Author: Ma Liming (Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan University);Miao Yuxin (Master student, School of Journalism and Communication, Jinan University).
*: Young Journalists, Issue 17, 2023.
Introduction: Starting from the three dimensions of academic logic, business logic and traffic logic, this paper analyzes the different projections of the current journalism major in terms of scientific research, practice and social effects, and points out that the journalism major should break through the limitations of traffic logic, revisit the discipline and humanistic values, and highlight its irreplaceability in public life.
Some time ago, the topic of "don't apply for journalism" by Internet celebrity Zhang Xuefeng continued to ferment, and developed into a multi-dimensional public discussion of "what is the value of journalism", and the main contradiction of journalism has also become the focus of public attention. Although Zhang Xuefeng, the main trigger of the conflict, has limited knowledge of the journalism profession, as the incident unfolded, many professionals joined the discussion, including many controversial voices on topics such as "whether a large number of fans means high journalistic professional ability". Many endogenous contradictions in the journalism profession have also been placed in the public arena, to the point where they have to be taken seriously.
As journalism scholars, we may wish to reflect on ourselves in multiple dimensions in the face of the current controversy in the public sphere of journalism to clarify the contradictions and problems. With the advent of the online society, the journalism profession has been facing the challenges of the times. What kind of news products does society expect?Can our teaching methods be adapted to the requirements of the press unit?Is there a disconnect between our academic and research discussions and the cultivation of journalism?Does the logic of traffic in the Internet environment hurt journalism itself?These unanswered questions in journalism have always puzzled researchers and students, and it is indeed necessary to clarify them one by one. This paper attempts to reflect on the root causes of the dilemma of journalism from three dimensions: academic logic, business logic and traffic logic.
Academic logic. Driven by new technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and VR AR, the news industry is facing the impact of intelligent media[1], and it is urgent for the support and contribution of the academic community. The field of journalism has developed rapidly in recent years, and research in different fields has shown a thriving side. The rich and diverse theoretical frameworks and research methods brought about by the cross-integration of different disciplines have enriched the knowledge system of journalism and provided a more comprehensive research perspective for journalism. However, at the same time, the disadvantages of subdivision of professional directions are gradually revealed, and there is a gap between different research directions in the journalism field, which affects the exchange and cooperation between research fields to a certain extent, and also affects the systematic construction of disciplines. The multi-modularization behind this "hundred flowers blooming" has also brought hidden worries to the healthy development of the discipline. In the follow-up discussion of Zhang Xuefeng's remarks, the journalism community was criticized for being "ungrounded".
1) Academic prosperity: the iteration of knowledge brought about by the integration of disciplines.
With the advancement of globalization and digitalization, international organizations such as the International Communication Association (ICA) have gradually developed and expanded, and Chinese scholars have become more aware of the importance of interdisciplinary research [2]. The advancement of digital technology and the standardization of research methods have provided more possibilities for data collection and analysis, and created conditions for in-depth research on the mechanism and effect of news dissemination. Globalization and digitalization have brought convenience to the rapid flow and sharing of information, accelerated the dissemination and exchange of knowledge in the academic community, and created a better environment for the integration of disciplines. Interdisciplinary research not only enriches the knowledge system of journalism, but also provides more diverse perspectives and more effective solutions for the news industry. James Carey believed that journalism should be linked to the social sciences such as politics, literature, history, art, and philosophy[3]. In addition to the humanities and social sciences, in recent years, the subdivisions of journalism research have been further integrated with computer science, statistics, and even medicine. A group of scholars with different disciplinary backgrounds have emerged in the field of journalism, and they have injected new vitality into the development of journalism.
