as within 20 miles) qualify as proximate.
The media under scrutiny also deserve definition. Indeed, “community journalism” suffers from more than a bit of ambiguity. The industry standard defines community newspapers as publications regular circulation of less than 50,000 (Lauterer, 2006). While there is worthwhile conceptual debate concerning the nature of ‘community’ and the relationship between physical and ideological community (Anderson, 2006; Burd, 1979; Lowrey, et al., 2008), this study utilizes conventional circulation size as an operationalization.
Community Weekly Newspapers: Weekly, local, for-profit, American newspapers with regular print circulation of fewer than 50,000 copies.
Community Daily Newspapers: Daily, local, for-profit, American newspapers with regular daily print circulation of fewer than 50,000 copies.
Large Daily Newspapers: Daily, for-profit, American newspapers with regular daily print circulation of more than 50,000 copies but fewer than 500,000 copies.
National Newspapers: Daily, for-profit, American newspapers with a regular daily print circulation greater than 500,000 copies.
Dataset
A framework of 125 American newspapers was used to establish a dataset: 40 community newspapers, 40 community daily newspapers, 40 large daily newspapers, and five national newspapers. Establishing geographic diversity ensured that geographic biases did not call results into question. Following in the footsteps of Reader (2006), who divided the United States into 14 geographic categories to derive a qualitative dataset of 28 newspapers, this study partitioned the United States into eight discreet regions based on common cultural, economic, and socio-political characteristics.
Each region was allowed five community newspapers, five community daily newspapers, and five large daily newspapers. The random selection process utilized a set of multi-sided dice to determine random starting points and publications. Publication frequency and circulation size were then confirmed through the Ulrich Periodic Index. This random sample accounted for 120 American newspapers stratified by circulation size and regional geography; this sampling was based largely on a previous study of community newspapers and Benedict Anderson’s theory of ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 2006; Funk, 2013a). The Funk (2013a) study used identical regional categories, a 120-newspaper sample, and served as the basis for the random dataset; the researcher updated and confirmed the circulation size and categorization in October 2012. Additionally, one national newspaper was chosen from five different regional categories. Random selection was employed in regions with multiple national newspapers.
The data collection process utilized a constructed-week format. Since some weekly newspapers publish online content once a week, data was never collected from the same publication more than once in any given week. The 125 newspapers were randomly sorted into five groups of 25 newspapers each. Five constructed weeks were designed over a nine-week period; technical difficulties resulted in rescheduling one data collection point during a tenth week. Data were collected between January and March 2013.
Data consisted of the three most prominent news articles on each news website. The full articles, headlines and subheadlines were copied and pasted into Microsoft Word. Bylines, authorship, and contact information was omitted. The Word documents were organized by group and circulation size category, and also included the day of the week and date in the document title (ie, ‘A.CW.Monday.1.1’ for a hypothetical data collected from community weekly newspapers in Group A on Monday, Jan. 1). There were a total of 375 articles downloaded each day per group and a grand total of 2,625 articles from newspaper websites.
Word Dictionaries
Word dictionaries were designed to be exhaustive and inclusive. They included any word that could qualify for each of the news factors, as well as different conjugations (i.e., conflict, conflicting, conflicted) and forms (i.e., violence and violent). Word dictionaries for prominence, conflict, oddity, and impact were straightforward but vast. Dictionaries for the remaining factors were more complex.
Proximity was split into two sections, general proximity and specific proximity. General proximity consisted of terms like ‘local’ and ‘area.’ Specific proximity was derived primarily through the website FreeMapTools.com, which constructed a transparent radius around each listed community in Google Maps; the map was then zoomed to a two-mile scale and scanned for any cities, towns, villages, or labeled neighborhoods located wholly or partially within the radius. The dictionary also included the name of the home community’s county, counties, parish, or parishes. Each category of newspapers had its own specific proximity dictionary; i.e., community weekly newspapers in the A group, or A.CW, had one dictionary, as did A.CD, A.LD, A.ND, B.CW, C.CW, and so on.
Similarly, timeliness was sub-divided into ‘recentness’ and ‘dates.’ Recentness contained words stating timeliness, such as ‘recent’ or ‘current,’ while dates was customized for each individual set of articles to include the date of publication as well as the two dates before and after (i.e., within the word dictionary itself, for hypothetical dataset A.CW.Monday.1.1, the dates dictionary would include ‘December = 30, December = 31, January = 1, January = 2, January = 3).
The final of Bridges and Bridges’ (Bridges, 1989; Bridges & Bridges, 1997) news factors, magnitude, is an expression of quantity that was ultimately abandoned. Although DICTION 6.0 can count quantitative figures, it cannot distinguish between numbers which are not expressions of quantity. It cannot tell the difference, for example, between the phrases ‘221 percent tax increase’ and ‘221 Baker Street,’ or between 5,125,555,555 people and the phone number (512) 555-5555. Efforts to engineer a solution were ultimately unreliable and unsuccessful.
A sample list of terms used in each word dictionary is available in Table 1. The construction of these dictionaries was conducted in Microsoft Excel. This enabled easy comparison and construction of dictionaries and an expedient search for duplicate entries. It was important to ensure that, for every dictionary but those designed for specific proximity, every word be included in only one dictionary. For specific proximity, it was acceptable if (hypothetically) Springfield, Massachusetts and Springfield, Oregon were in two different specific proximity dictionaries as only one specific proximity dictionary would be enabled at a time. However, it was important that ‘Springfield’ appear only once in each dictionary.
To ensure validity, the researcher solicited input and review from six graduate students and professors at a major research university. This process was theoretically analogous to inter-coder reliability procedures; while one individual may plan word dictionaries with validity errors, consultation with a group of researchers reduced the likelihood of improper inclusions or exclusions.
The final step imported each of the 26 dictionaries (prominence, conflict, oddity, impact, recentness, general proximity, and 20 dictionaries for specific proximity) into DICTION 6.0’s custom dictionary feature. Finally, the dates dictionary was adjusted manually prior to each individual analysis.
Once the word dictionaries were constructed, the analysis began. DICTION 6.0 computed means for each word dictionary for each Word document containing downloaded articles. Data were then processed and analyzed in Microsoft Excel and SPSS for ANOVA analyses and Pearson’s correlation analyses.
Finally, because the data analysis process utilized a multi-step and multi-platform process, the final ‘n’ in the SPSS analysis is only partially representative of the full dataset. SPSS processed what it considered 140 dense units of data – one unit for each document representing thousands of downloaded articles. One data unit represented DICTION 6.0 analyses of online news articles from community weekly newspapers in Group A, another for community daily newspapers in Group A, and so on. The number 140 misleads here as it represents only the final step in the data analysis process and understates the density of the dataset. As such, this study includes an n to represent the number of data points measured by SPSS and an n0 reflecting the number of articles and, thus, the true number of data points.
The specific dates for the date of data collection, two days previous and two days following, as well as the corresponding days of the week, for each set of articles.
Proximity
General Proximity
Local, area, nearby.
Specific Proximity
The name of every city, town, village, or neighborhood within 20 miles of each newspapers’ home community, as well as the community’s county or counties, or parish or parishes.
Results
Broadly, computerized content analysis found that circulation size plays no significant role in the use of deviant or egalitarian news factors, and a limited role concerning egalitarian factors. Put another way: Community weekly newspapers and national newspapers are equally focused on conflict, prominence, and oddity in their online news content.
RQ1 asked how the publication of deviant, social significance, and egalitarian news factors varied across the websites of American community weekly, community daily, large daily, and national daily newspapers. ANOVA indicated that American newspapers of all circulation sizes demonstrated clear, unanimous consistency concerning deviant and egalitarian news factors. Variance for only one factor, specific proximity, was statistically significant (p < .001**, df = 3, n = 140, n0 = 2,625); smaller newspapers were significantly more likely to publish specific proximity factors than larger newspapers. Put another way: community newspapers were significantly more likely to publish the names of their home communities, and nearby communities, in their news coverage. The remaining factors saw no significant variation across circulation categories (see Figure 1 for means and ANOVA analyses).
Figure 1: Word Frequency Means of News Factors on Newspaper Websites by Circulation Category
RQ2 asked how deviant, social significance, and egalitarian news factors are correlated with circulation size on the websites of American community weekly, community daily, large daily, and national daily newspapers.
Pearson’s correlations were used to determine potential relationships between circulation size and use of deviant, social significance, and egalitarian news factors in online news. Analysis indicated only one pertinent significant correlation, between circulation size and specific proximity (r = -.342**, p < .001, n = 140, n0 = 2,625); the negative orientation indicates that the larger the circulation size, the lower the frequency of specific proximity. This is consistent with ANOVA analysis of the same data. The remaining factors had non-significant relationships with circulation size. Analysis also indicated a significant relationship between oddity and general proximity (r = .279**, p < .001, n = 140, n0 = 2,625). This relationship is not particularly relevant, but the full correlations set is reported here in the interest of comprehensiveness (see Figure 2 for correlation analyses).
Discussion
Data presented here indicate the spectrum of American newspaper websites remain predominately preoccupied with news about deviance. Deviance remains a constant focus in news construction, even among hyper-local community newspapers which are also focused on localness. The relationship between circulation size and geographic focus is not surprising; indeed, this is consistent with the editorial mission and business model of community journalism. It is surprising, however, that news content in hyper-local community newspapers is as focused on deviance as national media like The New York Times.
Figure 2: Pearson’s Correlations of Means Comparing Circulation Category and News Factors on Newspaper Websites
The weekly, hyper-local Weekly Observer is certainly concerned with local news about its home in Hemingway, South Carolina; The Los Angeles Times, conversely, is less concerned with news about Los Angeles and more devoted to major national and international news. Once that local focus is accounted for, however, there are no significant differences between the two concerning the remainder of their editorial content.
