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Kitzinger (2007) observes that framing theory posits that frames also exist as ‘schemata’ or repertoires of organized patterns of thinking that can be triggered by the framing devices presented in the media. Framing therefore goes beyond simply looking at agenda-setting or bias but accepts that all accounts of reality including news stories must be shaped in various ways to ensure that the text provides meaning or significance for readers. In the context of journalistic discourse, framing analysis can be used to offer an insight into how messages are produced by journalists who act as framers of reality. They play this role in the sense that they select those aspects of an issue or an event, which they believe are most important, and then direct reader attention towards certain elements and away from others. The journalist’s frame can thus effectively set the agenda and the terms of a debate. A range of factors serve to shape a news report in specific ways including the words which journalists use, the way they decide to structure the narrative of the news story, the facts they select for inclusion in the text or exclusion from it, or the people and institutions they choose to quote.

One of the key frames, which determine how journalists actually create news texts, is the culture of journalism. As Zelizer (2008) notes: “When seen as culture, journalism has been thought to provide a web of meanings, rituals, conventions, and symbol systems, with journalists, who provide different kinds of discourse about public events, as its facilitators” (Zelizer, 2008: 4).

Zelizer here highlights some of the areas which are encompassed by the culture of journalism, not all of which can be examined in detail here. The “web of meanings, rituals, conventions, and symbol systems” which Zelizer refers to can be said to cover

a multitude of journalistic practices, many of which have evolved over the course of time.

It is interesting to note here that Deuze (2008) has identified five traits or values that he claims are generally shared amongst journalists. Although he observes that professional self-definition does vary somewhat depending on the type of organization that an individual works for, Deuze argues that, in essence the following five characteristics can be said to embody the core concepts, values and components of the ideology of journalism:

• Public service: journalists provide a public service (as watchdogs or ‘newshounds’, active collectors and disseminators of information);

• Objectivity: journalists are impartial, neutral, objective, fair and (thus) credible;

• Autonomy: journalists must be autonomous, free and independent in their work;

• Immediacy: journalists have a sense of immediacy, actuality and speed (inherent in the concept of ‘news’);

• Ethics: journalists have a sense of ethics, validity and legitimacy (Deuze 2008: 16).

Deuze’s mapping of the ideology of journalism gives a good insight into some of the core elements of the culture of journalism. As we shall see later, although objectivity is one of the key characteristics which journalists identify as being desirable, research suggests that for a variety of reasons, this is not possible.

As Zelizer notes, some journalistic practices are now codified in terms of regulatory guidelines (e.g. the Editors’ Code of Practice enforced by the UK Independent Press Standards Organisation7), ethical codes (e.g. the American Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics8) or editorial statements on values for a particular

7 _{Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) Editors’ Code of Practice Available online at:}

https://www.ipso.co.uk/IPSO/cop.html

8 _{Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics Available online at:}

publication (e.g. The Guardian’s Editorial Code9). Codes of this kind now make explicit some of the ethical principles and norms which have implicitly been believed to underpin and influence the professional values of journalists.

Cohen-Almagor (2014) has argued that such codes are now increasingly necessary, on the grounds that only a small group of reporters respect ethical principles, have the ability to self-reflect on their behaviour and to care about the consequences of this. In his opinion, there is increasing evidence that individuals working in the media are either willing to contravene ethical standards to gain personal goals or appear to be oblivious to ethical norms and morality and do not care about the impact of their behaviour on other people. For this reason, he believes that:

“The introduction of codes of practice, journalist’s oaths and conscience clauses are important when we bear in mind this large group of people. With their introduction, these people will require cognition. They will not be able to say: “I did not know”. Hopefully, with the knowledge will come also the realization that some things are not to be done. Hopefully, with knowledge of the ethical principles and the understanding of their importance, the first group will grow in numbers” (Cohen-Almagor, 2014: 5).

However, outside these explicit codes of practice, the culture of journalism also serves to regulate working practices in terms of the conventions and techniques which journalists use.

Sometimes these are formally taught in the shape of writing skills offered as part of specialised vocationally oriented courses. Alternatively, individuals have traditionally acquired them from exposure to the work of other journalists in the profession and from feedback on work from editors since as Deuze notes: “reporters and editors constantly reinforce, reiterate, and thus reproduce certain ways of doing things […] Newcomers are primarily expected to adapt themselves, and to adopt the dominant (ideological) perception of what journalism is” (2008: 19).

Writing in 1978, Tuchman was one of the first researchers to suggest that key techniques were consciously used by journalists when reporting the news, all of which were used to frame reality, and in the process to shape it in a particular way. Before

9 _{The Guardian’s Editorial Code https://www.theguardian.com/info/2015/aug/05/the-guardian-} editorial-code

exploring these, it is worth making the point here that Tuchman’s research focused on American media. Deuze (2008), reviewing the findings of his own comparative study which investigated the cultures of journalists in elective democracies (the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Australia, and the United States), suggested that journalists of these nationalities “share similar characteristics and speak of similar values in the context of their daily work, but apply these in a variety of ways to give meaning to what they do” (p. 19). Schudson (1989) also mentions that journalists tend to provide feedback according to the same culture to which their audiences belong, and the media message is absorbed within the “boundaries” of those cultures.

