Gatekeeping Breaking News Online: How Social Media Affect Journalists’ Crime News Sourcing and Dissemination in India
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GATEKEEPING BREAKING NEWS ONLINE: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA AFFECT JOURNALISTS’ CRIME NEWS SOURCING AND DISSEMINATION IN INDIA Dhiman Chattopadhyay A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2018 Committee: Louisa Ha, Advisor Jill H. Zeilstra-Ryalls Graduate Faculty Representative Srinivas Melkote Lisa Hanasono © 2018 Dhiman Chattopadhyay All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Louisa Ha, Advisor This study applies the Hierarchy of Influences Model proposed by Pamela Shoemaker and Stephen Reese, to examine how the advent of social media has affected journalistic gatekeeping practices in India, the world’s most populous democracy, identify emerging challenges for the journalism industry, and explore sustainable strategies to address these challenges. In the first phase 274 journalists from 15 Indian cities completed an online survey that examined their perceptions about social media’s usefulness and credibility as a professional tool. The survey further examined factors that influenced journalists’ news online selection decisions. In the second phase in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 print, television, and online editors from five Indian cities, to gain greater clarity and elaboration. Results showed journalists considered social media extremely useful, yet they did not trust much of the information available on such platforms. Further, while individual, organizational, and social institutional factors impacted journalists’ news selection decisions on websites, such decisions were also influenced by their perceived usefulness and credibility of social media. When sharing breaking crime news on organizational social media handles, journalists were influenced mainly by factors such as potential page views, and advertising revenues. Many editors agreed that social media was a useful tool for journalists, but said journalists were cognizant about the untrustworthy nature of such news. They suggested strategies to address emerging challenges such as investing in human resources, increasing gender and ethnic diversity in newsrooms, and providing regular social media training for journalists. iv The findings imply that factors influencing gatekeeping decisions have changed radically with the advent of social media. As news media operate in multiple platforms, breaking stories are often selected for a specific platform, depending on the story’s aptness to that platform. There were some significant differences between Indian newsrooms from their Western counterparts. Organizational and social institutional factors – two distinct stages of the Hierarchy of Influences Model – were perceived as one and the same by many Indian journalists. Editors clarified this could be because most news media owners were also large industrialists with interests in other businesses, and owed allegiance to different political parties. Organizational diktats therefore were perceived by journalists as political, advertising, and market diktats. Further, many editors felt the term gatekeeping did not adequately describe journalism in an online-first era. Social media’s ability to break news had created multiple gates that were impossible to ‘keep’. Based on their statements, this researcher proposed that today journalists and news organizations work as news-conditioners: they are unable to prevent the public from consuming inaccurate, fake or misguiding information available on various online platforms. However, their own subscribers and followers are provided the most accurate, and relevant information. Their role therefore resembles that of an air-conditioning system, providing ambient air to those within an area of influence but unable to prevent others from breathing foul air. v Dedicated to the memory of my parents, Professor Gautam Chattopadhyay, and Dr. Manju Chattopadhyay, who taught me above all to be a good person. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project could not have been completed without the help, inspiration, and collaboration of several individuals. I am extremely grateful to my advisor, and dissertation committee chair, Dr. Louisa Ha for guiding and supporting me throughout the whole process of the project – especially at times when I felt I had hit a roadblock. Thank you for believing in me, always encouraging me to submit papers to conferences, academic journals and for awards. Many of the awards and recognitions I have received in these past four years, as well as my research publications, would not have happened without her support. Thank you also for allowing me the freedom to explore new topics, and methods, and being such a rock star advisor. I owe deep gratitude too, to my dissertation committee members Dr. Srinivas Melkote, Dr. Lisa Hanasono, and Dr. Jill H. Zeilstra-Ryalls. Dr. Melkote, I came to Bowling Green, because I wrote to you, and you encouraged me to come! Thank you for being a mentor from even before I landed in the United States, for ensuring me and my family always had a ‘home’ at BG, and of course, for the many invigorating discussions on different topics during evenings at your house, and for being the taskmaster who ensured my dissertation project adhered to the high standards set for BGSU students. Dr. Hanasono, thank you for being an inspiration in so many ways – for guiding me to write on my first co-authored research paper, for being a huge support whenever I faced challenges writing my dissertation, and for showing me how to be a great teacher and researcher at the same time. I hope I can be a teacher like you. Dr. Zeilstra-Ryalls, thank you for so diligently examining my project right from the early stages, pointing out variables and factors I ought to examine, and for asking questions that encouraged me to be more rigorous in my research. vii This project would never have been completed also without the help of innumerable friends and former journalist colleagues back in India who took time out to answer the online survey, and senior editors who, despite their extremely busy schedule, agreed without any hesitation to be interviewed at odd hours and different locations. Space constraints prevent me from thanking each one of you by name here. I would also like to thank all colleagues and friends at BGSU who helped me at different stages. Thanks also to Kim Fleshman at the University Libraries for all her help formatting the final document. Last but not the least I would not be here today completing a PhD if not for my family. My wife Sriya was instrumental in encouraging me to work toward a PhD, and as a former senior journalist herself, has been a constant support, critic, guide, and editor as I wrote this project. Handling work, studies, a pre-teen son, and a cranky husband is quite a handful, and this project would not have been completed without the CEO at home. The budding communication expert in the family, our son Ishan, deserves thanks too, for making sure there were few dull moments in these four years and for showing tremendous maturity well beyond his age in allowing his father to write for hours when he would have dearly loved to play a game, or watch TV together. I hope to make it up to him in the days, months, and years ahead. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……………………… ...................................................... 1 The State of the News Media Today………………………………………….......... 1 Social and Digital Media in India…………………………………………. ............. 4 Social Media and Effects on Journalistic Practices ………………………………. 6 Purpose and Research Problem…………………………………………. ................. 9 Significance of Study…………………………………………. ................................ 11 Theoretical Significance ................................................................................ 11 Methodological Significance ......................................................................... 14 Practical Significance..................................................................................... 15 Organization of Dissertation ...................................................................................... 16 Summary .................................................................................................................... 19 CHAPTER II. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................. 21 Gatekeeping Theory ................................................................................................... 22 Hierarchy of Influences Model (HOI) in Gatekeeping .............................................. 24 Individual Level ............................................................................................. 25 Routine Level ................................................................................................. 25 Organizational Level ...................................................................................... 26 Social Institutional Level ............................................................................... 27 Social System Level ....................................................................................... 28 Journalists’ Use of Social Media ............................................................................... 31 Online-First News Uploading .................................................................................... 34 ix News Promotion on Social Media ............................................................................. 35 Social Media as News Platform: