Transparency as metajournalistic performance: The New York Times’ Caliphate podcast and new ways to...

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Bibliographische Detailangaben
Beteiligte: Perdomo, Gabriela, Rodrigues-Rouleau, Philippe
In: Journalism, 23, 2022, 11, S. 2311-2327
veröffentlicht:
SAGE Publications
Medientyp: Artikel, E-Artikel

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Umfang: 2311-2327
ISSN: 1464-8849
1741-3001
DOI: 10.1177/1464884921997312
veröffentlicht in: Journalism
Sprache: Englisch
Schlagwörter:
Kollektion: SAGE Publications (CrossRef)
Inhaltsangabe

<jats:p> Transparency is increasingly touted as a strategic tool for elevating journalistic authority. Despite this push, literature has overlooked how transparency can be utilized for authority purposes in audiovisual artefacts. In this paper, we conduct a qualitative thematic analysis of The New York Times’ podcast Caliphate to examine how transparency is strategically weaponized to stake a claim to journalistic authority. Based on the premise that transparency is a metajournalistic performance – a type of journalism about journalism that is performative in acting on people’s perception of journalistic authority – we identify three of those metajournalistic performances in the podcast: Revealing the journalistic process, Constructing the reporter’s persona and Reaffirming the journalistic culture. Together, they exhibit a form of self-celebratory transparency that strategically performs boundary-setting, definitional control and legitimization functions, in a bid to impress audiences and have them recognize the journalistic authority of the Caliphate reporters and The Times. We conclude with the implications of these strategic performances of transparency. First, how it can be used by reporters to reinstate verticality over audiences. Second, how the journalistic culture (norms, values, practices, etc.) can be transparently projected outward (to the public) or inward (to the journalist themself) to elevate authority – a new concept for journalism studies. Third, how metajournalistic performances of transparency may reveal power dynamics within the journalistic field. </jats:p>