Problematising the restoration of trust through transparency: Focusing on quoting

Abstract

Transparency is seen as a panacea for a major problem facing journalism and journalists today, that is, the loss of trust and credibility. However, the scholarly literature has focused primarily on normative considerations, without providing much empirical data that could confirm what are widely assumed to be the positive effects of transparency. In this paper, I argue, first, that editorial texts, in their various manifestations, are the most potent of the various established means of displaying transparency for opening up the production of news item. However, I then draw on my linguistic, process-focused research on quoting and highlight challenges this process creates for the use of editorial texts in the pursuit of transparency. It turns out that conveying the essentials of decision-making that occurs during newswriting requires profound understanding and awareness of the interplay between modalities, co-texts and contexts of language use. Finally, implementing the norm of transparency has allegedly led to the transformation of a well-intentioned goal into an institutional myth, leading journalists – constrained, for example, by the mechanism of impression management – to disclose only socially acceptable practices. Therefore, I conclude by arguing for transdisciplinary research in which scholars research ‘on, for and with’ (Perrin, 2018) other stakeholders in order to bring about a fundamental change in the culture of transparency in journalism.

The Value of Explaining the Process: How Journalistic Transparency and Perceptions of News Media Importance Can (Sometimes) Foster Message Credibility and Engagement Intentions

“…In view of the key role of credibility for fostering trust and potential engagement, an important issue to consider is what factors contribute to animating strong news message credibility. Although not universally embraced by journalists (Koliska & Chadha, 2018) or without skepticism (Allen, 2008;Haapanen, 2020), transparency is commonly touted as part of a solution to help strengthen the credibility issues underlying the often tenuous news media-audience relationship (Kovach & Rosenstiel, 2014;Weinberger, 2009). In basic terms, journalistic transparency typically entails some form of openness on the part of news outlets, both in terms of simply making information about how news is produced publicly available (if sought out) and-more proactively-directly highlighting and foregrounding such information in news content venues (Craft & Heim, 2009).…”

“…That is, deliberations often turn to how journalists might reduce uncertainty and strengthen credibility by "showing the work" through transparencybased practices and indicators. Notably, research indicates that transparency-related features within and alongside news content can be effective for fostering perceptions of credibility (Chen et al, 2019;Curry & Stroud, 2019), but the effects appear modest and are inconsistent (Karlsson et al, 2014;Masullo et al, 2021;Tandoc & Thomas, 2017), suggesting that transparency's efficacy is not universal or straightforward (Craft & Heim, 2009;Haapanen, 2020;Karlsson, 2020).…”

Dataa näkyvissä: Läpinäkyvyys algoritmien ja datan journalistisessa hyödyntämisessä

“…Sikäli kuin luottamuksen rapautuminen liittyy laajempiin yhteiskunnallisiin kehityskulkuihin, journalististen työprosessien avaaminen ei välttämättä johda luottamuksen lisääntymiseen. Lisäksi läpinäkyvyyden mahdolliset positiiviset seuraukset voivat peittyä muiden muuttujien vaikutuksiin, eivätkä tähänastiset tulokset näin ollen välttämättä täsmällisesti heijastele nimenomaan läpinäkyvyyden tarjoamia mahdollisuuksia (Haapanen 2020a).…”

“…2012;Karlsson 2010;Koliska 2015;Meier ja Reimer 2011). Tutkimuksessa nämä keinot on jaettu Taulukon 2 mukaisesti kolmeen päätyyppiin (Haapanen 2020a;ks. myös Groenhart ja Bardoel 2012).…”