The proximity paradox

Abstract

This article explores a paradox in the way journalism employs proximity in the news. Even while the practice of on-the-spot reportage has continued to increase, research offered here suggests that very little `live' reporting meets the criteria for this term. Rather, presentational devices that create the illusion of this — including digital techniques that generate a form of `virtual proximity' — have helped to produce the sense of `placelessness' that many analysts perceive in modern media. It is proposed that location in news discourse has been recodified to encompass meanings well beyond geographic significance, becoming part of journalism's bid to illustrate and embody abstract issues, being absorbed into the role a news event plays within narrative, and working as a signifier of `eyewitness' or `expert' to promote journalism's cultural authority.

Putting “Place” in the Center of Journalism Research: A Way Forward to Understand Challenges to Trust and Knowledge in News

“…From war correspondence to disaster reporting to “inner cities” coverage, audience members often watch TV in their own homes, comfortably distant from the ongoing events but nonetheless arguably content in their knowledge of them. This leads some to argue that the collapse of space and time creates simulacra that underscore the very placelessness of postmodernity (Baudrillard, 1981/1994; Huxford, 2007; Lindell, 2012). Nonetheless, how places are portrayed in the news media has significant consequences for allocations of public resources (Howe, 2009; Shumow & Gutsche, 2016).…”

“…When journalists say they are reporting live from the scene of an unfolding event, the event is often long over, however, and journalists’ proximity to the place of a news event is often more symbolic than material (Livingston, 2011; Scannell, 2014; Tuggle & Huffman, 1999). Huxford (2007) points out that journalists perpetuate what amounts to a delusion of proximity: For journalists to authentically claim they are reporting “live” from a breaking news site, they must not only be at the scene of the event, but they must also be at the scene of the event as it is happening, and this reporting must coincide with when the news is actually broadcast. The result is little reporting that it is actually live.…”

“…Simple symbolic cues like police tape suggest proximity to crime scenes or traffic accidents; and journalists’ choices of attire (windbreakers in a hurricane) serve to reinforce the illusion of what Huxford (2007) calls “temporal proximity.” However, sometimes the effort to establish on-location authority means manipulating computer graphics (e.g., green screens) instead of on location, simulacra of the real (Baudrillard, 1981/1994). On a more encouraging note, however, some scholars observe that proximity has become more important than ever before as a news value because it is a key mechanism for engaging audiences, particularly in the affective sense (Ahva & Pantti, 2014).…”

Sailing to save the planet? Media-produced narratives of Greta Thunberg’s trip to the UN Climate Summit in German print newspapers

“…Fans of Thunberg awaited the sailing crew. Locations play an important role in the plot of a story because of their ability to have a symbolic effect (Huxford, 2007 ). This can be recognised in the figurative effect of New York created in the reporting by using emotionally charged images.…”

The Image of the Czech Agriculture Based on the National Television News in the Period of Adaptation of Czechia Into the European Union: Regional Perspectives

“…One of the most important determinants of the formation of territorial images are the territorial references made by the media. Media information about individual regions affects readers, listeners, or viewers, primarily in the short term (Galtung and Ruge, 1965;Huxford, 2007).…”