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Abstract
This article draws on performativity theory in order to analyse convergent journalism as a form of journalism that privileges the civil disposition of “I have a voice”, or citizen-driven acts of deliberating and witnessing, over the professional act of informing. Whilst this shift in the epistemology of the news from the truth of institutional expertise to the truth of ordinary voice has been welcome as a democratisation of journalism, catalysing processes of recognition that may cosmopolitanise the West, I advocate a more cautious, empirically-grounded approach that attends to variations in convergence reporting. The potential for cosmopolitan solidarity inherent in convergent journalism, I argue, lies with the insertion of ordinary voice in a broader structure of Western journalism is organised around processes of re-mediation, inter-mediation and trans-mediation. This structure that challenges existing hierarchies of place and human life and thus enables the disposition of “I have a voice” to go beyond communitarian recognition—the recognition of people like “us”—towards recognising the voice of distant others, too, as a voice worth listening and responding to.
Notes
1. For this view of performativity see Butler (Citation1997, Citation2009).
2. Journalism studies as a field has, of course, already developed its own vocabularies to talk about the constructed nature of the news. The vocabulary of “frames”, for instance, captures the ways in which journalists produce stories within the constraints of pre-existing socio-cognitive schemata (e.g. Entman Citation2003), whilst the influential vocabulary of “rituals” refers to the institutional procedures by which journalists produce reality as “objective” by adhering to implicit rules and routines of the profession (Tuchman Citation1972). The vocabulary of performativity, however, goes beyond these two in that it emphasises the constitutive force that journalism bears not only on news story-telling or the journalists’ identity but, crucially, on those who engage with journalism as a source for the definition of reality itself—as a “field of the perceptible”. In so doing, performativity complicates already existing debates on journalism and the nature of its publics (see Allan [Citation2009] for the early Lipmann–Dewey debate; Silverstone Citation1994; Carey Citation1999; Couldry, Hepp, and Krotz Citation2009).
3. For the relationship between recognition and performativity see Butler (Citation2009); for key theorisations of recognition see Taylor (Citation1995) and Fraser (Citation2010).
4. Quoted in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/29/egypt-mubarak-tunisia-palestine (accessed 20 February 2012).
5. Quoted in http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2010/jan/14/socialnetworking-haiti (accessed 20 February 2012).
6. For a theorisation of speech acts along these lines, see Kent Bach (Citation2006); for the link between the performativity of media events as a “subjunctive” mode of culture that constitutes imagined community, see Dayan and Katz (Citation1993) and Couldry, Hepp, and Krotz (Citation2009); for the subjunctive voice of photojournalism, see Zelizer (Citation2010).
7. Even though early speech act theory acknowledges the performative force of speech acts in restricted contexts of linguistic practice, for instance only a priest can declare a marriage valid or only a judge can pass a verdict on the accused, the contemporary elaboration of speech act theory by Pierre Bourdieu (e.g. Citation1989) recognises the tight co-articulation between linguistic and social power, thereby extending the scope of performative speech acts to institutional practices in education, politics or the media: “in Bourdieu's view”, as Thompson puts it, “whatever power or force speech acts possess is a power or force ascribed to them by the social institution of which the utterance of the speech act is a part” (Citation1990, 10).
8. The 2010 Haiti earthquake, which occurred on 12 January 2010, was a catastrophic, magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, with an epicentre approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. The earthquake caused major damage in Port-au-Prince, Jacmel and other settlements in the region, causing damage to vital infrastructure, necessary to respond to the disaster; this included all hospitals in the capital; air, sea and land transport facilities; and communication systems. The human loss is estimated to about 316,000 whilst the number of displaced was up to 1.5 million (Haitian Government and International Organisation for Migration report May 2011).
9. See http://www.alnap.org/pool/files/haiti-context-analysis-final.pdf (accessed 20 February 2012).
10. For the emergence of novel, citizen-driven crisis communication networks, such as Ushahidi, following the Haiti earthquake: http://www.knightfoundation.org/blogs/knightblog/2011/1/11/new-media-and-humanitarian-relief-lessons-from-haiti/ (accessed 20 February 2012).
11. See, for instance, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/18/anderson-cooper-carries-b_n_427472.html (accessed 20 February 2012).
13. See http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/datablog/2012/jan/12/haiti-earthquake-aid-money-data (accessed 20 February 2012).
14. The Egyptian protests, which started on 25 January, were a form of non-violent civil resistance, consisting of demonstrations and other acts of civil disobedience and mobilising millions of Egyptians around the demand to overthrow the regime of then-President Hosni Mubarak. Whilst the aim was achieved on 11 February 2011, after the death of 846 people, political unrest, due to continuing political conflict, continues in Egypt.
15. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/9380441.stm (accessed 20 February 2012).
17. Quoted in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/29/egypt-mubarak-tunisia-palestine (accessed 20 February 2012).
18. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/14/occupy-wall-street-consid_n_1093350.html (accessed 20 February 2012).
19. See http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/it-a-telecom/egypts-mobile-market-nears-saturation-at-80-pct-penetration.html (accessed 20 February 2012).
20. Quoted in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/29/egypt-mubarak-tunisia-palestine (accessed 20 February 2012).
21. But see Al Jazeera “live blog” on Haiti for a historicising perspective along these lines: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/americas/2010/01/13/why-haiti-earthquake-was-so-devastating (accessed 20 February 2012).