ABSTRACT
This study empirically examines the professional role professional journalists
in Uganda in the context of the country’s democratization process. The finding
of the study show that Uganda professional journalists basically see
themselves as working for the public interest mainly through serving the people
and challenging the powerful. On the basis of these findings the article ends
with reflections on the need to rethink the prevailing approach in strategies to
empower journalists in Uganda process in Kampala District.
For a media profession so central to society’s sense of self, it is of crucial
importance to understand the influences of changing labour conditions,
professional cultures, and the appropriation of technologies on the nature of
work in journalism. In this paper, the various strands of international research
on the changing nature of journalism as a profession are synthesized, using
media logic as developed by Altheide and Snow (1979 and 1991) and updated
by Dahlgren (1996) as a conceptual framework. A theoretical key to
understanding and explaining journalism as a profession is furthermore to
focus on the complexities of concurrent disruptive developments affecting its
performance from the distinct perspective of its practitioners — for without
them, there is no news.
Media Logic Media work in general and journalism in particular takes place
both within and outside of institutions (including salaried employees and an
army of stringers and freelancers), by both professionals and amateurs
(including so-called ‘citizen media’), both within and across particular media
(especially considering converged newsrooms). In order to adequately describe
and analyze the various ways in which practitioners in journalism are affected
by and give meaning to such a complex environment of cultural production,
one needs a holistic, integrated perspective on the nature of media work. In
this context I use the concept of ‘media logic’, more specifically as taken up and
developed by Dahlgren, where he refers to media logic as ‘the particular
V
institutionally structured features of a medium, the ensemble of technical and
organizational attributes which impact on what gets represented in the
medium and how it gets done. In other words, media logic points to specific
forms and processes that organize the work done within a particular medium.
Yet, media logic also indicates the cultural competence and frames of
perception of audiences/users, which in turn reinforces how production within
the medium takes place’ (1996, 63). Media logic can be medium-specific
because it primarily relates to production patterns within a given technological
and organizational context.
Media logic is a useful perspectival tool to overcome what may be the most
crucial problem in my discussion of what it is like to work in the (news) media:
the notion, that what a journalist does is guided by distinctly different ideas
and factors of influence than what informs the work of a game developer,
television producer, or advertising creative and vice versa. One thing all these
fields have in common is the fact that journalism, advertising, broadcasting,
film, and game development are all examples of the production of culture. The
stories told in the news, in the movies and in games or advertisements all build
upon and contribute to the collective memories, traditions and belief systems of
a community or society.
Applying media logic as a mapping tool for contemporary mainstream newswork means I examine the [1] institutional, [2] technological, [3] organizational and [4] cultural features of what it is like to work in journalism. Ultimately, this approach may be a useful way to consider journalism as part of (and tied into) a broader media ecosystem, as operating in a wider context of social, economical and technological forces, and as a profession that has its own unique ways of dealing with such influences.
ESTHER, N (2021). The Problems Of Utilizing Professional Journalism In Uganda. Afribary. Retrieved from https://afribary.com/works/the-problems-of-utilizing-professional-journalism-in-uganda
ESTHER, NAMALE "The Problems Of Utilizing Professional Journalism In Uganda" Afribary. Afribary, 12 Jun. 2021, https://afribary.com/works/the-problems-of-utilizing-professional-journalism-in-uganda. Accessed 14 Nov. 2024.
ESTHER, NAMALE . "The Problems Of Utilizing Professional Journalism In Uganda". Afribary, Afribary, 12 Jun. 2021. Web. 14 Nov. 2024. < https://afribary.com/works/the-problems-of-utilizing-professional-journalism-in-uganda >.
ESTHER, NAMALE . "The Problems Of Utilizing Professional Journalism In Uganda" Afribary (2021). Accessed November 14, 2024. https://afribary.com/works/the-problems-of-utilizing-professional-journalism-in-uganda