Put another way: If quantitative analysis had not measured for specific proximity and had instead been solely concerned with the use of deviant news factors, then the news content in The Weekly Observer and The Los Angeles Times would yield statistically identical results. Thus, the only important difference between community journalism news content and national journalism news content is a focus on localness – the “community” may generate differences in newspaper business models, but a pervasive industry standard on deviance clearly defines the “journalism” part, regardless of a publication’s circulation size.
These findings also speak to a remarkably high degree of media socialization across ostensibly diverse varieties of journalists, thus reinforcing media sociology and gatekeeping studies (Cassidy, 2006; Gans, 1979; Gieber, 1956; Lewin, 1947; Shoemaker & Reese, 1996; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009; Sigal, 1973; White, 1950). It also speaks to the prevalence of normative deviance in American media and the predictive power of news factor studies.
However, data also are contrary to gatekeeping theory’s stipulation that journalists default to news about deviance due to a lack of interaction with media audiences. Given community newspapers’ well established dialogue with local communities, it seems apparent that normative deviance is a foundational part of American news. It is not a construction of isolated journalists; instead, these data show normative deviance is independent of journalist-audience interaction.
This study identifies two major opportunities for future research. First, findings indicating that normative deviance is not the result of poor journalist and audience communication are a noteworthy repudiation of gatekeeping theory (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). Deviance, instead, is a constant focus of American online news regardless of a newspapers’ circulation size. Why? Why do journalists who do have near constant communication with audiences remain focused on deviance, and what might interviews with those journalists and audiences reveal? Findings point to a need for better theoretical understanding and definition of normative deviance.
Second, as definitions of community and localness continue to evolve, it would be meritorious to consider how deviance applies to non-geographic community journalism. How might community media focused on particular ideological niches, professional trades, or sports teams incorporate normative deviance? Would they reflect a consistent focus on deviance, or not? Future studies could apply the frameworks used here to other varieties of community media.
Works Cited
Abdelrehim, N., Maltby, J., & Toms, S. (2011). Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Control: The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, 1933-1951. Enterprise and Society, 12(4), 824-862.
Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Revised Edition ed.). London: Verso.
Aust, P. J. (2004). Communicated values as indicators of organizational identity: A method for organizational assessment and its application in a case study. Communication Studies, 55(4), 515-534.
Badii, N., & Ward, W. J. (1980). The Nature of News in Four Dimensions. Journalism Quarterly, 57, 243-248.
Ballotti, J., & Kaid, L. L. (2000). Examining verbal style in presidential campaign spots. Communication Studies, 51(3), 258-273.
Bishop, R. (2009). “Little More than Minutes”: How Two Wyoming Community Newspapers Covered the Construction of the Heart Mountain Internment Camp. American Journalism, 26(3), 7-32.
Bleske, G. L. (1991). Ms. Gates Takes Over. [Article]. Newspaper Research Journal, 12(4), 88-97.
Bowd, K. (2011). Reflecting regional life: Localness and social capital in Australian country newspapers. Pacific Journalism Review, 17(2), 72-91.
Bowman, L. (2008). Re-examining “Gatekeeping.” Journalism Practice, 2(1), 99-112.
Boyle, M. P., & Armstrong, C. L. (2009). Measuring Level of Deviance: Considering the Distinct Influence of Goals and Tactics on News Treatment of Abortion Protests. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 17(4), 166-183.
Breen, M. J. (1997). A cook, a cardinal, his priests, and the press: Deviance as a trigger for intermedia agenda setting. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 74(2), 348-356.
Brennen, B., & dela Cerna, E. (2010). Journalism in Second Life. Journalism Studies, 11(4), 546-554.
Bridges, J. A. (1989). News Use on the Front Pages of the American Daily. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 332-337.
Bridges, J. A., & Bridges, L. W. (1997). Changes in News Use on the Front Pages of the American Daily Newspaper, 1986-1993. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 74(4), 826-838.
Burd, G. (1979). What is community? Grassroots Editor, 20(1), 3-14.
Burroughs, A. (2006). Civic Journalism and the Community Newspaper: Opportunities for Civic and Social Connections. Master of Mass Communication, Louisiana State University.
Carey, M. C. (2013). Community Journalism in a Secret City. Journalism History, 39(1), 2-14.
Cassidy, W. P. (2006). Gatekeeping Similar For Online, Print Journalists. Newspaper Research Journal, 27(2), 6-23.
Cho, J., Boyle, M. P., Keum, H., Shevy, M. D., McLeod, D. M., Shah, D. V., & Pan, Z. (2003). Media, Terrorism, and Emotionality: Emotional Differences in Media Content and Public Reactions to the September 11th Terrorist Attacks. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 47(3), 309-327.
Conway, M. (2006). The Subjective Precision of Computers: A Methodological Comparison with Human Coding in Content Analysis. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 83(1), 186-200.
Corrigan, D. M. (1990). Value Coding Consensus in Front Page News Leads. Journalism Quarterly, 67(4), 653-662.
Cover, R. (2005). Engaging sexualities: Lesbian/gay print journalism, community belonging, social space and physical place. Pacific Journalism Review, 11(1), 113-132.
Crew, J. R. E., & Lewis, C. (2011). Verbal Style, Gubernatorial Strategies, and Legislative Success. Political Psychology, 32(4), 623-642.
Daley, P. J., & James, B. (1988). Framing the News: Socialism as Deviance. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 3(2), 37-46.
Dill, R. K., & Wu, H. D. (2009). Coverage of Katrina in Local, Regional, National Newspapers. Newspaper Research Journal, 30(1), 6-20.
Don, W. (2011). Jokes inviting more than laughter Joan Rivers political-rhetorical world view. Comedy Studies, 2(2), 139-150.
Donohue, G. A., Olien, C. N., & Tichenor, P. J. (1989). Struture and constraints on community newspaper gatekeepers. Journalism Quarterly, 66(4), 807-845.
Eilders, C. (2006). News factors and news decisions. Theoretical and methodological advances in Germany. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 31(1), 5-24.
Elliott, C. W., & Greer, C. F. (2010). Newsworthiness and Islam: An Analysis of Values in the Muslim Online Press. Communication Quarterly, 58(4), 414-430.
Funk, M. (2013a). Imagined commodities? Analyzing local identity and place in American community newspaper website banners. New Media & Society, 15(4), 574-595.
Funk, M. (2013b). The Next President is at the Front Door Again: An Analysis of Local Media Coverage of the 2012 Republican Iowa Caucus, New Hampshire Primary and South Carolina Primary. Community Journalism, 2(1), 26-48.
Galtung, J., & Ruge, M. (1965). The structure of foreign news: the presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norweigan newspapers. Journal of International Peace Research, 1, 64-91.
Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what’s news. New York, NY: Pantheon.
Garfrerick, B. H. (2010). The Community Weekly Newspaper: Telling America’s Stories. American Journalism, 27(3), 151-157.
Gieber, W. (1956). Across the desk: A study of 16 telegraph editors. Journalism Quarterly, 33(4), 423-432.
Gladney, G. A. (1996). How Editors and Readers Rank and Rate the Importance of Eighteen Traditional Standards of Newspaper Excellence. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 73(2), 285-303.
Gorton, W., & Diels, J. (2010). Is political talk getting smarter? An analysis of presidential debates and the Flynn effect. Public Understanding of Science.
Hansen, E. K. (2007). Community insights on newspaper Web sites: What readers want. Paper presented at the Newspapers and Community-Building Symposium XIII, Norfolk, Virginia.
Hansen, E. K., & Hansen, G. L. (2011). Newspaper Improves Reader Satisfaction By Refocusing on Local Issues. Newspaper Research Journal, 32(1), 98-106.
Hansen, E. K., & Hansen, G. L. (2012). Community crisis and community newspapers: A case study of The Licking Valley Courier. Grassroots Editor, 53(3-4), 8-12.
Harcup, T., & O’Neill, D. (2001). What Is News? Galtung and Ruge revisited. Journalism Studies, 2(2), 261-280.
Hirsch, P. M. (1977). Occupational, Organizational and Institutional Models in Mass Media Research. In P. M. Hirsch, P. M. Miller & F. G. Kline (Eds.), Strategies for Communication Research (pp. 13-42). Beverly Hills, California: Sage.
Jarvis, S. E. (2004). Partisan patterns in presidential campaign speeches, 1948-2000. Communication Quarterly, 52(4), 403-419.
Jong Hyuk, L. (2008). Effects of News Deviance and Personal Involvement on Audience Story Selection: A Web-Tracking Analysis. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 85(1), 41-60.
Joye, S. (2010). News media and the (de)construction of risk: How Flemish newspapers select and cover international disasters. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 2(2), 253-266.
Kepplinger, H. M., & Ehmig, S. C. (2006). Predicting news decisions. An empirical test of the two-component theory of news selection. Communications: The European Journal of Communication Research, 31(1), 25-43.
Kim, H. S. (2012). War journalists and forces of gatekeeping during the escalation and the de-escalation periods of the Iraq War. International Communication Gazette, 74(5), 323-341.
Krippendorff, K. (2004). Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology (Second Edition ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Lauterer, J. (2006). Community Journalism: Relentlessly Local. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press.
Lauterer, J. (2012). Toto, I don’t think we’re (just) in Kansas anymore: How U.S. community newspapers are serving as a model for China. Grassroots Editor, 53(3-4), 1-7.
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in Group Dynamics II. Channels of group life: Social Planning and Action Research. Human Relations, 1, 143-145.
Lewis, J., & Cushion, S. (2009). The Thirst to Be First. Journalism Practice, 3(3), 304-318.
Lewis, S. C., Kaufhold, K., & Lasorsa, D. L. (2009). Thinking About Citizen Journalism. Journalism Practice, 4(2), 163-179.
Lowrey, W., Brozana, A., & Mackay, J. B. (2008). Toward a Measure of Community Journalism. Mass Communication & Society, 11(3), 275-299.
McAlister, A., & Johnson, W. (2000). Behavioral Journalism for HIV Prevention: Community Newsletters Influence Risk-Related Attitudes and Behavior. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(1), 143-159.
