Inside a contested profession A comparative study of journalism in Singapore and Vietnam Lehmann-Jacobsen, Emilie Tinne Publication date: 2017 Citation for published version (APA): Lehmann-Jacobsen, E. T. (2017). Inside a contested profession: A comparative study of journalism in Singapore and Vietnam. Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Københavns Universitet. Download date: 28. Sep. 2021 UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN DEPARTMENT OF MEDIA, COGNITION AND COMMU NICATION PhD Dissertation Emilie Tinne Lehmann-Jacobsen Inside a contested profession A comparative study of journalism in Singapore and Vietnam Supervisor: Stig Hjarvard Submitted: June 26, 2017 To Sune & Otto For always being there 2 3 Acknowledgements First and foremost, I wish to thank my supervisor Stig Hjarvard. His constructive feedback and insistent belief in me and my abilities to carry out this project was a constant motivation. I always looked forward to our meetings and knew I would leave encouraged and with newfound inspiration. Thank you, Stig, for rewarding conversations and an enjoyable introduction to academia. Furthermore, I am thankful for the support I received from the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, University of Copenhagen. Thank you for believing in the project and – in collaboration with Augustinus Fonden – funding the necessary field work. I also owe gratitude to the many journalists, editors, bloggers, writers, and assorted media practitioners from Singapore and Vietnam who took the time to meet with me and discuss journalism and the media environment in their respective countries. And to the many different people who helped me built up networks and recruit participants. Thank you Nadia, Thao, Chinh, Le, Jun, Sun Sun, Becky, and Birgitte. I would not have gotten as solid a dataset without your assistance. I am much obliged to professor Dang Thi Thu Huong who welcomed me at the Faculty of Journalism and Communication, VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi, and helped me with an affiliation with the university. Thank you for your hospitality and your assistance. I am truly grateful. And to professor Oscar Salemink from University of Copenhagen, Department of Anthropology, and professor Pham Quang Minh from VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi, who helped establish contact with the faculty in the first place. Much appreciation also to the people who took the time to discuss my research with me while I visited their countries: Hoang Thi Thu Ha from the Faculty of Journalism and Communication, VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi; Trieu Thanh Le from the Faculty of journalism and Communication, VNU University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hochiminh City; professor Sun Sun Lim from Singapore University of Technology and Design; and professor Ang Peng Hwa from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. My wonderful colleagues at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication should also be recognised. Thank you for rewarding and spirited discussions in research groups, in the hallway, over coffee and lunch – on anything from journalistic ideals and media legislation to the latest season of Skam. You made it enjoyable to go work every day and I benefited tremendously from our conversations. Finally, friends and family also deserve to be mentioned. Thank you for lending me your ears, your time and your attention when needed. A special thanks to my parents who indulged my endless appetite for knowledge and patiently answered my questions growing up. Without you nurturing my curiosity I probably would not have chosen this path. Above all, though, I am forever in debt to my husband Sune and son Otto, who went above and beyond in their support and not only accompanied me on field trips but also endured my absence and gave me the necessary time and space to finalise this dissertation. I could not have done it without the two of you. Needless to say, I alone am answerable to this dissertation and the errors that may remain. Copenhagen, June 25, 2017 4 5 English abstract Journalism is a contested profession. Normative assumptions based on its connection to democracy infuses a variety of expectations as to what journalists should and should not do. These norms have made it particularly difficult to discuss and study journalism in non-Western or non-democratic countries where the profession has often been defined as a Western “other” – as what it is not. This dissertation takes another approach and investigates journalism in Southeast Asia from the bottom-up leaving room for journalists’ own interpretations and understandings of their profession. Through a comparative study of journalism in Singapore and Vietnam based on qualitative interviews and extensive document research, the dissertation intends to uncover perceptions of journalism, role orientations and role struggles among journalists – though without disregarding forces conditioning the two journalistic fields. It furthermore discusses how, and to what extent, similarities between Singapore and Vietnam reflect a particular Southeast Asian model of journalism. A combination of Bourdieu’s field theory and role theory is applied to scrutinise structures of the journalistic profession on micro, mezzo and macro level. Whereas role theory works as both a discursive tool in conversations with journalists and as an analytical tool sensitive to agency processes on a micro level, field theory adds relational aspects and helps to connect the micro level analysis to macro level structures, uncovering the forces conditioning the profession. The analysis reveals political forces to be most dominating in structuring and conditioning the journalistic profession in both countries which leads the dissertation to suggest a reconceptualization of Bourdieu’s field model to account for political capital. Though economic capital and cultural capital (profession-specific forces) also conditions journalism, political forces structure the profession on a number of levels. The state’s active involvement in the profession in both countries through laws and regulation and with promotion (and to some extent enforcement) of normative scripts influence journalists’ perceptions of ideals, routinized practices and role orientations. But with different approaches to media management, the states’ interference in the two countries’ media environment manifests itself differently with Vietnam taking a more hands-on, yet inconsistent, approach compared to Singapore’s subtler self-administered approach where the media take part in enforcing rules and regulation. Although journalists in Singapore and Vietnam generally agree on many journalistic ideals (such as objectivity and facticity), practices (including similar news values) and role orientations (in particular more neutral roles), they prioritise and realise them differently – which correspond with the nature of normative expectations they are met with and the internal structures of their fields. Though the dissertation cannot, based on this study, provide evidence of the existence of a Southeast Asian model of journalism, it does find parallels between the two journalistic fields which could lead to the conclusion that they might be different reflections of similar conditioning forces or even of related media systems. These similarities might have nothing to do with the countries’ shared location in Southeast Asia but instead mirror their complex state-media relationship. In its final chapters, the dissertation therefore advocates for an expansion of Hallin and Mancini’s media system theory to account for, and differentiate between, systems characterised by strong state inference. 6 7 Dansk resumé Journalistik er i vestlig optik uløseligt forbundet med demokrati, hvilket har skabt en række normative antagelser og forventninger til, hvad journalister bør og ikke bør gøre. Disse normer har gjort det særlig vanskeligt at diskutere og undersøge journalistik i ikke-vestlige eller ikke-demokratiske lande, hvor professionen ofte bliver anskuet som en modsætning til vestlig journalistik - som alt det, den ikke er. Denne afhandling anlægger en anden tilgang og undersøger journalistik i Sydøstasien med udgangspunkt i journalisters egen forståelse og fortolkning af deres profession. Gennem et komparativt studie af journalistik i Singapore og Vietnam baseret på kvalitative interviews og omfattende dokumentanalyser har denne afhandling til formål at afdække journalisters opfattelser af journalistik, rolleforståelser og rolle-stridigheder (role struggles) – dog uden at se bort fra de journalistiske felters rammevilkår. Ydermere diskuteres der hvordan – og i hvilket omfang – ligheder mellem Singapore og Vietnam afspejler en særlig Sydøstasiatisk journalistik model. En kombination af Bourdieus feltperspektiv og rolleteori benyttes til at undersøge den journalistiske professions strukturer på mikro-, meso- og makroniveau. Hvor rolleteorien både fungerer som et diskursivt redskab i samtale med journalister og som et analytisk værktøj sensitiv overfor aktørprocesser på mikroniveau, tilfører feltteorien relationelle vinkler og kobler analyser på mikroniveau med strukturer på makroniveau. Processen afdækker desuden professionens rammebetingelser. Analysekapitlerne viser, at politiske forhold i høj grad konditionerer og strukturerer den journalistiske profession i de to lande, hvilket får afhandlingen til at foreslå, at Bourdieus originale felttegning gentænkes, så journalistiske felter også kan positioneres i forhold til politisk