Decolonizing Conflict Journalism Studies: A Critical Review of Research on Fixers

Kotišová, Johana; Deuze, Mark

doi:10.1080/1461670x.2022.2074871

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…These findings not only add to existing research on the value of media professionals' emotions and affective proximity in their knowledge-building practices (Al- Ghazzi, 2023;Stupart, 2021) but also shed new light on hierarchies in conflict reporting and journalism in general (Creech, 2018;Kotišová and Deuze, 2022;Shome and Hegde, 2002). The dominant journalistic professional ideology that values disinvolvement, distance, and detachment and insists on the individual and purely intellectual epistemology of journalism (Godler et al, 2020;Deuze, 2005;Tuchman, 1972;Ward, 2010), side-lines, fears or dismisses the (emotional) input of locals in conflict-ridden regions (Al-Ghazzi, 2023).…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 52%

The epistemic injustice in conflict reporting: Reporters and ‘fixers’ covering Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine

Kotišová

2023

Journalism

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This paper investigates the epistemic injustice in conflict reporting, where foreign parachute reporters collaborate with local producers and ‘fixers.’ Drawing from existing research on ‘fixers’ and other media professionals covering conflict zones and the philosophy of emotion and knowledge, I address the following questions: What is the role of local and foreign media professionals’ affective proximity and professional distance in the social epistemology of conflict news production and the epistemic hierarchy among the collaborators? What implications is this particular social epistemology believed to have for conflict reporting accuracy and ethics? Based on 36 semi-structured to in-depth interviews with foreign and local media professionals covering Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine and further online and offline contact with the Ukrainian ecosystem of foreign/conflict news production, I argue that the collaboration between foreign and local media professionals is sometimes marked by identity-prejudicial credibility deficit granted to local media professionals because of their affective proximity to the events they cover. This epistemic injustice mirrors other power vectors and the dominant journalistic professional ideology that values disinvolvement, distance, and detachment. In practice, the (local) media professionals’ affective proximity to their contexts is often appreciated as embodied knowledge beneficial to the nuance, accuracy, and ethics of journalistic practices and outcomes.

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Section: Conclusion and Discussionsupporting

confidence: 52%

The epistemic injustice in conflict reporting: Reporters and ‘fixers’ covering Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine

Kotišová

2023

Journalism

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“…For the geocultural and geopolitical schisms persisting in the cosmpolitanized and cosmpolitanizing configurations of local-foreign news work can be clarified upon investigation, and their evidentiary basis laid bare. Both empirically and theoretically, then, future investigations that approach local-foreign news work through a post-Bourdieusian, transnational perspective can provide a more holistic view of the inequities attendant to such work, placing the inequalities in "content, finance and safety," consistently remarked upon in recent studies (Kotišová and Deuze, 2022), within a broader frame. 10 In this manner, inquiry into the precarity of fixers and local journalistswhether in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Ethiopia, or indeed in the United Stateswill only gain in its critical force.…”

Section: Questioning the Field: Cosmopolitan Concernsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Straddling borders in the production of news Kotišová and Deuze (2022) argue that much research on news fixers suffers from a tendency to essentialize divisions between journalist and fixer, East and West, powerful and powerless, in its assessment of international news production. While recognition of such dichotomies can bring awareness toand indeed challengethe inequalities present in news fixing and other forms of local-foreign news work, the authors contend that this recognition can also naturalize those distinctions underwriting the power relations at work.…”

Section: Recognizing An Invisible Journalistic Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Put otherwise, scholarly description of the sharp differences between local and foreign, powerful and powerless, journalist and fixer, displaces the ambivalence that characterizes local news work and, thereby, fails to deconstruct the way that power depends upon such differences for marginalizing competing orders of knowledge-making. 3 The critical intervention of Kotišová and Deuze's (2022) provides a useful entry-point for discussion of the limits of the existing scholarship on local-foreign news work and the possibilities available for deepening future research. In this context, we believe it is useful to recall Hannerz's (2004) distinction between two types of foreign correspondents: "spiralists," on the move between places, and "settlers," based long-term in a single locale.…”

Section: Recognizing An Invisible Journalistic Relationshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Straddlers not spiralists: Critical questions for research on fixers, local-foreign news work, and cross-border journalism

Blacksin

Mitra

2023

Journalism

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This article challenges current trends in the study of fixers and other forms of “local-foreign news work” through discussion of questions crucial to future investigations. Responding to Kotišová and Deuze’s call to complicate the existing “repertoire of concepts, theories, and epistemic categories” now in use in scholarship on fixing (2022: 1172), we provide theoretical frameworks relevant to, but thus far unutilized by, this scholarship. Considering local-foreign news work as a process of straddling political, cultural, and epistemic boundaries allows us to interrogate the conceptual binaries operating in the relevant research, such as west/nonwest, local/foreign, fixer/journalist. By engaging the liminality of local journalistic labor, this article brings into relief dynamics often obscured in current studies, namely, the impact of race and gender identities, and the post-colonial contexts within which much local-foreign news work takes place. Attention to these dynamics challenges the conceptual divisions upon which studies of cross-border journalism often rely, while revealing the consequential – and boundary-defying – positionality of local news workers. Finally, examination of the “cosmopolitanism” of local-foreign news work, and the “situatedness” of the knowledge produced by local news workers, serves to thicken scholarship on the topic in ways that deactivate essentialisms, deepen empirical foundations, and address problematic configurations of power critical to the study of news production today. By diversifying the research queries we pose, and the theoretical perspectives we employ, future research can better account for the dynamism of local-foreign news work in the contemporary global news landscape.

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“…This emotional impact led to what Al-Ghazzi (2023) refers to as affective proximity to the political cause, which led some journalists to become advocates for the people they were covering. According to Kotišová (2023), affective proximity among journalists covering traumatic events in their communities means they are less strict to maintain objectivity and unwilling to separate their professional and personal lives, which adds another layer to the emotional toll of witnessing violence firsthand.…”

Section: Journalism and Traumamentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness of Trauma-Focused Education and Attitudes Toward Incorporating Trauma-Focused Education in Curricula Among MENA Journalism Educators

Izzeldin Malik,

Boudhane,

Alafranji

et al. 2023

Journalism & Mass Communication Educator

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This article reflects the perspectives of journalism educators responsible for preparing journalists for careers in the Middle East and North Africa region, which has received little attention in trauma education research. A survey with quantitative and qualitative questions is used to reflect opinions of 101 journalism educators from Algeria, Sudan, and Palestine on journalism trauma-focused education and to elicit their attitudes toward incorporating trauma education into their institutions’ journalism curricula. The findings revealed that journalism educators are particularly cognizant of the role of trauma in journalism practice and the relevance of incorporating trauma education elements into journalism curricula. Journalism educators have identified a number of barriers to incorporating trauma into their institutions’ journalism curricula, as well as various perspectives on how to incorporate trauma-focused education into journalism curricula, which could call for changing how journalism is taught in their respective institutions. The study establishes a methodological foundation for other scholars to use when investigating triangulation (or the lack thereof) among educators, students, and practitioners in their own communities.

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Decolonizing Conflict Journalism Studies: A Critical Review of Research on Fixers

Cited by 12 publications

References 54 publications

The epistemic injustice in conflict reporting: Reporters and ‘fixers’ covering Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine

The epistemic injustice in conflict reporting: Reporters and ‘fixers’ covering Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine

Straddlers not spiralists: Critical questions for research on fixers, local-foreign news work, and cross-border journalism

Awareness of Trauma-Focused Education and Attitudes Toward Incorporating Trauma-Focused Education in Curricula Among MENA Journalism Educators

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