Miliband, R. (1969). The State in Capitalist Society. London: Wiedenfeld & Nicholson.
Mowlana, H. (1996). Global communication in transition: The end of diversity? London: Sage.
Nuendorf, K. A. (2002). The Content Analysis Guidebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Östgaard, E. (1965). Factors Influencing the Flow of News. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 39-63.
Paletz, D. L., & Entman, R. M. (1981). Media, Power, Politics. New York: Free Press.
Poindexter, P. M., & McCombs, M. E. (2000). Research in Mass Communication: A Practical Guide. Boston & New York: Bedford / St. Martin’s.
Reader, B. (2006). Distinctions that Matter: Ethical Differences at Large and Small Newspapers. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 83(4), 860.
Schulz, W. (1976). Die Konstruktion von Realitat in den Nachrichtenmedien: Analyse der aktuellen Berichterstattung [The construction of reality in the news media. An analysis of the news coverage]. Freiburg: Alber.
Shoemaker, P. (1984). Media Treatment of Deviant Political Groups. Journalism Quarterly, 61(1), 66-82.
Shoemaker, P. (1996). Hardwired for News: Using Biological and Cultural Evolution to Explain the Surveillance Function. Journal of Communication, 46(3), 32-47.
Shoemaker, P., Chang, T. K., & Brendlinger, N. (1987). Deviance as a predictor of newsworthiness: Coverage of international events in the U.S. media. In M. McLaughlin (Ed.), Communication yearbook (Vol. 10, pp. 348-365). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Shoemaker, P., & Danielian, L. (1991). Deviant Acts, Risky Business and U.S. Interests: The Newsworthiness of World Events. Journalism Quarterly, 68(4), 781-795.
Shoemaker, P., & Reese, S. (1996). Mediating the Message: Theories of Influence on Media Content (2 ed.). White Plains, N.Y.: Longman.
Shoemaker, P., & Vos, T. (2009). Gatekeeping Theory. New York, NY: Routledge.
Sigal, L. (1973). Reporters and officials: The organization and politics of news-making. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath.
Smethers, S., Bressers, B., Willard, A., Harvey, L., & Freeland, G. (2007). Kansas Readers Feel Loss When Town’s Paper Closes. Newspaper Research Journal, 28(4), 6-21.
Tuchman, G. (1978). Making News. New York: Free Press.
Weber, R. P. (1990). Basic Content Analysis (Second Edition ed.). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications.
White, D. M. (1950). The ‘Gate Keeper’: A Case Study in the Selection of News. Journalism Quarterly, 27(3), 383-390.
About the Author
Dr. Marcus Funk is an assistant professor of journalism at Sam Houston State University.
This study sought to identify factors that influence the cultural competence of student journalists covering urban neighborhoods. The findings indicate that professional norms, including objectivity, contribute to a culturally competent approach to community reporting. An over-reliance on these norms, however, can hinder culturally competent reporting. Empirical support was found for previously identified dimensions of cultural competence: awareness, knowledge, and skills to interact effectively with people from different cultures, as well as that the ability to negotiate an “insider” or “outsider” status. The study provides the possibility of a new norm for community journalism – to promote understanding across cultures.
Community journalism, like the rest of the news industry, is undergoing major changes in the way that it conceptualizes, produces and presents news content. Digital technologies in particular have created an unprecedented interconnectedness within localities and across the globe, which has re-oriented the field of community journalism toward geographically dispersed audiences as well as previously untapped local communities (Garyantes, 2012; Meyer & Daniels, 2012; Reader, 2012). The result has been a re-examination of the requirements of the field, including the need to connect with and better understand people from a wide range of communities and cultures.
This study seeks to identify the factors that influence the cultural competence of community reporters by studying journalism students as they report on urban communities in a large northeastern city. The communities covered by the students are, for the most part, quite culturally different from the cultural backgrounds and perspectives of the students, according to demographic data and student surveys.
The need to understand cultures other than one’s own has been growing in importance. The process of globalization, in which people and nations are becoming more integrated economically, politically, and culturally, is continuing, even in the face of the dramatic global economic downturn in late 2008 (McNulty, 2009). In recent decades, the pace of globalization “has dramatically increased. Unprecedented changes in communications, transportation, and computer technology have given the process new impetus and made the world more interdependent than ever” (Global Policy Forum, 2014, p. 1). Meanwhile, U.S. Census figures predict the U.S. population will be considerably older and more racially and ethnically diverse by 2060 (Colby & Ortman, 2015; U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). We are becoming more integrated worldwide and more diverse domestically.
Studies of the news industry have found people learn about diverse cultures and perspectives through the news media (Hannerz, 2004; Lippmann, 1922; Tuchman, 1978). Journalists, however, have been criticized for their inability to effectively and accurately report about cultures and perspectives that differ from their own (Brennen & Duffy, 2003; Davis & Kent, 2013; Friedman & Hoffman-Goetz, 2006; Ibrahim, 2003; Natarajan & Xiaoming, 2003). Some practitioners and scholars have advocated for a new approach to journalism that is more inclusive of diverse perspectives and has the potential to enhance our understanding of others (Davis & Kent, 2013; Gans, 1980, 2011; Hallin & Briggs, 2015).
For students learning about the craft of journalism, the concepts taught include objectivity, fairness, accuracy, and a code of ethics, which are related to the traditions of the profession and the socialization of reporters (Folkerts, 2014; Mari, 2015). Today, the instruction of multimedia and digital skills has been added to most journalism programs (Creech & Mendelson, 2015; Kelley, 2007). Above all, the notion of public service and journalism’s role in democracy have underscored the evolution of the profession and its accompanying curricula (Deuze, 2006; Lowe & Stavitsky, 2016; Mari, 2015). Because reporting is grounded in public service and is so closely intertwined in its community and the world at large, a journalism curriculum needs to “define ways to culturally and thematically contextualize its program” (Deuze, 2006, p. 27).
One way to bridge differences in cultures is through “cultural competence,” a relatively new concept that has been embraced by an increasing number of professions, including social work, psychology, public relations, second-language training, business, government, education, and health care. Cultural competence involves the extent to which individuals develop the awareness, knowledge, and skills necessary to understand and work effectively with people from a variety of cultures (D’Andrea, Daniels, & Heck, 1991; Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992). Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development features a National Center for Cultural Competence (2016), while the National Association of Social Workers (2001) has developed a policy that “charges social workers with the ethical responsibility to be culturally competent” (p. 7). Cultural competence programs also have proliferated in U.S. medical schools in response to increasing national diversity and mandates from accrediting bodies (Kripalani, Bussey-Jones, Katz, & Genao, 2006).
While cultural competence during the past several decades has been expanding in use and credibility, the concept also has been criticized as vaguely defined, inconsistently measured, and missing important perspectives (Herman, Tucker, Ferdinand, Mirsu-Paun, Hasan, & Beato, 2007; Kocarek, Talbot, Batka, & Anderson, 2001). Others criticisms include that the concept does not address dimensions such as power, structure, and positionality (Dean, 2001; Jenks, 2011; Suzuki, McRae, & Short, 2001). Still other scholars maintain the concept actually narrows the concept of culture and can lead to stereotyping (Lee & Farrell, 2006).
This study seeks to address criticisms about the concept as it attempts to determine the factors that influence the cultural competence of university students learning journalism skills through a community journalism project. By studying cultural competence in relation to student journalists and their work, we can gain new knowledge about the concept and its potential to be included in journalism curricula, increase the possibility that community news reporting will be more inclusive of diverse perspectives, and potentially enhance our understanding of others and ourselves.
Community, Community Journalism, and Cultural Competence
The concept of community is multifaceted and difficult to define. An early definition of community is that it is a master system encompassing social forms and cultural behavior in interdependent systems or institutions (Arensberg & Kimball, 1972). Lowrey, Brozana and Mackay (2008) defined community as a process of negotiating shared symbolic meaning and noted that community media aid this process by “both encouraging pluralism and offering cohesive, coherent representations of the community” (p. 1). Community also has been defined as existing in the abstract, where there is a sense of commonality among people, and in the concrete, where specific groups of people connect over certain circumstances or interests (Christensen & Levinson, 2003).
Further distinctions among communities can be found in the Encyclopedia of Community (Christensen & Levinson, 2003) and in an essay published by Hatcher and Reader (2012), which distinguish communities as proximate communities, in which membership depends on residence in a particular place; primordial communities, or those built around ethnicity or shared heritage; instrumental communities, which are developed around specific, relatively short-term goals such as political purposes; and affinity communities, which connect people by areas of common interest. Today, virtual communities, which connect people online in diverse and socially supportive ways free from geography, also thrive (Hampton, 2003).
Urban neighborhoods, which are the focus of this study, share the complexities and characteristics of community outlined above – including but not limited to proximity, shared heritage, and affinity – and often are served by community media (Janowitz, 1952). The various conceptualizations of community necessitate a need for reporters to understand and represent a community’s overlapping layers and definitions.
Community journalism historically has been characterized by small newspapers covering a specified geographical area with an emphasis on local reporting and close relationships between the reporters and audience members (Kennedy, 1974; Lauterer, 2006; Reader, 2012). The emphasis of the coverage, according to Lauterer and Reader, was on people and face-to-face interactions. The degree and implications of “connectivity” between journalism and its communities are important, particularly in the study of community journalism (Reader, 2012). This focus on community in community journalism encourages reporters to determine the priorities of local residents, as well as their concerns and perspectives on different issues (Kurpius, 1999).
Today, however, increased mobility and digital technologies have fostered the emergence of communities that are connected not by particular places, but by common interests and the distribution of information. Rather than defined by geography, community “instead becomes more about shared interests than shared locations” (Meyer & Daniels, 2012, p. 199). The structural shift from communities of place to digital, niche communities presents potential challenges for community journalism (Friedland, 2012). News organizations, local news and civic engagement could be diminished or even lost if the trend continues. This potential loss was uncovered in one study, which found local residents were mixed in their support of a new county-run digital information and media center (Mwangi, Smethers, & Bressers, 2014). While some residents strongly supported the center, others were critical of its high cost and said their lack of technical skills prevented them from participating in the center’s information hub (Mwangi, Smethers, & Bressers, 2014).
