„Truth is not the end in itself but a mill of information“ The journalistic construction of war : Professional reporting for daily newspapers in Germany and the United States during the 2003 Iraq war.

The study identifies and characterizes the professional action of journalists who reported on the war in Iraq in 2003 and were employed by leading quality daily newspapers in the United States and Germany. A heuristic combination of the sociology of professions and the sociology of knowledge is util...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Storozenko, Victoria
Contributors: Bös, Mathias (Prof. Dr.) (Thesis advisor)
Format: Doctoral Thesis
Language:English
Published: Philipps-Universität Marburg 2016
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Online Access:PDF Full Text
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Summary:The study identifies and characterizes the professional action of journalists who reported on the war in Iraq in 2003 and were employed by leading quality daily newspapers in the United States and Germany. A heuristic combination of the sociology of professions and the sociology of knowledge is utilized to discover an answer to the problem of how journalists' professional action can be defined. Linked to the ideas of Berger and Luckman, the study presumes that newspapers represent objective and subjective reality at once. On the one hand, the newspapers' reality is objective as the result of the institutional organization of newspapers, which includes requirements that journalists maintain professional values and norms that lead to the institutionalization of professional action. On the other hand, the newspapers' reality is subjective as it is an outcome of journalists' interpretation and construction of reality. So, how do journalists construct the social reality in their newspapers by means of their professional action, and how does the subjective reality of journalists become an objective reality of their newspapers? A qualitative analysis of problem-centered interviews, based on of the principles of the Grounded Theory, was used to approach these issues in the light of an exceptional situation like war. In such an environment, external requirements and limitations press journalists to rethink their guiding ideal vision of proper war coverage and disrupt the daily professional routines of journalists by unusual situations. Thus, these constellations result in situations of increased levels of reflection regarding principles of professional journalistic action. And as this study shows, one main characteristic feature of professional journalistic action is indeed the necessary, continuous re-interpretation of those professional standards while and by means of implementing them in practice.
Physical Description:207 Pages
DOI:10.17192/z2019.0048