Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/15378
Title: The Epistemology of Environmental Journalists
Authors: Tong, J
Keywords: Environmental investigative journalism;Environmental investigative journalism;China;Knowledge;Experience;Objectivity journalism;Advocacy journalism;Ethnographic journalism
Issue Date: 2017
Citation: Journalism Studies, 2017, 18 (6), pp. 771 - 786
Abstract: This paper offers a case study of the epistemology of Chinese environmental investigative journalists, drawn from 42 in-depth interviews conducted from 2011 to 2013. The study proposes that it is the knowledge that journalists form, rather than whether the knowledge is objective, is important for understanding the epistemology of environmental investigative journalists. The analysis reveals that four types of knowledge are central to what participants come to know about environmental issues in the process of validating evidence and making judgements. The importance of experience, cognition and evidence-based judgment in the knowledge formation process means there is an inevitable (but covert) involvement of journalists' subjectivity in their reports. This suggests that the participants practice an advocacy and ethnographic journalism, characterised by pragmatism, existentialism and particular standpoints, while making a strong claim to "truth". These standpoints are generated in the pre-writing investigation stage rather than in the writing-up stage. Therefore, in this case study, the epistemology of environmental investigative journalism is concerned with how and when meanings and opinions are generated in the process of knowledge acquisition, rather than whether the knowledge is objective.
URI: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/15378
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2015.1076707
ISSN: 1461-670X
1469-9699
Appears in Collections:Dept of Social and Political Sciences Research Papers

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