Other studies have found, however, that the new breed of online news entrepreneurs, particularly former journalists, has been primarily focused on the public service mission of covering local communities (Ferrucci, 2015; Nee, 2013). Moreover, the goal of online communities and traditional community journalists is similar: to bring people together (Meyer & Daniels, 2012). Thus, the move to online communication potentially has both deleterious and beneficial effects to community journalism.
Community and community journalism are located within the larger context of culture (Arensberg & Kimball, 1972; Deuze, 2006; Hatcher, 2012). Yet the concept of culture also has been evolving and becoming more complex over time. Over the past 140 years, anthropologists have conceptualized culture from “a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor, 1874, p. 1) to a total way of life, a way of thinking, feeling, and believing (Geertz, 1973; Rosaldo, 1993). Culture is a broad concept, one that is learned, historically situated, and continually evolving (Geertz, 1973; Rosaldo, 1993). Geertz (1973) wrote culture is a way of creating meaning and artfully described it as “webs of significance that he (man) himself has spun” (p. 5). It is characterized by change, inconsistencies, and contradictions. Moreover, individuals have multiple identities within a culture.
Anthropologists, sociologists, and other social researchers also acknowledge subcultures within larger cultures that are based on their own values and norms (Mendoza-Denton & Boum, 2015; Vigil, 2003). Another perspective involves the notion of cultures in the plural, which denotes difference and situates cultures within various contexts (Brumann, 1999; Hannerz, 1997), while cultural processes (Appadurai, 1996) also indicate difference and help to mobilize group identities. Thus, culture is a major influence within and on communities and needs to be understood by community journalists.
Cultural competence
Definitions of cultural competence vary, although most focus on “the capacity to function effectively in other cultural contexts” (Paz, 2008, p. 3). One conceptualization adapted from a definition developed by Cross, Bazron, Dennis and Isaacs (1989) states cultural competence is “a developmental process that evolves over an extended period. Both individuals and organizations are at various levels of awareness, knowledge and skills along the cultural competence continuum” (National Center for Cultural Competence, 2016, p. 1). The three main dimensions of cultural competence as used by Sue et al. (1992) and D’Andrea et al. (1991) are still used in most conceptualizations and models of cultural competence today. They are awareness of one’s own perspectives and biases (also referred to as attitudes and beliefs), knowledge about culture and cultural perspectives, and skills to interact with a variety of people belonging to various cultural groups.
While cultural competence is considered valuable in a variety of professions, some studies have associated it with positive outcomes. In research examining the effects of cultural competence training in health care, for example, cultural competence training has been related to positive patient outcomes (Lie, Lee-Rey, Gomez, Bereknyei, & and Braddock III, 2010) and the potential to reduce ethnic and racial health disparities (Lie, Carter-Pokras, Braun, & Coleman, 2012). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health and individual U.S. states now actively promote cultural competence training and approaches in health care (amednews.com, 2009; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016).
Cultural competence has not been adopted in the field of journalism in the same way other professions, particularly by the medical, mental health and social work fields, have embraced it, yet some of the goals of the journalism profession and journalism education are aligned with the concept. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics (2014), for example, states journalists should “boldly tell the story of the diversity and magnitude of the human experience. Seek sources whose voices we seldom hear” (n.p.) and to avoid stereotyping. It adds “journalists should examine the ways their values and experiences may shape their reporting” (p.1). In another example, one of the nine standards outlined by the Accrediting Council of Education in Journalism and Mass Communications (2017) is Diversity and Inclusiveness, which includes curriculum that “fosters understanding of issues and perspectives that are inclusive in terms of domestic concerns about gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation…(and) across diverse cultures in a global society” (p. 1).
In a study of 105 accredited and non-accredited journalism programs, researchers found that the relevance of diversity for all types of practitioners in mass communication and the importance of diversity in the job market were reasons why journalism programs made diversity important in their curricula (Biswas & Izard, 2009). Biswas and Izard wrote: “Cultural competence and multicultural knowledge are increasingly being demanded in the diverse, competitive environment of the job market” (p. 391). Moreover, employers also believe diversity and cultural awareness are skills sets that are vital in the communications field (Gotlieb, McLaughlin & Cummins, 2017; Herk, 2015). Herk (2015) cited surveys that found employers believe it is important for candidates to possess “knowledge related to being able to work effectively in organizations and markets that are increasingly global and diverse. This runs the gamut from ‘awareness and experience of’ diverse cultures (either inside or outside the U.S.)… to the ability to work with/get along with others from diverse cultures … to the ability to ‘operate’ in different cultural settings” (p. 5).
Factors that have been identified as contributors to cultural competence in previous research include the ability to examine one’s own prejudices and biases toward other cultures, understand the other person’s world view, and directly engage in and desire to engage in cross-cultural interactions (Campinha-Bacote, 1999); demonstration of open-mindedness, self-confidence, inquisitiveness, and maturity, as outlined in the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDT) (Doutrich & Storey, 2004); and the ability to explore and reflect on culture, racism, classism, sexism, and historical factors that might shape health behaviors (Betancourt, 2003).
The concept has largely been measured quantitatively through surveys and indices developed for cultural competence training (Delgado, Ness, Ferguson, Engstrom, Gannon, & Gillett, 2013), although some scholars have argued the concept of culture itself is complicated and best assessed through mixed methods or qualitative research methods (Johnston & Herzig, 2006; Williams, 2007). A problematic aspect of the concept is the notion of obtaining specific knowledge of cultures other than one’s own. Critics of cultural competence argue that having “knowledge” of a culture can lead to stereotyping. Some anthropologists have argued the cultural competence ultimately essentializes the complex nature of culture and could be a “backdoor to racism” (Lee and Farrell, 2006, p. 1).
The term “competence” also has been challenged (Kirmayer, 2012; Kleinman & Benson, 2006). Competence can indicate the erroneous notion that culture can be reduced to a technical skill for which professionals can be trained (Kleinman & Benson, 2006). These criticisms have led current cultural competence scholars to argue it is time to move past the concept’s “list of traits” or “do’s and don’ts” approach to cross-cultural interactions and develop an open, questioning approach with people from different cultural groups about how social, cultural, or economic factors influence their lives (Betancourt, 2006; Betancourt & Green, 2010; Jenks, 2011; Kleinman & Benson, 2006).
This research seeks to identify factors that influence the cultural competence of student journalists through a case study of undergraduate student reporters producing a community news website in a culturally diverse, urban setting. A broad operational definition of cultural competence was constructed for the study that conceptualizes cultural competence as a broad, multidimensional process and includes the three main dimensions of cultural competence tailored specifically for community journalists: awareness of one’s own cultural perspectives, knowledge of culture and cultural perspectives, and the skills and attributes to effectively and appropriately communicate, interact with, and represent people from a variety of cultures (see Appendix 1). The knowledge dimension of cultural competence was divided into two levels: 1) a broad “macro” level, which includes an understanding that collective cultural practices conform to common codes and norms, shared language, and common historical, political, social, and economic development; and 2) an understanding of an anti-essentialized “micro” level of culture, which includes complexities of culture such as that culture is not static, but a process that is constantly being constructed by people within the culture, that there are as many differences and influences within a cultural group as between different cultural groups, that cultures continually change due to internal and external influences, and that individuals can have multiple identities within the culture.
Research Questions
The theoretical underpinnings of the research include the social construction of reality, which examines how people within social groups interpret the world around them (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Schutz, 1944), and concepts related to social cognition including individual and group schema, attribution, and cognitive complexity, which address how individuals and societies construct and perceive the world around them (Fiske & Taylor, 1984; Hamilton, Devine & Ostrom, 1994). Increased attention to these matters could lead to a more culturally competent approach to journalism, which would encourage an awareness of one’s biases and could motivate a reporter to seek out alternative schemata. In addition, a higher level of cognitive complexity on the part of reporters, in which they are able to perceive diversity in opinion, grasp ambiguity, and understand that knowledge and values are contextual rather than right or wrong, will help them transcend their own perspectives or question their narrow perspectives. Support for the cultural competence of journalists also could begin a renewed discussion of issues such as the importance of providing multiple perspectives, or providing a more “multiperspectival” approach to news, as advocated by Gans (2011). Two main research questions were explored:
RQ1: What are the specific factors that contribute to the cultural competence of student community journalists?
RQ2: What specific factors hinder student community journalists’ ability to offer culturally competent news coverage?
Method
This case study is based on survey, interview, and participant observation data collected from 2007 to 2009 from student journalists working in a multimedia urban reporting lab. The lab is at a large northeastern university, where student reporters work in groups of two or three to produce multimedia news pieces about urban neighborhoods that are under-served by the mainstream media. Cultural competence was not taught as part of the course, although the students were encouraged by the professors in the lab to be open-minded, fair and accurate in their reporting about the neighborhoods. It is worth noting that student journalists are an important population to study because they represent the next generation of reporters who are likely to produce content for online publications and for culturally diverse, even global, audiences.
This research represents the second phase of a larger research study. An earlier phase of the case study involved an in-depth analysis of the reporting and news texts by two groups of student journalists covering the same urban neighborhood (Garyantes, 2012). The first phase of the study also used a multi-method approach to identify factors that influence the cultural competence of journalists. The findings included the students were able to negotiate their “insider-outsider” status in the neighborhood and the increased context provided by multimedia storytelling offered the potential to move the reporters and their news texts toward a more culturally competent approach to community journalism.
In order to further refine the factors that influence reporter cultural competence and study them on a broader scale, this phase of the research examines a wider range of the student reporters’ experiences in and perceptions of various neighborhoods, as reported through more than 200 survey responses and dozens of in-depth interviews. These data were triangulated with participant observations and interviews with news sources and neighborhood representatives, who reviewed the students’ news texts representing their cultures and communities.
