Abstract
Steven Maras has provided a remarkable disciplinary resource, perhaps even a landmark. Of all the concepts that inform the practice and analysis of journalism, few have been more discussed and debated than objectivity. Rather than arguing for or against the possibility or desirability of objectivity, or reporting on his own empirical research, Maras undertakes a task of arguably more daunting scope. He overviews the vast range of scholarship in order to tease out the issues at stake in these debates, offering summaries, syntheses, and, to some extent, critical evaluation of a ‘moving target’ literature. This monumental task is written accessibly and, for the most part, with considerable aplomb.
The book’s chapters are organized around a series of questions, each of which provides particular slices into the literature and links between practice and scholarship. What historical forces gave rise to journalism objectivity, and when did it arise? What are the main critiques and defences of objectivity – ranging from philosophical debates around positivism, empiricism, pragmatism and the relationship between facts and truth, to ‘political’ analyses of the impact of objectivity on journalism’s practices and relationship to power, including allegations of objective journalism’s own biases, its misplaced scientism, dependence on official sources, and frame-blindness. Is objectivity a passive or active process, and can it coexist with political or ethical commitment – particularly since objectivity itself arguably comprises a value?
In addressing the above questions, Maras focuses understandably on the press and broadcasting. His range includes the groundbreaking news sociology of the 1970s and early 1980s – Michael Schudson, Dan Schiller, Gaye Tuchman and Herbert Gans. At well over 400 entries, the bibliography alone is a valuable resource for scholars. (Disclosure: my own work, particularly with Yuezhi Zhao, is cited generously throughout.)
It is the last two chapters that resonate most directly with current topics in journalism practice and theory. Chapter 7 explores the place of objectivity in a mediascape of online journalism, digital (no longer ‘new’) media, 24/7 news, and the blurring boundaries between news producers and consumers, and between reportage and opinion. More than elsewhere in the book, Maras here extrapolates from the literature to offer his own hypotheses: online and citizens’ journalism do not inherently challenge objectivity and can be incorporated into established news models, but provide new channels for ‘monitoring democracy’ (Keane, 2011) and the formation of transnational publics. Most provocatively, he suggests that online journalism is challenging and changing the very informational foundation of journalism objectivity, as a method for knowing and presenting reality (p. 193); as ‘facts are challenged and commented upon repeatedly’, objectivity ‘is not the get out of jail card it once was’ (p. 194).
Chapter 8 asks whether objectivity is a universal journalistic norm. Maras acknowledges trends towards comparative analysis (exemplified by Hallin and Mancini’s pioneering work), and the attempted de-westernization of media studies, an objective which he does not really pursue apart from brief sections on Al Jazeera’s contextual objectivity, the debate about ‘Asian values’ in journalism, intermittent examples from the global south, and a reflective discussion that problematizes (but arguably accepts) the special status of the USA in the development of objectivity. Understandably, he disavows an effort to map the state of objectivity in global journalism, though he could have drawn more from existing comparative studies, such as the place of journalism in the ‘transition societies’ of Central and Eastern Europe. Still, this chapter helps map out a research agenda, including the analytical challenges inherent in assessing the universality of the objectivity norm – that is, how norms are operationalized within and across cultures; how objectivity is diffused, adapted and re-inflected; and how and to what extent it is explicitly codified or otherwise articulated (pp. 202–203). It is precisely one of the many contributions of this book to highlight the flexibility of, and divergent models within, objectivity in journalism.
In a work of such ambitious range, there are inevitable omissions. The history of debates would be enhanced by attending to the path-breaking work of British cultural studies (e.g. Stuart Hall, Ian Connell and the Birmingham School) on how objectivity works as an ideology, partly through the process of the ‘hailing’ or ‘interpellation’ of subjects.
Perhaps because Maras generally approaches objectivity as a norm, concept or ‘idea-complex’ rather than an ideology embedded in institutions, practices and social relations, political economy critiques of the idea and practice of objectivity in contemporary journalism receive relatively little attention. The discussion would be further strengthened through Robert W. McChesney’s critique of the practices of objectivity in the context of contemporary American journalism’s crisis; Pierre Bourdieu’s recently influential field theory, as a way of analyzing the relationship of objectivity to forms of ‘capital’ within the journalism field, as well as the field’s relationship to other institutional spheres; and more attention than is given to Calcutt and Hammond’s (2011) provocative analysis of the historical and structural relationship between journalism objectivity, alienation and commodity fetishism in capitalism, and modernity’s self-reflexive gaze.
Relatively speaking, these are quibbles. Maras goes to some lengths to historically locate the emergence of objectivity, and he does contextualize journalism objectivity within broader social relations, such as commercialization (objectivity enabled advertisers to reach broader markets), journalism professionalization as a by-product of middle-class liberalism, and objectivity as a mediating force between contending political and social pressures on the press. But overall, the book comes especially alive when the author engages with cultural and philosophical questions, more than with questions of social structure. Students of the field will welcome his discussion, for example, of the need for more sophisticated understandings of empiricism (pp. 87–88) (Karl Popper’s philosophy of science should be included in the next edition of the book), and feminist-inspired ‘standpoint’ theory. There is also a useful overview of some of the recent challenges to conventional objectivity from other paradigms within the field, such as the public journalism movement in the 1990s, and more recently, ‘peace journalism’ (although not alternative media).
Even its loose ends, though, are productive ones, suggesting avenues for future research. This masterful synthesis of the literature will serve as an invaluable resource for students and researchers alike for years to come.