Thus, although the specific strategies identified by Tuchman’s American study may not necessarily be reflected in all national contexts, her idea that there are set techniques used by journalists in news-making is still a useful one and merits further consideration.

According to Tuchman, the first of these techniques relates to “the use of sources in the verbalisation of (competing) truth-claims” (Tuchman cited in Richardson, 2004: 228). Schneider’s study of how Canadian journalists use sources to frame homelessness in their coverage of this issue concluded that most of the sources quoted were experts (such as academics, social workers, representatives of charities and politicians) whereas homeless people (the real experts on homelessness) were rarely used as sources, meaning that ironically news coverage intended to highlight the plight of the homeless marginalised them in much the same way as they were being socially excluded. Schneider’s study provides a good example of how an accepted technique, such as use of sources, can impact on reader perception of marginalised groups.

Next, Tuchman focuses on how the presentation of supporting evidence helps to frame news. This category can include photographs, captions and other graphics which accompany the news story itself together with the layout of stories, both of which in this sense literally frame the coverage. At the start of the 1970s, Hall had already pointed out the importance of captions accompanying newspaper photographs which had a primary function of anchorage:

“Anchorage has the function of ‘selective elucidation’ – it exerts a repressive force over the relative freedom of the signifieds of the photo. It is therefore

(together with the headline, which frames both photo and text and embraces them) par excellence the level of ideological signification. Here the conative power of the image is most openly specified, cashed and closed” (1972: 60).10 Gamson and Modigliani (1989) and Hallahan (2008) also classify depictions and visuals amongst their examples of manipulating framing devices.

The third technique which Tuchman identifies is “the use of quotation marks to distance themselves from (very often their own) truth-claims and assumptions” (cited in Richardson, 2004: 228). Although style guides for journalists counsel against this practice, they do still acknowledge the existence of this phenomenon, used in connection with words or phrases which journalists think might be defamatory, in the mistaken belief that this will protect them from being sued for defamation.11

Tuchman finally highlights the structure which is used for news reporting itself, usually referred to as the ‘inverted pyramid’ (see Figure 3.1). This model of how information should be prioritized for newsworthiness within a news report is still widely taught to students of mass communication and journalism in Anglophone countries and remains the standard format for agencies such as The Associated Press and Reuters (Scanlan, 2000). However, Tuchman noted as a framing model, this serves to “simultaneously present and yet background conflicting, uncomfortable or alternative ‘facts’” (Tuchman cited in Richardson 2004: 228).

10 _{Scott (1999) devotes a full chapter of his book The Spoken Image. Photography and Language}

(London: Reaktion) to the captions accompanying photographs in newspaper stories.

), for example, have two full

http://www.thenewsmanualnet/

( The News Manual Style guides such as

11

Figure 3.1 The inverted pyramid

The four examples which Tuchman refers to are all recognised techniques used widely by journalists in a conscious manner to produce news, but clearly they all involve a greater or lesser element of framing. All of these working practices not only transfer information but also act as mediators of meaning (Zelizer, 2008).

The culture of journalism is an influential factor in journalists’ news production in that they write news using their own practices and through their own cultures. Journalists together with editors constantly make decisions about salience, highlighting some aspects of reality whilst de-emphasising others. Schudson (1996) argues that this “news judgment” is linked to ideology, values, and the characteristics of the profession of journalism itself. It also affects the national news agenda, reflecting the building of the social reality of a nation and becomes apparent when news stories are analysed. He identifies the ideology of journalism as the cultural knowledge that constitutes “news judgment”, which is deeply rooted in the communicators’ awareness (Deuze 2004: 279).

As this discussion has shown, on one level the culture of journalism can be understood as an overt set of guidelines, devices, and techniques which are taught and used by journalism in the process of news-making. However, Zelizer (2008) believes that the culture of journalism goes beyond this level of conscious framing, arguing that:

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“More than just reporters’ professional codes of action or the social arrangement of reporters and editors, journalism as culture references a complex and multidimensional lattice of impulses that can be counterproductive, contradictory, and contrary to the supposed aims of what journalism is for” (Zelizer, 2008: 4).

Her use of the word ‘impulses’ here carries the connotation of frames which are operating at a subjective, unconscious level, and being manipulated on the basis of bias or prejudice, producing so-called slanted journalism. The idea that the culture of journalism incorporates a “deep structure” of news values, functioning at an ideological level which is “even unseen to the journalists themselves” is an idea previously posited by Hall (cited in Deuze, 2004: 279). For Hall, then, structures such as the ‘inverted pyramid’ are more than mere devices for handling and presenting information but a “consensual self-organisation and understanding of journalism [which] also trickles down to the way journalism is taught” (Hall cited in Deuze, 2004: 279).