Paradigm Repair and Changing Journalistic Perceptions of the Internet as an Objective News Source

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate how journalists have perceived internet 'news content' in the past decade through the lens of paradigm repair. An examination of representative anecdotes sought to shed light on journalistic reluctance to accept internet news content as 'objective' as compared to traditional media news content. This study concludes that concerted effort by journalists to repair the dominant news paradigm against incursion by the internet, while stronger a decade ago, has weakened over time.ournalists have long criticised the encroachment of technology and emerging media on their control of professional standards. The 1800s witnessed turbulent debates over the nature of news and the veracity of

Internet in the Daily Life of Journalists: Explaining the use of the Internet by Work-Related Characteristics and Professional Opinions

“…According to Ruggiero (2004), journalists were initially hesitant in accepting the Internet as a credible source due to their professional ideology. The origin of the extremely diverse Internet sources accessible is not always traceable.…”

“…Given that credibility is an important journalistic value, it is to be expected that journalists have to have a certain degree of trust in the information they find on the Internet in order to actually make use of it (Cassidy, 2007). Journalists differ in the degree to which they find the Internet a credible source (Chan, Lee & Pan, 2006; Ruggiero, 2004). As the origin of the information and therefore the credibility of the source are important factors in the selection process, these are expected to affect the decisions whether or not to use Internet information.…”

Incorrect, fake, and false. Journalists’ perceived online source credibility and verification behavior

“…These journalists are considered to be more traditional regarding their journalistic routines than those working for online media. Therefore, these journalists are expected to be more cautious using new technology and subsequently judge online information as less credible than journalists working for online media and audiovisual media (Cassidy, 2005;Deuze and Dimoudi, 2002;Ruggiero, 2004;Weaver, Beam, Brownlee, Voakes & Wilhoit, 2007). Journalists working for online and audiovisual media routinely come in contact with online information, and therefore may not explicitly question the credibility of online information.…”

Internet adoption in the newsroom: Journalists' use of the Internet explained by attitudes and perceived functions

“…Regarding the journalists' perception of the degree of Internet Information credibility (Chan, Lee and Pan, 2006;Garrison, 2000;Ruggiero, 2004), we formulated the following hypotheses:…”