Specifically, the data include 223 self-assessment surveys of the student reporters administered at the beginning and end of the semester over six semesters. The 38-question survey at the start of the semester involved closed- and open-ended questions on topics such as the student reporters’ awareness of cultural influences on themselves and others, their perceived ability to relate to and interpret individuals who have cultural perspectives different from their own, their level of knowledge about the neighborhood they covered, and their perceived ability to understand and represent the complexities of the neighborhood. The second survey was a 19-question instrument that asked closed- and open-ended questions related to the students’ experiences in the field, such as their perceived ability to represent the communities in news texts and how their perceptions of the neighborhood had changed during the semester, if at all.
The case study also included 71 randomized, semi-structured interviews with 46 student reporters, 17 news sources, 4 representatives of neighborhoods covered by the students, and 4 professors from the multimedia class. The interviews with the news sources and neighborhood representatives contained questions similar to those in the survey about the students’ ability to relate to and interpret people and cultures in the communities they covered and served as an important counterbalance to the students’ perceptions of their community interactions and resulting news texts. Moreover, the news sources and neighborhood representatives reviewed the news texts produced by the students and assessed whether they accurately and fairly represented the community and its cultures.
Within the random sample of student interviewees, 28 participant observations were conducted with 15 different student reporting groups covering 11 different neighborhoods. Participant observation has not been used extensively as a data collection method in previous cultural competence scholarship and use of this method helped refine measures for the concept. The data collected during the observations included formal, informal and non-verbal behavior and communication between the reporters and their sources, the types of sources the students sought, and the nature of the information collected during reporting.
Themes from the data were drawn using a theoretical thematic analysis approach, which uses the study’s research questions to guide the analysis and identifies, analyzes and reports patterns within data (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The analysis was conducted using a six-step approach: becoming familiar with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing the themes, defining and naming the themes, and documenting the results (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
The 223 survey respondents ranged in age from 20 to 37 years old, with 87.4% (n = 181) falling between 21 and 24 years of age. The classes contained more women than men (58.4% female, n = 128; 41.6% male, n = 91). Three-quarters of the students reported their ethnicity as Caucasian (73%, n=154), while 13.7% (n=29) reported their ethnicity as Black or African-American, 4.7% (n=10) were of mixed race, 4% (n=9) were Asian, 3.3% (n=7) were “Other,” including Russian, African, and Trinidadian, and .9 (n=2) were Hispanic or Latino.
Nearly half (43.5%, n=87) of the students reported that they came from families with annual incomes of $75,000 or more; one-quarter (24%, n=48) reported annual family incomes of more than $100,000. Nearly two thirds (63.3%, n = 133) described the community in which they grew up as suburban, one quarter (21.4%, n = 45) described the community in which they grew up as urban, while approximately 11% (n = 23) reported they grew up in rural areas. More than half of the respondents (54.1%, n = 112) said the communities in which they lived had populations of 100,000 or less; more than one quarter (28%, n =58) grew up in communities with fewer than 30,000 people.
The city in which the study took place has a population of approximately 1.5 million people, 44.2 % of whom are Black or African-American, 36.3% White, and 13.3% of Hispanic or Latino origin (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). The Census also reported that approximately 22.2% of the population is under 18 years of age and 12.4% was 65 years old and over, while the median household income from 2009-2013 was $37,192.
Factors Influencing the Cultural Competence of Student Journalists
For ease in reporting the findings, RQ1, which examined factors that contribute to the cultural competence of community journalists, and RQ2, which asked about factors that hinder the cultural competence of community journalists, were combined. The themes that emerged from the data indicated that the use of certain professional norms and routines, particularly an objective approach to reporting, contributes to a culturally competent approach to reporting. However, an over-reliance on these norms, such as solely focusing on facts and accurate information and minimizing context, is a potential hindrance to cultural competence.
The data also suggest support for a finding from the first phase of the study-that the ability to negotiate an “insider” or “outsider” status contributes to cultural competence. Empirical support also was found for the dimensions of cultural competence identified in previous research, while an absence of the previously identified factors was found to be a potential hindrance to a culturally competent approach to reporting.
Relying on Journalistic Norms and Routines: An Objective Approach
News sources, neighborhood representatives and the student reporters all indicated that objectivity in reporting helped to promote positive interactions with sources and news texts that accurately represented life in the neighborhoods. They suggested that the objective approach allowed students to step away from their own perspectives and avoid biases in order to fairly represent the reality of the cultures within the neighborhoods-an indicator of cultural competence. For example, a drug treatment counselor who had been interviewed by students reviewed their video focusing on the neighborhood’s drug market and said they had provided a fair representation of life in the community. “That’s the reality,” he said. A city resident that was interviewed as a news source for another story said:
It didn’t seem like [the reporter] had much experience with this neighborhood at all, but it didn’t seem like it made her close-minded about it or judgmental about [the neighborhood]. It doesn’t have the best reputation, but she didn’t come with pre-conceived concepts.
A neighborhood representative who reviewed student news stories about his community said the reporters had done a good job of representing life in the neighborhood and noted:
I think it’s important for reporters to open themselves up every time they do a story, to open themselves up and say, “I’m not gonna bring anything to this”…That could be difficult if you have a student who grew up in rural America and then they come to an urban setting… that’s a lot to overcome right away…. I don’t know if they teach that in classes, but I think that’s part of it.
The students themselves indicated in surveys and interviews that taking an objective approach to reporting helped them avoid bias and fairly represent the neighborhoods. For example, in open-ended responses to the survey question, “Why/Why not were you able to accurately represent life in the neighborhood through your media coverage?” the 223 respondents indicated 60 times at either the beginning or end of the semester that reliance on professional norms such as objectivity helped them to accurately represent life in the neighborhoods. Some students indicated they were able to represent the complexities of the neighborhoods by stepping away from their own perspectives and allowing others to “tell their story.” Others said they were able to represent the complexities of life in the communities by not inserting their opinions or exploiting residents in news stories, by remaining open-minded, and by asking only pertinent questions. One student reporter said in an interview: “Don’t compare it to your own culture unless that’s ultimately what your piece is about…. Try to turn off that filter in your brain that says, ‘Well, we do things differently.’”
Participant observations of student reporters in the field confirmed that they were able to interact with residents in a neutral, objective, respectful and professional way. Although common courtesy or the presence of the researcher could have influenced this dynamic, it seems that the students-as evidenced by their own comments-were exercising the norm of using an objective approach to journalism to bypass their biases and perspectives.
An Over-Reliance on Norms And Routines
Some student reporters indicated in open-ended survey responses that they were relying exclusively on journalistic norms such as an objective approach or the quest for accurate information in order to report on the neighborhoods. One student wrote in the survey, “I think I can (represent the neighborhood) well because I’m very unfamiliar with the neighborhood, that (sic) allows me to be and stay objective.” Another said he was able to represent life in the neighborhood “because being a reporter is about reporting the facts and conveying peoples’ stories to the public, even people of a differing culture. As long as one does their (sic) job accurately, this can be accomplished.”
Being unfamiliar with a neighborhood and relying on accuracy can be problematic in community news coverage, according to news sources. Sufficient context is key. An editor from a community newspaper who was interviewed by students as a news source said the facts in a student story about housing in the neighborhood were accurate, but the piece was ultimately incomplete. He said: “What it doesn’t capture is why, because there is a lot of housing stock in [the neighborhood] that is in bad shape…. It is accurate, as far as it goes. It’s quite accurate, in fact.” The editor said the story needed more context in order to get closer to the local residents’ perspective. One student reporter validated this comment when she suggested during an interview that community reporters need to go beyond facts when they’re reporting and producing news stories. She said: “I think journalists can be kind of cocky about that, like, ‘Yeah, I got all the facts.’ I think it’s more than the facts.”
Awareness of and Ability to Negotiate an “Insider” or “Outsider” Status
The ability to negotiate one’s role as an “insider” or “outsider” in a community has become complicated for community journalists. As noted earlier, community journalists historically have considered themselves part of the fabric of a community and were comfortable with an “insider” role. Yet, today’s digital environment has disrupted these traditions and the student reporters in this study represented that disruption. While some students were residents of the communities they covered, making them traditional “insiders,” most were not and considered themselves “outsiders.” Being an “outsider” meant the student reporters had to develop strategies to understand and accurately represent the communities and their cultures to other “insiders.” Moreover, because their news texts were community-focused and appeared online, they also had to explain and represent the communities to other “outsiders,” since their audience had expanded beyond the neighborhoods’ geographic boundaries.
As “outsiders,” the students said they found it difficult to understand and represent the communities they were covering. For example, when responding to the open-ended survey question, “Why/Why not were you able to accurately represent life in the neighborhood through your media coverage?,” 34 mentioned they found it difficult to represent life in the neighborhoods because they felt like “outsiders” in the communities. One student wrote: “I…feel like the people who actually live there would be better suited for the job.” Another student reporter said in an interview, “I definitely felt like an outsider…just because I’m not from around here and I think I kind of give off that, like I just…I don’t think I have the [city] vibe.” He added:
The way I feel about the neighborhood is kind of like…what happens behind closed doors…stays behind closed doors…and that’s how I feel my stories have kind of turned out…just like, OK, whatever is going on…I don’t really know…but what they put on the outside is what I can report on…what they’re willing to disclose.
