A “Deep Story” About American Journalism

Abstract

A recent rise in anti-media political rhetoric in the United States and Europe, which aims to tap into and stoke citizens’ beliefs and attitudes about journalism, raises the stakes for understanding those beliefs and attitudes. This article explores how the “episodes” method can be used to study citizens’ “folk theories” and feelings about journalism. The method asks interviewees to describe concrete episodes in which complex, potentially abstract concepts or institutions played a role in their lives. I illustrate the method using interviews with ordinary people who were named in mainstream news stories in the US. Interviews focused on participants’ experiences as news subjects, but in discussion their more general beliefs and attitudes about journalism emerged organically. I detail two specific folk theories about journalistic ethics that interviewees embraced. First, many people felt “good” reporters should not seek out quotes to fit into stories that had largely been written already. Second, interviewees believed that journalists should take responsibility for the outcomes of their stories. I go on to describe a broader, more emotional narrative about the relationship between the news media and the citizenry that emerged in interviews. In that “deep story” citizens saw journalists more as bullies than as advocates.

KEYWORDS:

• audience research
• cultural approaches to journalism
• folk theories of journalism
• journalism subjects
• journalism ethics
• qualitative methods

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Interview, March 3, 2010.

2. Interview, October 30, 2009.

3. Interview, November 29, 2010.

4. Interview, October 14, 2010.

5. Interview, November 25, 2009.

6. Interview, March 11, 2010.

7. Interview, November 12, 2009.

8. Interview, November 16, 2009.