With the increasing number of research objects, the journalism community attaches more importance to the iteration and innovation of knowledge, and the integration of disciplines has become a key factor to promote the development of journalism research. The resulting multiple theoretical frameworks and research methods have transcended the traditional paradigm of journalism and given rise to a series of new theories and concepts, such as artificial intelligence, metaverse, virtual anchors, etc., which have become the frontiers of journalism and communication research. The convergence of different disciplines provides journalism with a variety of discussion perspectives and research tools. The media effect theory of communication, the social constructivism of sociology, and the cognitive processing theory of psychology have provided different references for the theoretical system of journalism, and the interdisciplinary integration has stimulated the emergence of new research fields and topics. However, the current convergence of disciplines has also made the knowledge system of journalism more complex and large, and scholars are faced with the challenge of grasping and integrating these huge research results. At the same time, some studies overly pursue the diversity of theories and methods, thus ignoring the in-depth research and application of practical problems.
2) Academic "islands": communication barriers caused by multiple modules of knowledge production.
The multi-point flowering of academic research on journalism and communication has led to the academic prosperity in the Internet era, but the academic prosperity is based on the "structural poverty" of the journalism community[4], and the external prosperity lacks a strong foundation. As a comprehensive discipline, journalism needs to learn from and absorb the research results of other disciplines in order to improve its own theoretical system. However, information barriers and communication barriers between different research fields limit the integrity and systematization of the journalism profession. Although it is "flourishing", there are structural deficiencies at the root, that is, the differences in research objectives, methods and theories in different subdivisions of research fields, which lead to the problem of communication barriers within the discipline. As a result, many studies have gradually drifted away from the journalism profession itself, and even formed a corresponding academic "island effect" [5], and the "loose knowledge" formed by the development of academic multi-modules cannot be effectively converged and cannot be applied in various research fields at the same time.
There are many reasons for academic silos. First of all, the subdivision and specialization of research fields make scholars more focused on their own fields and lack attention and interest in other directions. Secondly, differences in research methods and terminology between fields also lead to communication difficulties. Thirdly, the academic evaluation system and publication mechanism also reinforce the phenomenon of academic "silos", and scholars are more inclined to pursue results in their own familiar fields, while ignoring exchanges and cooperation with other research fields. At the same time, this "silos" also lead to a lack of dialogue with the industry. One scholar lamented: "The issues discussed by theoretical researchers seem to be drifting more and more away from the reality of the journalism and communication industry, and the scene of smooth dialogue between academia and industry around common issues in the 1990s has become increasingly scarce." ”[6]
3) Academic integration: Seek internal consistency between different fields.
Academic integration is an effort to seek internal consistency between different research fields, and it is necessary to establish a common theoretical framework and research methods on the premise of overcoming cognitive differences and theoretical gaps. Due to the abundant content of the knowledge produced by the journalism profession but the lack of systematization, there are great differences in the research approach, and only through the exchange between fields can the research results and methods of different modules learn from each other, stimulate new research ideas and innovations, broaden the horizons of journalism research, and promote the development and progress of academics. As an academic community, it is particularly important for different fields within the discipline to learn from each other in order to construct an independent knowledge system of journalism [7]. Finding internal coherence can help improve the comprehensive ability of scholars, promote exchanges and cooperation between different research fields in academic dialogues, and scholars can learn from the experience and methods of other disciplines, provide a more comprehensive and in-depth perspective for the development of the journalism profession, further break down the barriers of disciplines, promote cross-integration and innovation between disciplines, and bring richer and more diverse perspectives to academic research. For the overall construction of the discipline, it is more necessary to organically assemble the research of different modules and systematize the knowledge into a complete "knowledge map".
What's more, this clear knowledge map is very urgent for teaching. Due to the lack of guidance, journalism students are often confused and unable to understand the interconnections between the different modules, thus grasping the subject as a whole. If we regard the multi-module exploration as an interdisciplinary adventure in journalism, it is a kind of "exodus", and at present, this kind of outward exploration has not ushered in the "return" that everyone expects. Therefore, we urgently need to carry out academic integration and reintegrate the journalism profession into its internal consistency, so that teachers and students can once again accurately touch the core academic logic of the journalism major.