It is important to note that the students raised the issue of being an “outsider” more in the beginning of the semester than toward the end of the semester. This finding indicates student reporters were finding ways to negotiate their initial “outsider” status. Students who felt like “outsiders” said in interviews and surveys that they were able to navigate this potential barrier in a number of ways, including strategies that involved skills related to cultural competence such as remaining open-minded and spending time in the neighborhood to build trust with residents. Other strategies included conducting a great deal of research about the community so they could talk knowledgeably with sources, working in groups so they felt more comfortable in the neighborhood, being open and making friends with the residents, allowing people to tell their own stories with little interference from the reporter, and gaining access to “insider” sources who could help move the journalist closer to an “insider” status. Some students said they even dressed in ways that would not immediately identify them as outsiders. Observations of students in the field revealed that some student reporters were able to negotiate an “outsider” status by being friendly with local residents and by taking a genuine interest in their lives. Two students preparing to interview a local artist in his home played with his dog for a time before beginning to set up their equipment. Another group of students interviewing residents in a senior citizens housing complex spent time looking at the ladies’ homemade crafts before and after their interviews.
There were 30 students who reported in the survey they had grown up in the city in which the study took place, and at least four students grew up in the same neighborhoods they were covering for the class. These “insider” student journalists reported the advantages of this status, such as being comfortable moving around in the community, easily generating story ideas, and being able to more quickly build trust with news sources. Yet, in some ways it was almost easier to operate as “outsiders” when acting as journalists in the community, according to these students, because they felt they would be able to be more objective and would be taken more seriously by neighborhood residents. One representative of a neighborhood covered by the students said in an interview:
I think it is important for everyone to recognize different perspectives whether you are an insider or an outsider…. It is easier as an insider as long as you understand the outsider’s perspective because that is whom you are writing for.… For an outsider, you kind of have to come at it from the back door as being able to understand the insider’s point of view without judging it. Neither one is easy.
Evidence of Previously Identified Dimensions of Cultural Competence
The most common dimensions associated with cultural competence in previous studies are awareness, knowledge and skills. The data in this study, much of which were gathered using an inductive approach, found empirical support for these previously identified dimensions of cultural competence.
Awareness of the importance of culture and one’s own cultural perspective: Some of the student journalists indicated in open-ended survey responses and in interviews they understood their perspectives about the world were due in part to their cultural backgrounds. One student wrote in the survey: “My culture, African-American, greatly impacts how I see myself in society as a whole. I attribute my background in the ways I can overcome struggles just like my ancestors overcame slavery and segregation.” Another said: “Being Jewish, culture is a really big part of my life…. So I can relate to that, for the people, the Latino people of (the neighborhood) because that they take so much pride in it and I do in my own.” While these comments reflect what anthropologists might consider a narrow view of culture-one based on ethnicity and religious beliefs-they also express an understanding of culture as conceptualized by anthropologists as the way people make sense of their lives or the ways in which people make meaning in their lives.
In some cases, a student’s self-awareness developed as a result of reporting in the neighborhoods. One student, who with her group produced a multimedia package about one neighborhood’s drug culture that one of their news sources called “impressive” and a “well-rounded, well-covered piece,” said in an interview she became aware of and changed her views of the neighborhood as a result of reporting on the story. She said:
I used to think of a drug addict as a bum, didn’t really think of them as a person, you know? And I couldn’t understand their mindset or why they would be that way. I didn’t have any sympathy for why they would do that…. But I just realized the humanness of everything…. Like [one addict and drug dealer she interviewed] grew up there his whole entire life. It’s the only thing he knew so how can you really blame him if that was the only life he was exposed to.
Lacking awareness of the importance of culture and one’s position, cultural perspectives and biases: A potential inhibitor to a culturally competent approach to community reporting was a lack of understanding on the part of the student reporters of the concept of culture, their own positions, and their own cultural perspectives. For example, 12 of the students who said in the survey that they believed their cultural backgrounds had a “very limited” or “limited” influence on their thinking and behavior said they believed this was because they were not part of a particular “culture.” One student wrote, “When you come from a place that doesn’t have culture, but rather a zip code and a lot of trees, you learn to be malleable to your present settings, since there is little ingrained ways about you.” This student seemed to believe that being part of the white, suburban culture in the United States meant she did not have a “culture” and therefore did not have a cultural lens through which she viewed the world.
Another potential inhibitor to a culturally competent approach to community reporting was the concomitant tendency to unconsciously categorize the neighborhoods and their residents into broad categories that are socially constructed or created through abstracted notions or schema. For example, one student reporter describing the mostly Latino neighborhood he was covering said in an interview:
It doesn’t feel like America, you know, it kind of feels like a foreign place cause everything is just Puerto Rican. The marquee signs are in Spanish and people are speaking Spanish, eating Spanish food – I mean Puerto Rican food – I just didn’t think that was in [the city], you know?
This student’s remarks reflected not only a lack of knowledge that Puerto Rican people hold U.S. citizenship, but also a stereotype of what it is to be “American.” The student implied that the broad, stereotyped category of “America” is non-Latino, or, more specifically, presumably speaking English and eating food that would be not associated with Puerto Rico.
Knowledge of culture and cultural perspectives: An understanding of culture, including a particular culture’s structure and history, or “macro” knowledge, as well as its complexities and contradictions, or “micro” knowledge, is tremendously important, according to news sources. In interviews and participant observations, it was found that students gained much of their macro-level knowledge through Internet research, while micro-level knowledge was gathered by spending time in the neighborhoods and talking to residents.
Regarding “micro” level knowledge, nearly all of the 46 students interviewed indicated they had developed some micro knowledge of the neighborhood during the semester; several mentioned they had come to appreciate the complexities of the neighborhood, its cultures, and the people in it. One student expressed an understanding of the need for micro-level knowledge when she wrote on her start-of-the-semester survey, “I know that there are people in the neighborhood that actually care and sometimes you just need to take a closer look at things.” Another wrote:
I’ve realized the [neighborhood] is more than a few corner bodegas and Catholic churches. There’s so much more to the Latino community there, and they’re all very willing to tell their stories. They just need people who care to listen.
Another student demonstrated an understanding of the concepts of culture, cultural competence, and the various cultures within the neighborhood she was covering when she noted it was difficult to represent her neighborhood in news texts because “there’s just so many dimensions of that neighborhood…. There’s so many different levels and I don’t even think there would be enough time for us to really do every one justice.”
Observations of students in the neighborhoods demonstrated their accumulation of a certain amount of micro knowledge. They recognized people on the street, possessed a certain level of comfort and knowledge of how to get around in the neighborhood, and were able to recognize neighborhood nuances. Some students knew storeowners and some people on the street by name. Others were able to explain cultural symbols, such as a certain type of music played by the residents or the urban symbol of sneakers dangling on telephone lines.
Lack of knowledge of culture, including its “macro” and “micro” aspects: The data also suggest, however, that the students’ micro knowledge, like all knowledge, according to Clifford (1986), was only partial. The students themselves noted there was much about the neighborhoods they did not know. Several observations revealed some of the student reporters would frequent the same people or places for stories. In some neighborhoods, there were entire sections, particularly residential sections, that students knew little or nothing about. One student noted the influence of popular culture in his neighborhood when he said he “didn’t see much” culture there because:
There’s a lot, I think there is a lot of pop culture. You know, kind of, a lot of pop culture kind of dominating the culture…. In my hometown… you see groups that carry on tradition or are creating tradition but, I think it’s hard to find.
The student was implying a conceptualization of culture based on maintaining traditions rather than culture as a changeable process that is influenced by phenomena such as popular culture. Thus, the students during their time in the neighborhoods gained some understanding of the nuances and micro levels of the local cultures. However, their micro-level knowledge was limited, which likely affected the news content they were able to produce.
Macro-level knowledge of the neighborhoods also seemed to be lacking. One news source, commenting on a student’s story about dropout rates at a neighborhood high school, said the story needed historical context to explain why some students were not attending school. She said:
If you look at deseg [desegregation] in this community, you didn’t cross Front Street if you were a person of color because you got your ass kicked… There is a culture there, so if you were a kid who went to [one local high school] or [another local high school] and would get whooped after school if you didn’t make it on the bus, you would tend not to go over there. Culturally that still exists. So people have to understand those historical perspectives.
About one-quarter (n=12) of the 46 students interviewed explicitly expressed the importance the macro-level knowledge of their neighborhood’s history in interviews, although, in some cases, they said its history was important because it was a major part of the community’s identity. Most students said they had done some research about their neighborhoods before they went out, but few had a specific understanding of a neighborhood’s history or the political and social forces that had an impact on its development. Students did not cite a particular reason for not knowing the history of a neighborhood; the historical and political context did not seem to be a priority for them.
Skills and attributes to effectively and appropriately communicate, interact with and represent a variety of cultures: Skills related to a more culturally competent approach to journalism include being able to communicate effectively and appropriately with people in a community during formal interviews and informal encounters. This effective communication includes clarity of verbal and nonverbal communication with sources and a lack of communication miscues with sources. Other skills and attributes involve being able to listen well, having empathy and respect for local residents, being able to start conversations and prompt responses from residents about local concerns, being adaptive, and having confidence when communicating with others. Some attributes and skills related to cultural competence were unique to community journalism, including interviewing a wide variety of local residents and community leaders for news stories.
Observations and interviews with students and their sources revealed that the student community reporters in varying degrees demonstrated these culturally competent skills and attributes. One news source said of a student community reporter, “My impression was that this particular writer captured the essence of our concerns here in the local community…. She listened. She listened and she asked me questions for clarification.” She praised the student’s article about a local issue because it included perspectives from “across the span of community members… She did get just about every facet that I could think of.”
The need for effective communication in order to learn about the community and its cultures was raised by another news source, who said:
Communication… a lot of people take it for granted. Just cause we know some words and we talk back and forth doesn’t mean that you’re always understanding the message that someone’s trying to give. It’s a real skill, and even if you have a reporter who’s excellent in it, you could be interviewing someone who may not be getting the message that they want out… conveying it correctly in words. So that art of communication is very important.
