This book looks at how numbers and statistics have been used to underpin quality in news reporting. In doing so, the aim is to challenge some common assumptions about how journalists engage and use statistics in their quest for quality news. It seeks to improve our understanding about the usage of data and statistics as a primary means for the construction of social reality. This is a task, in our view, that is urgent in times of ‘post-truth’ politics and the rise of ‘fake news’. In this sense, the quest to produce ‘quality’ news, which seems to require incorporating statistics and engaging with data, as laudable and straightforward as it sounds, is instead far more problematic and complex than what is often accounted for.

This book examines the main issues and challenges that science journalism faces in the MENA region while analyzing how journalists in these countries cover science and engage with scientists. Most countries in the Middle East and North Africa region have set an ambitious goal for 2030: to transform their societies and become knowledge economies. This means modernizing institutions and encouraging people to embrace Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as part of their daily lives. This books claims that the main vehicle to achieve this goal is science news reporting, as it continues to be the main platform to disseminate scientific knowledge to the general public. Simultaneously, it is also poorly equipped to achieve this task. Interviewing dozens of journalists, the authors looked at specific areas such as the gender divide and its effects on science news reporting as well as the role of religion and culture in shaping journalism as a political institution. The authors conclude that traditional normative assumptions as to why science reporting does not live up to expectations need to be reviewed in light of other more structural problems such as lack of skills and specialization in science communication in the region. In so doing, the book sets out to understand the past, present and future of science news in one of the most challenging regions in the world for journalists.

A timely and incisive exploration of disinformation and its impact in the Global South In Disinformation in the Global South, media and communications scholars Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales deliver a unique and geographically diverse collection of perspectives on the phenomenon of disinformation as it manifests in the Global South. In many parts of the Global South, coordinated political disinformation campaigns, rumor, and propaganda have long been a part of the social fabric, even before disinformation has become an area of scholarship in the Global North. The way disinformation manifests in this region, and responses to it, can therefore be highly instructive for readers around the world. Through case studies and comparative analyses, the book explores the impact of disinformation in Africa, Latin America, the Arab World and Asia. The chapters in this book discuss the similarities and differences of disinformation in different regions and provide a broad thematic overview of the phenomenon as it manifests across the Global South. After analyzing core concepts, theories and histories from Southern perspectives, contributors explore the experiences of media users and the responses to disinformation by various social actors drawing on examples from a dozen countries. Disinformation in the Global South also includes: A thorough introduction to Southern perspectives on national histories, theories of disinformation, and research methods in disinformation studies Global case studies of cultures of disinformation, including ethnographic insights into how audiences engage with disinformation Comprehensive explorations of responses to online and offline disinformation, including discussions of news literacy and the management of disinformation A valuable resource for scholars of disinformation everywhere, as well as senior undergraduate and graduate students in courses covering transnational or global perspectives to communication studies, Disinformation in the Global South is also an ideal reference for anyone studying or working in media or journalism.

We live in the era of the digital revolution characterized by easy access to obtaining, processing and disseminating information on a global scale. The emergence of these global digital spaces has transformed the world of communication. This shift in our understanding of what we should be informed about, when and how, manifests itself not only within mature liberal democracies, which grant their citizens and the media constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech and rights associated with obtaining information, but also within developing countries with different types of political establishments. Moreover, many media producers, especially journalists and persons claiming to be journalists, abuse their crucial mission and, instead, foster a set of serious communication phenomena that threaten basic human rights and freedoms, weaken them or decelerate their development. The publication is focused on the ways fake news, disinformation, misinformation and hateful statements are spread across society, predominantly within the online environment. Its main ambition is to offer an interdisciplinary body of scholarly knowledge on fake news, disinformation and propaganda in relation to today’s journalism, social development, political situation and cultural affairs happening all around the world.

In the face of the continuously changing challenges of the digital age, it is difficult for quality news journalism to survive on any significant scale if a means for adequately funding it is not available. This new study, a follow-up to 2007’s The Future of Journalism in the Advanced Democracies, includes a comparative analysis of possible alternative business models that may save the future of the quality news business across the developed, intermediate, and developing worlds. Its detailed evaluation encompasses also the different ways in which wider key issues are affecting the prospects for quality news as a core ingredient of effectively working democracies. It focuses on the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, India, Kenya, and selected parts of the Arab World, providing a comprehensive cross-cultural survey of different approaches to addressing these various issues. To keep the study firmly rooted in the "real world" the contributors include distinguished practitioners as well as experienced academics.

From the quality of the air we breathe to the national leaders we choose, data and statistics are a pervasive feature of daily life and daily news. But how do news, numbers and public opinion interact with each other – and with what impacts on society at large? Featuring an international roster of established and emerging scholars, this book is the first comprehensive collection of research into the little understood processes underpinning the uses/misuses of statistical information in journalism and their socio-psychological and political effects. Moving beyond the hype around “data journalism," News, Numbers and Public Opinion delves into a range of more latent, fundamental questions such as: · Is it true that most citizens and journalists do not have the necessary skills and resources to critically process and assess numbers? · How do/should journalists make sense of the increasingly data-driven world? · What strategies, formats and frames do journalists use to gather and represent different types of statistical data in their stories? · What are the socio-psychological and political effects of such data gathering and representation routines, formats and frames on the way people acquire knowledge and form attitudes? · What skills and resources do journalists and publics need to deal effectively with the influx of numbers into in daily work and life – and how can newsrooms and journalism schools meet that need? The book is a must-read for not only journalists, journalism and media scholars, statisticians and data scientists but also anybody interested in the interplay between journalism, statistics and society.

The Global Journalist in the 21st Century systematically assesses the demographics, education, socialization, professional attitudes and working conditions of journalists in various countries around the world. This book updates the original Global Journalist (1998) volume with new data, adding more than a dozen countries, and provides material on comparative research about journalists that will be useful to those interested in doing their own studies. The editors put together this collection working under the assumption that journalists’ backgrounds, working conditions and ideas are related to what is reported (and how it is covered) in the various news media round the world, in spite of societal and organizational constraints, and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policies. Outstanding features include: Coverage of 33 nations located around the globe, based on recent surveys conducted among representative samples of local journalists Comprehensive analyses by well-known media scholars from each country A section on comparative studies of journalists An appendix with a collection of survey questions used in various nations to question journalists As the most comprehensive and reliable source on journalists around the world, The Global Journalist will serve as the primary source for evaluating the state of journalism. As such, it promises to become a standard reference among journalism, media, and communication students and researchers around the world.