Business logic. From the perspective of business logic, the current teaching of journalism is suspected of being ungrounded, and the level of graduates cannot meet the expectations of the news industry. The gap between journalism and the profession that has existed over the past decade is all the more important to look at today. Journalism scholar Chen Yuanyuan's article "Why Journalism Scholars Don't Get Close to the Media" takes the initiative to reflect on this situation, pointing out that this has led to "the widening gap between academia and industry, the lag of teaching content behind the development of the industry, the lack of professional belief of journalism students, and the detachment of academic research from reality to fiction" [8]. Due to the multi-module trend of academic research, the curriculum of journalism is generally diversified and aims to cover every sub-field of academic research, which has led to a lack of focus in journalism teaching. In terms of news business training, due to the excessive concentration on sub-field learning, the core skills of students in news business logic, "gathering, writing, editing, and commenting" have not been greatly improved. Some journalists even say that "journalism majors cannot teach journalistic talents", and this issue deserves reflection in academic circles.
1) Journalism teaching: knowledge multi-modularity affects core skills.
The multi-modularity that results from academic prosperity broadens students' horizons enough to be involved in different fields. Although much of the research in the academic field has academic value, in fact, most of the research frontier knowledge is not transferable. In the eyes of the news industry, these research results may not be practical and instructive, and the application scenarios are very limited. At the same time, some of the more technically demanding research, such as social bots, has actually gone beyond the scope of news organizations. In this regard, Professor Zhang Taofu pointed out sharply: "On the surface, the scale of our knowledge is considerable, and on closer examination, it is not difficult to find that the knowledge of Chinese journalism is 'fat'. Many problems in the practice of journalism and communication are not effectively supplied with knowledge and theory. ”[9]
For the journalism industry, the most important students' abilities are still the "old four": gathering, writing, editing, and critting. In general, writing ability is still the core competitiveness of journalism students and even humanities and social science students as a whole. For a long time, journalism graduates have been synonymous with excellent "pen sticks", which is also one of the important expectations of journalism students in society. However, due to various reasons, the number of students with strong literary literacy and writing skills in journalism majors has been greatly reduced, and they lag behind other humanities and social science majors in terms of comprehensive reading reserves. This cannot be blamed on the lack of effort on the part of current journalism students, but on the fact that they are facing the sudden era of "everything is a medium", and such a huge amount of knowledge has squeezed out their limited reading time.
At the same time, the intelligent and networked development of journalism has also made the teaching of journalism "out of focus". New technologies, new concepts, and new paradigms are constantly impacting the discipline of journalism, and students are also dizzying. Students are tired of chasing research hotspots such as short ** and chatgpt, lack academic determination, and often "pick up sesame seeds and lose watermelon". To be sure, there is nothing wrong with the curriculum, but the scope of the subject is too large and the system construction is insufficient, which leads to "indigestion" for students. Under the myth of "I want to learn this, I want to learn that", the core skills have been abandoned.
2) Journalism practice: The obstruction of internship pathways affects the ability to improve.
As a highly applied discipline, journalism practice is an irreplaceable and important supplement to journalism teaching. The journalism schools of many colleges and universities have connected with some places to create "internship bases" and "internship platforms". There are also many colleges and universities that are constrained by their geographical location or lack of relevant resources, and fail to provide students with first-class practice opportunities. In addition, the development difficulties in some places** are also an important reason for the impact of student internships. As a result, many students do not get promoted in "learning by doing", so they do not reflect enough competitiveness after graduation.
In the case of limited internship opportunities, some students found another way to enter the "marketing account" of some Internet companies for internship, and learned the words of network marketing. These marketing tactics were originally contrary to the journalistic ethics of truth-seeking and truth-seeking, but in the context of media organizations not being able to provide enough internship opportunities, such marketing internships were tacitly approved by the school. Students get lost in the operation of the "marketing account", causing confusion in the pursuit of value.
3) Journalistic talents: resource misallocation and mechanism failure.
Although there are various problems in journalism education from the outside world, every year the journalism major in colleges and universities always produces a group of outstanding graduates. When faced with more choices than other students, outstanding graduates often make more rational choices out of practical considerations. According to a survey, in the past three years, less than 20% of Guangdong journalism graduates have entered ** institutions, and most of the top students have chosen to go to graduate school. Students' choices also reflect a certain value orientation, and they will choose their own direction in order to maximize their interests. Based on comprehensive considerations such as salary, working environment, and development direction, journalism is not the best choice for outstanding graduates. Fewer and fewer elite journalism graduates are choosing to go to ** organizations, so there is a serious mismatch of resources and talent.
