Wojciech Furman

The media journalism credibility as a result of a cooperation between professionals and amateurs

The cases chosen from the last 18 years demonstrate that the amateur internet publications became salient when supported by professional journalists. The synergy effect was in these cases evident. One should ask who were the partners of professional journalists, how their cooperation progressed and if any tendencies or borderline cases could be revealed?
The article begins with listing of dominant features of traditional journalist messages. Than the changes in journalism caused by disseminating of digital messages were shortly presented. Five cases of significant internet and traditional publications were analyzed. It was revealed when the traditional gate-keeping function of a professional journalist disappeared and how radical the time for verification shortens.
 

Can one distinguish public relations activities from biased journalism?

A play between politicians and journalists takes place on several levels, from basic services of press spokespersons, through a competition for attention, up to sophisticated techniques of spin and counter-spin. Politicians taking advice of public relations specialists and journalists form a common environment. Therefore a disturbing question arises, if one can tell the cases of biased, engaged journalism from the cases of biased, engaged public relations activities? A formal selection criterion seems to be quite simple: public relations specialists are subordinated to the management of an organization while journalists are free from such obligations. In this article an additional criterion was applied: public relations models by Grunig and Hunt were compared to models of journalism, which are based on different levels of influencing receivers. Publications of two Polish weeklies of opinion from the fourth quarter of 2012 were examined. The method of research was content analysis.
 

Citizen Journalism as an Element of the Public Sphere. Origin, Hopes, Diversity

Digital citizen journalism aroused high hopes. It was announced that everyone would be able to express his opinion, each vote would be an equal part of the discussion, and any falsehoods would be quickly stigmatized. Although this did not happen, examples show that amateur messages are an important part of the public sphere and provide material for data journalism. The aim of the article is to draw attention to the opportunities that the emergence of digital citizen journalism brings to the contemporary public sphere. Examples of such journalism were sought on Facebook, on websites of well-known newspapers, and on online news services. The analysis covered only eight days, but even during this brief period publications with features of journalistic messages and fulfilling journalistic functions were found.

Kazimierz Wolny-Zmorzyński: Biblia a korzenie reportażu. Glosa do historii i teorii gatunku. Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek, Toruń 2020, s. 189.

From pretended knowledge to echo chamber and information overload. A short review of media fears

There are statements that social media close the audience in information bubbles and that we live in conditions of excess media coverage. Such statements are not new at all. Only the social media are new. As long as the media are new and little-known, it is easy to convince the recipients about the strong impact of media messages.

Kaarle Nordenstreng: The Rise and Fall of the International Organization of Journalists Based in Prague 1946–2016. Useful Recollections. Part III, Karolinum Press, Prague 2020, s. 549.