Lack of skills and attributes to effectively and appropriately communicate, interact with and represent a variety of cultures: In some cases, however, the student community journalists were unable to communicate effectively with sources, sometimes due to language barriers but at other times due to miscues or a misreading of the neighborhood and its culture. One news source told the story of a student who called him to talk about the issue of his neighborhood being “blighted.” He said:
I don’t even understand what the term “blighted” is. And so when you use a term like that to describe a neighborhood, you should understand how it’s used and what it means and what makes this neighborhood “blighted” and that neighborhood not “blighted.” And sometimes it’s a matter of perspective.
Other students discussed in interviews and during participant observations that relating to neighborhood residents meant getting “down to their level,” as if there is a hierarchy in place in which the students are placed above the residents, requiring them to move “down” in order to relate to them. In an interview, the community newspaper editor said, “Don’t assume that people are not cognitive, very cognitive, of issues of their lives because they don’t look middle-class or talk it. People are not dumb. People are smart about things that matter to them.”
Discussion and Implications
This research seeks to address gaps in cultural competence scholarship by applying the concept to student journalists and identifying factors that could influence their potential to adopt a culturally competent approach to community reporting. The research also aids in refining the definition and measures of cultural competence. The data revealed that the students’ use of an objective approach to journalism helped them to step away from their own cultural perspectives and effectively and appropriately interact with news sources from a variety of different cultures. Promotion of professional norms such as an objective approach to news is vital at this time in the journalism profession when reporters and user-generated content are moving away from professionalism and more toward personal expression.
Yet relying solely on certain norms such as the quest for stories, facts, and accurate information, as some students did, cannot replace the thoughtfulness that goes into becoming aware of one’s position and perception of the world, then having the willingness, if necessary, to challenge one’s attitudes and beliefs. In addition, some students minimized context in their news stories, according to news sources, which moved the texts away from a culturally competent approach to community journalism. In order to become more culturally competent, journalists would need to become aware of and transcend their biases, develop knowledge and skills to relate effectively with and represent others, and adhere to current norms.
The data also showed support for a contributing factor of cultural competence found in the first phase of the research: Students’ awareness of and the ability to negotiate one’s status as an “insider” or “outsider.” This is a particularly complicated skill for community journalists, who increasingly communicate not only locally but also globally through digital technologies. Other themes gathered through surveys, interviews, and participant observation provided empirical support for dimensions of cultural competence identified in previous research and models, i.e., awareness, knowledge and skills that influence the process of an individual becoming more or less culturally competent. The student reporters in this study demonstrated varying degrees of cultural awareness and communication skills, according to the data, but seemed to be lacking in micro-level and macro-level knowledge of neighborhoods and their cultures. Not surprisingly, a lack of any of the previously identified dimensions of cultural competence was a hindrance to a culturally competent approach to community reporting.
Evidence of the social construction of reality, schema, and attribution was revealed particularly in relation to expressed stereotypes or communication miscues with sources. The finding about students’ over-reliance on journalistic norms to represent the neighborhoods also demonstrated evidence of social construction of reality and schema. Community journalists need to go further to become aware of their own group schema, role schema, and news schema to avoid falling into biases created by abstracted, constructed expectations that are not based on experience with members of the group. A table identifying the factors that contribute to or hinder the process of a culturally competent approach to community journalism is in Appendix 2.
The findings can help journalism educators incorporate cultural competence in their curricula. Journalism educators for decades have embraced a pedagogical approach that acknowledges that students learn by “doing,” or by actually reporting, and also through theories and concepts relevant to journalism that they learn in the classroom (Folkerts, 2014). While it is likely the case that some of the awareness, knowledge and skills associated with cultural competence were learned by the students as they reported in the neighborhoods, journalism education clearly has a role in encouraging students to take a culturally competent approach to community journalism. For example, professors could place an emphasis on the macro-level aspects of culture, such as the historical and structural contexts of communities, because students seemed to be lacking in this area of knowledge. Micro-level knowledge of a community could be taught through an overview of the concept of culture. Awareness of students’ own biases and perceptions and their knowledge of culture and cultural perceptions-not just skills-also could be taught to future community journalists. In the case of the important journalistic skill of listening, for example, a culturally competent approach would ask students not to just listen to their sources, but to first examine their own perspectives so that they could take those perspectives into account while listening to someone else, and then try to remove their own filters as the person is speaking.
Future Research and Limitations
This study focused on student community reporters in one multimedia lab in one U.S. city. Future research could focus on student and professional reporters in multiple settings and in multiple countries and cultures. Additional research also could be conducted to assess how an individual’s cultural background influences one’s position on the cultural competence continuum. This would allow further investigation into issues of negotiating “insider” and “outside” status.
An important area of future research would be a close examination of the news texts produced by the students who indicated a culturally competent approach to journalism, according to the data produced in this phase of the study. While news sources and neighborhood representatives reviewed the students’ texts for this study, a closer examination seeking evidence of cultural competence in the news texts could reveal important information about how community reporters can move toward a more culturally competent approach to journalism.
This study helps to provide new significance for what it means to be a community journalist. A community journalist in today’s world needs to be able to transcend his or her cultural perspectives and dwell in the borderlands, occupying liminal spaces as neither an “insider” or an “outsider” and promoting a new norm of understanding, both of ourselves and others.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Arensberg, C. M. & Kimball, S. T. (1972). Culture and community. (Rev. ed.) Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith.
Betancourt, J. R. (2003). Cross-cultural Medical Education: Conceptual Approaches and Frameworks for Evaluation. Academic Medicine 78(6), 560-569.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Biswas, M., & Izard, R. (2009). 2009 assessment of the status of diversity education in journalism and mass communication programs. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 64(4), 378-394.
Braun, V., and Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77-101.
Brennen, B., & Duffy, M. (2003). If a problem cannot be solved, enlarge it: An ideological critique of the “Other” in Pearl Harbor and September 11 New York Times coverage. Journalism Studies, 4(1), 3-14.
Brumann, C. (1999). Writing for culture: Why a successful concept should not be discarded. Current Anthropology, 40(S1), S1-S27.
Campinha-Bacote, J. (1999). A model and instrument for addressing cultural competence in health care. Journal of Nursing Education, 38(5), 203-207.
Christensen, K.; & Levinson, D. (2003). Introduction. In K. Christensen & D. Levinson (Eds.) Encyclopedia of community: From the village to the virtual world (p. xxxvii). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Clifford, J. (1986). Introduction: Partial truths. In J. Clifford & G. Marcus (Eds.), Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography (pp. 1-26). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Creech, B., & Mendelson, A. L. (2015). Imagining the journalist of the future: Technological visions of journalism education and newswork. The Communication Review, 18, 142-165.
Cross, T. L., Bazron, B. J., Dennis, K. W., & Issacs, M. R. (1989). Towards a culturally competent system of care, Volume 1: A monograph on effective services for minority children who are severely emotionally disturbed. Washington, D.C.: National Technical Assistance Center for Children’s Mental Health, Georgetown University Child Development Center.
D’Andrea, M., Daniels, J., & Heck, R. (1991). Evaluating the impact of multicultural counseling training. Journal of Counseling & Development, 70(1), 143-150.
Davis, D. K., & Kent, K. (2013). Journalism ethics in a global communication era: The framing journalism perspective. China Media Research, 9(2), 71-82.
Dean, R. G. (2001). The myth of cross-cultural competence. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Human Services, 82(6), 623-630.
Delgado, D. A., Ness, S., Ferguson, K., Engstrom, P. L., Gannon, T. M., & Gillett, C. (2013). Cultural competence training for clinical staff: Measuring the effect of a one-hour class on cultural competence. Journal of Transcultural Nursing. 24 (2), 204-213.
Deuze, M. (2006). Global journalism education: A conceptual approach. Journalism Studies, 7(1), 19-34.
Ferrucci, P. (2015). Follow the leader: How leadership can affect the future of community journalism. Community Journalism, 4(2), 19-35.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1984). Social cognition. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
Folkerts, J. (2014). History of journalism education. Journalism & Communication Monographs, 16(4) 227-299
Friedland, L. (2012). Community journalism as metropolitan ecology. In B. Reader & J. Hatcher (Eds.), Foundations of community journalism (pp. 151-153). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Friedman, D. B., & Hoffman-Goetz, L. (2006). Assessment of cultural sensitivity of cancer information in ethnic print media. Journal of Health Communication, 11(4), 425-447. doi:10.1080/10810730600671920.
Gans, H. J. (1980). Deciding what’s news: A study of CBS evening news, NBC nightly news, Newsweek, and Time. (Rev. ed.) New York: Vintage Books.
Gans, H. J. (2011). Multiperspectival news revisited: Journalism and representative democracy. Journalism 12(1), 3-13.
Garyantes, D. M. (2012). At the community level: Cultural competence and news coverage of a city neighborhood. Community Journalism, 1(1), 47-66.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
Gotlieb, M. R., McLaughlin, B., & Cummins, R. G. (2017). 2015 survey of journalism and mass communication enrollments: Challenges and opportunities for a changing and diversifying field. Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, 72(2) 139-153, DOI: 10.1177/1077695817698612.
Hallin, D. C., & Briggs, C. L. (2015). Transcending the medical/media opposition in research on news coverage of health and medicine. Media, Culture & Society, 37(1), 85-100.
Hamilton, D. L., Devine, P. G., & Ostrom, T. M. (1994). Social cognition and classic issues in social psychology. In P. G. Devine, D. L. Hamilton, & T. L. Ostrom (Eds.), Social cognition: Impact on social psychology (pp. 1-13). San Diego, CA: All Academic Press
Hampton, K. N. (2003). Neighboring. In K. Christensen & D. Levinson (Eds.) Encyclopedia of community: From the village to the virtual world (pp. 978-983). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Hannerz, U. (1997). Borders. International Social Science Journal, 49(154), 537-548.
Hannerz, U. (2004). Foreign news: Exploring the world of foreign correspondents. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Hatcher, J. A. (2012). Community journalism as an international phenomenon. In B. Reader & J. Hatcher (Eds.), Foundations of community journalism (pp. 241-254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Hatcher, J.A., & Reader, B. (2012). Foreword: New terrain for research in community journalism. Community Journalism, 1(1), 1-10.