In addition, the demand for talent in news organizations is decreasing. Major media groups have gradually entered a stage of stable development, and the phenomenon of large-scale recruitment in the past is now rare, and the number of positions recruited each year has become very limited. Seeing this reality, many journalism students began to give up on honing their skills. This fact is also reflected in the fact that students ignore the cultivation of core skills and instead devote their energy to the new cutting-edge related knowledge modules. The prosperity of the industry and academia is inextricably linked, and if the industry encounters a cold winter, the academia will also be impacted.
Traffic logic. Zhang Xuefeng said, "Why do the teachers of Xinchuan know how to spread but don't have as many fans as I do", linking news content production with traffic logic. In fact, in today's content production process, the view of "flow-only theory" has always been quite marketable, especially touted by "marketing accounts". From "100,000+" to "millions of fans", it is the embodiment of the traffic theory. The flow theory is seriously misleading about journalism education, which has formed a dwarf of news value in today's society. However, truth-seeking journalism is the "ballast stone" of society and the guardian of the public interest.
1) Distinction of traffic: The theory of traffic is a misunderstanding in journalism and the industry.
Today's network society is no longer an invisible virtual space, but a living social entity, which builds a sharing platform for e-commerce, social networking, entertainment, and capital, integrating producers and consumers, communicators and recipients, online and offline. One scholar pointed out: "Traffic defines the real world with a subtle but powerful hint that guides the way we see and understand things." [10] Therefore, in the current network society, while realizing the integration of new orders and the construction of identity, new uncertainties are also highlighted, that is, the truth is manipulated by traffic, which in turn leads to the "collapse of facts". In the midst of the uproar, the voice of truth is drowned out, which will lead to "the end of truth and objectivity, the prevalence of conspiracy theories, the crisis of political debate and even democracy"[11], and we will finally enter the post-truth era.
In the process of integration, the traditional ones have started the process of touching the net. In order to occupy the user market, the traditional media products do their best to cater to the traffic logic. Due to the transformation of new distribution channels, media fusion products are eager to establish a discourse advantage in order to compete for the right to speak online. Journalists have shifted from "earning work" to "earning traffic", and traffic has become the "baton" and "judge" of news production [12]. This has led to many media fusion products, both in form and in discourse, eager to prove themselves with online hits. Fusion media products based on the advantages of algorithms squeeze the living space of traditional **, which further exacerbates the risk of the latter being marginalized [13]. In order to cope with this situation, serious news ** has also begun to adopt the Internet culture writing method, this kind of traffic logic has also profoundly affected news education, many teachers will "explosive" as a teaching case, and many students also embrace the traffic logic prematurely.
The pursuit of traffic is not uncommon in marketization. At the end of the 19th century, the United States experienced a "yellow journalism wave", in order to pursue sales, keen to report lace news, pursue some eye-catching but lack social value news, exaggerate facts, sell the privacy of interviewees, and play side balls. This kind of "sales theory" that pursues influence and profit is the predecessor of traffic logic, which is essentially the "colonization" of the public value of journalism by market discourse. At the same time, from the perspective of journalistic ethics, this logic seriously harms the mission of journalism to pursue objectivity and truthfulness, and is a short-term behavior that overdraws credibility and is destined to be short-lived. This kind of "traffic is king" orientation is something journalism needs to be wary of. Traffic is important, but newsworthiness is even more worth pursuing. In fact, many traditional ** no longer regard traffic logic as the primary consideration, but return to the value scale of news professionalism. In a survey conducted by Guangdong's media circles in January this year, the heads of media integration such as "Nanfang +", "Yangcheng faction" and "reading special" all pointed out that they should abandon kitsch practices such as "headline party" and return to the operation mode of serious news.
