The J Word 3.3: Approaching Digital Audiences

The J Word: A Podcast by Journalism Practice

We talk a lot about audiences as a way to understand what’s "good" and "bad" journalism in the world. Journalists guess what audiences want. And they try to deliver. But when we dig deeper into the needs of audiences – and the needs of journalism, itself – what contestation and challenges and celebrations do we really find? Today, we discuss the challenges and celebrations of various types of journalism – and various types of audiences. The connection? There really is a lot more to know.

Kristina Riegert from Södertörn University in Sweden, talks about her co-authored paper on cultural journalism, and we complicate what might be first considered an elitist form of journalism to see that it includes coverage of gaming, explanations of terror, and, yes, sometimes a review of the opera’s new tenor.

Karin Wahl-Jorgenson at Cardiff University in the U.K. unpacks her co-authored piece, “Conjecturing fearful futures” that looks at how journalists and their audiences are experiencing moral panic around deepfakes, where we ask just what audiences know (or think they know) about these new forms of media and how journalists are speculating about what deepfakes might mean for the future.

And, speculating about how and why journalists ignore some audiences over others, particularly in financial news, Ángel Arrese at the University of Navarra in Spain talks about his coauthored piece, “The ignoring of ‘people’ in the journalistic coverage of economic crises.”

Text Featured in this Episode:

Arrese, Á., & Vara-Miguel, A. (2021). The Ignoring of “People” in the Journalistic Coverage of Economic Crises. The Housing Bubble and the Euro Crisis in Spain. Journalism Practice, 1-18.

Wahl-Jorgensen, K., & Carlson, M. (2021). Conjecturing Fearful Futures: Journalistic Discourses on Deepfakes. Journalism Practice, 1-18.

Kristensen, N. N., & Riegert, K. (2021). The Tensions of the Cultural News Beat. Journalism Practice, 1-15.
Produced and hosted by Robert (Ted) Gutsche, Jr.
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