Herman, K. C., Tucker, C. M., Ferdinand, L. A., Mirsu-Paun, A., Hasan, N. T., and Beato, C. (2007). Culturally sensitive health care and counseling psychology: An overview. The Counseling Psychologist 35(5), pp. 633-649.
Ibrahim, D. (2003). Individual perceptions of international correspondents in the Middle East: An obstacle to fair news? Gazette: The International Journal for Communication Studies, 65(1), 87-101.
Janowitz, M. (1952). The community press in an urban setting: The social elements of urbanism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Jenks, A. C. (2011). From “list of traits” to “open-mindedness”: Emerging issues in cultural competence education. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 35, 209-235.
Johnston, M. E., & Herzig, R. M. (2006). The interpretation of “culture”: Diverging perspectives on medical provision in rural Montana. Social Science & Medicine, 63, 2500-2511.
Kelley, B. (2007). Teaching journalism. Communication Research Trends, 26,(2), 3-25.
Kennedy, B. M. (1974). Community journalism: A way of life. Ames, Iowa: The Iowa State University Press.
Kleinman, A., & Benson, P. (2006). Anthropology in the clinic: The problem of cultural competency and how to fix it. PLoS Medicine, 3(10), 1673-1676.
Kocarek, C. E., Talbot, D. M., Batka, J. C., & Anderson, M. Z. (2001). Reliability and validity of three measures of multicultural competency. Journal of Counseling & Development, 79, 486-496.
Kripalani, S., Bussey-Jones, J., Katz, M.G., & Genao, I. (2006). A Prescription for Cultural Competence in Medical Education. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21(10), 1116-1120.
Kurpius, D. (1999). Community journalism: Getting started (Third edition). Washington, D.C., Community Journalism.
Lauterer, J. (2006). Community journalism: Relentlessly local. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Lie, D., Carter-Pokras, O., Braun, B., & Coleman, C. (2012). What do health literacy and cultural competence have in common? Calling for a collaborative health professional pedagogy. Journal of Health Communication, 17, 13-22.
Lie, D. A., Lee-Rey, E., Gomez, A., Bereknyei, S., & and Braddock III, C. H. (2010). Does cultural competency training of health professionals improve patient outcomes? A systematic review and proposed algorithm for future research. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 26(3), 317-25. doi: 10.1007/s11606-010-1529-0
Lippmann, W. (1922). Public opinion. New York: MacMillan.
Lowe, G. F., & Stavitsky, A. G. (2016). Ensuring public service news provision in the era of networked communications. The International Communication Gazette, 78(4), 311-329, DOI: 10.1177/1748048516632163.
Lowrey, W., Brozana, A., & Mackay, J.B. (2008). Toward a measure of community journalism. Mass Communication and Society, 11, 275-299.
Mari, W. (2015). An enduring ethos: Journalism textbooks and public service. Journalism Practice, 9(5), 687-703. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2014.972078.
Mwangi, S. C., Smethers, J. S., & Bressers, B. (2014). If you build it, will they come? An exploratory study of community reactions to an open source media project in Greensburg, Kansas. Community Journalism, 3(1), 72-86.
McNulty, S. (2009, March 6). ExxonMobil sticks to investment plans despite downturn. Financial Times, p. 14.
Mendoza-Denton, N., & Boum, A. (2015). Breached initiations: Sociopolitical resources and conflicts in emergent adulthood. Annual Review of Anthropology, 44, 295-310.
Meyer, H. K., & Daniels, G. L. (2012). Community journalism in an online world. In B. Reader & J. Hatcher (Eds.), Foundations of community journalism (pp. 199-217). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Natarajan, K., & Xiaoming, H. (2003). An Asian voice? A comparative study of Channel News Asia and CNN. Journal of Communication, 53(2), 300-314.
Nee, R. C. (2013). Creative destruction: An exploratory study of how digitally native news nonprofits are innovating online journalism practices. The International Journal on Media Management, 15, 3-22
Paz, S. (2008). Cultural competency. School Administrator, 65(10), 1-5.
Reader, B. (2012). Community journalism: A concept of connectedness. In B. Reader & J. Hatcher (Eds.), Foundations of community journalism (pp. 25-42). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Rosaldo, R. (1993). Culture and truth: The remaking of social analysis. (Rev. ed.) Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Schutz, A. (1944). The stranger: An essay in social psychology. The American Journal of Sociology, 49(6), 499-507.
Society of Professional Journalists. (2014). Code of Ethics. Retreived from https://www.spj.org/pdf/spj-code-of-ethics.pdf.
Sue, D. W., Arredondo, P., & McDavis, R. J. (1992). Multicultural counseling competencies and standards: A call to the profession. Journal of Counseling & Development, 70(4), 477-486.
Suzuki, L. A., McRae, M. B., & Short, E. L. (2001). The facets of cultural competence: Searching outside the box. The Counseling Psychologist, 29, 842-849.
Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news: A study in the construction of reality. New York: Macmillan.
Tylor, E. B. (1874). Primitive culture: Researches into the development of mythology, philosophy, religion, language, art and custom (First American, from the Second English Edition, Vol. I). New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Vigil, J. D. (2003). Urban violence and street gangs. Annual Review of Anthropology, 32, 225-242.
Williams, C. C. (2007). Mixed-method evaluation of continuing professional development: Applications in cultural competence training. Social Work Education, 26(2), 121-135.
Appendix 1: Proposed Operational Definition of Dimensions and Potential Factors Influencing the Cultural Competence of Community Journalists
Awareness of One’s Own Cultural Perspectives
Knowledge of Culture and Cultural Perspectives
Skills and Attributes to Effectively and Appropriately Communicate, Interact with and Represent a Variety of Cultures
Awareness of one’s own position, cultural perspectives, and biases, including:
Knowledge of macro aspects of culture and particular cultures, including:
Being able to communicate effectively and appropriately with culturally diverse news sources, including:
· Understanding by the student community journalists that they were raised in a particular culture with a language, history, power and economic relations with other counties, and particular beliefs and values
· Knowledge that cultures are broadly defined, complex and continually changing
· Sending and receiving of messages appropriately and effectively—assessed through the clarity of verbal and nonverbal communication with sources, a lack of communication miscues with sources, and listening
· Understanding by the student community journalists of their more specific, individual cultural influences, which are related to socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, education level, religion, age, political ideology, and geography
· Knowledge of particular cultures’ history, political, economic, and political structures, and specific beliefs and values
· Demonstrating attributes and skills such as empathy, respect and nonjudgment of people from different cultures. Communication skills and attributes include being open-minded, adaptive, and able to obtain and reflect multiple and diverse perspectives
· Knowledge of local language(s)
· Maintaining a questioning approach with news sources, including in regard to cultural perspectives
Knowledge of micro aspects of culture and particular cultures, including:
· Seeking out a news sources from a variety of cultural backgrounds
· Knowledge of the nuances of cultures, including its cultural cues, variation of behaviors and beliefs of individuals within particular cultures, and understanding that individuals have multiple identities within cultures
· Negotiating “outsider” status, such as gaining access to “insider” sources or using the advantages of being an “insider”
Producing news texts in a way that represents the complexities of cultures and communities for a mass media audience, including:
· Creating news texts that avoid stereotypes and that provide context for the way in which people make sense of their lives
· Producing news stories in ways that acknowledge the perspective(s) offered ultimately reflect a partial truth
· Producing a wide variety of stories
· Producing news texts that express the news sources’ perspectives
Appendix 2: Contributing and Hindering Factors of a Culturally Competent Approach to Community Journalism*
Use of Journalistic Ethics, Norms, and Routines
Contributors to Cultural Competence
Hindrances to Cultural Competence
Relying on journalistic ethics, norms, and routines, such as striving for an objective approach, which helps to remove community reporters from their cultural positions
Over-relying on journalistic ethics, norms, and routines such as objectivity and accuracy without the thoughtfulness that goes into becoming aware of one’s position and perception of the world, then having the willingness, if necessary, to challenge one’s attitudes and beliefs
Ability to Negotiate an “Insider” or “Outsider” Status
Contributors to Cultural Competence
Hindrances to Cultural Competence
Being able to negotiate “outsider” status
Not being able to negotiate “outsider” status
Gaining access to “insider” sources who could help move the journalist closer to an “insider” status
Not making use of the advantages of being an “insider”
Using the advantages of being an “insider”
Awareness of Culture and Self
Contributors to Cultural Competence
Hindrances to Cultural Competence
Having an awareness of the importance of culture and one’s position, cultural perspectives, and biases
Lacking awareness of the importance of culture and one’s own position, cultural perspectives, and biases
Knowledge of Other Cultures and Cultural Perspectives
Contributors to Cultural Competence
Hindrances to Cultural Competence
Developing a macro knowledge, such as understanding of the complexity of culture and understanding particular cultures’ historical, political, and socioeconomic context
Lacking macro knowledge, such as the complexity of culture and particular cultures’ historical, political, and socioeconomic context
Developing micro knowledge, such as recognizing nuances, contradictions, and various perspectives within particular cultures, as well as grasping similarities and differences within the culture and among various cultures
Lacking micro knowledge and understanding and representing particular cultures in oversimplified and stereotypical ways
Skills to Interact With and Represent a Variety of Cultures
Contributors to Cultural Competence
Hindrances to Cultural Competence
Demonstrating skills and attributes such as an ability to listen, as well as open-mindedness, respect, nonjudgment of people from different cultures, and a lack of communication miscues
Lacking the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with culturally diverse news sources
* It is important to note that some elements within the factors that influence cultural competence overlap. For example, skills that influence knowledge of the “Other,” such as effective communication, also can be listed as a skill to interact with and represent a variety of cultures or used to negotiate an “outsider” status in the community. In these cases, a decision was made to include an element within the factor in which it operated most strongly or where it seemed most appropriate.
About the Author
Dianne M. Garyantes, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of journalism at Rowan University.