2) Flow reflection: return to the professional mission from traffic logic.
The logic of traffic distorts the true face of society, but news is always an indispensable corrective force. Although in the "post-truth era", many people regard emotions as more important than the truth[14], the truth is always what the public is most eager to know. In the "rat head and duck neck incident" of Jiangxi Vocational and Technical College in early June 2023, the public is very concerned about whether the foreign body in the canteen is a rat head or a duck neck.
Professor Zhang Taofu said: "The intellectual growth of journalism and communication in China is driven by external forces. [15] The challenges of technology and the iteration of the news industry have led to the news industry taking the initiative to change the track, and even trying to cater to the traffic logic, losing its subjectivity in the process of integration, and also losing its own characteristics and competitiveness. This kind of submission and pandering will also lead to journalism students being trapped in the system of traffic logic, resulting in the lack of research on news subjectivity. What are the core values of journalism, what are the research subjects of journalism, and what is the mission of journalism......Practitioners and researchers alike are confused when confronted with such propositions, and it is even more difficult to ask students to find answers.
As a discipline with the main purpose of seeking truth and truth, journalism has always had a mission for the society, that is, to provide a value reference for the social public space and form the basis of social public opinion. Allowing the power of traffic to manipulate people's cognitive patterns and value orientations will inevitably bring about a false landscape worldThe power of journalism lies in "setting things right", dispelling the fog of false information, reconstructing online ethics, satisfying the public's pursuit of truth, and avoiding falling into the "Tacitus trap". Therefore, neither the journalism industry nor the academic community should be blindly affected by the traffic logic, but should stick to their own discipline standards, adjust the endogenous production logic internally, and improve the exogenous regulatory logic externally[16], make full use of the existing technical resources to expand channels in the context of integration, and at the same time strengthen the rational pursuit of truth by practitioners and play their due role. Over the years, there has been no shortage of high-quality in-depth reports such as Nanfeng Window, China Youth Daily, and The Paper, which have both good quality and good traffic. Some WeChat*** run by former people, such as "Daily People", "Gu Yu", "True Story Project", etc., are also known for their professional and warm in-depth reports. For example, the article "Delivery Riders, Trapped in the System" (sent from WeChat ***Daily People "September 8, 2020"), with solid research and interviews, presents the difficult state of several delivery riders in the race against data, and points out the "huge black box system" that manipulates countless riders. Truthful disclosure of reality is the core value of journalism.
Conclusion. Under the impact of traffic, the journalism community and the industry are constrained by the logic of traffic, focusing on channel management and media integration process, while forgetting the core value of news itself. The multi-modular development of academia has led to an academic boom, but this prosperity lacks a solid foundation in the context of the poverty and ambiguity of the core disciplinary framework. This multi-modular development has also affected the curriculum, resulting in an educational effect of "complete but not refined". Despite the large number of famous teachers and the wide coverage, students are only superficial in each field and cannot be as deep as political science, history, and law, which leads to the overall loss of journalism. Therefore, the "lack of subjectivity" is the core problem faced by the journalism profession at present. We have neglected the foundations of journalism, its core values and ultimate concerns, in the pursuit of diversity of forms. At a time when journalism scholars and journalists alike are confused about the professionalism of journalism, it is precisely the time when its ultimate mission should return. The pursuit of traffic supremacy often leads to a shift in the value of news reports, and the impact of this logic on the journalism profession should be fully examined. We need to think about how to restore the depth and professionalism of news reporting, uphold professional ethics and responsibility, and return journalism to the mission of disseminating truthful, objective and valuable information. What journalism majors should do is to return to their original position in the chaos of traffic, highlight their irreplaceability in public life, revisit professional values, and become the guardian of social truth in the world of traffic. And truth, in itself, is the existence of transcending traffic.
This paper was supported by the ** University Fundamental Research Funds (Grant No.: 23JNLH14).
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This article refers to the citation format:
Ma Liming, Miao Yuxin. Reflections on Journalism: Academic Logic, Business Logic and Traffic Logic[J].Young Journalists, 2023(17):42-45