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Journalism studies

Dissertations

The Journalism Studies Research Group has a high production frequency in the area of PhD and postdoctoral research. These are the most recent PhD theses completed by the members of the group.

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Brita Ytre-Arne: Women’s magazines and their readers. Experiences, identity and everyday life

Ytre-Arne's thesis explores women's magazine reading as a media experience, and ask how regular readers of women's magazines experience these publications, and how these experiences can be related to readers’ everyday lives and to their sense of identity. A central ambition of the thesis is to suggest and demonstrate analytical approaches that are new to research on women's magazines. Throughout the thesis, women's magazine reading is conceptualized as a multifaceted media experience that encompasses perceptual, aesthetic, technological, cognitive, emotional, social and cultural dimensions. More here

Helle Sjøvaag: Journalistic Ideology. Professional Strategy, Institutional Authority and Boundary Maintenance in the Digital News Market

Sjøvaag's dissertation examines how journalistic ideology is mobilised when the profession is met by exogenous forces that challenge journalistic authority, primarily by looking at how the Norwegian commercial public service broadcaster TV 2 engages journalistic ideology as part of its news market strategies. Fundamental to journalistic ideology and its mobilisation in these encounters is the concept of a social contract operating as the driving force behind professional strategies. These issues are further contextualised within Anthony Giddens' concept of the duality of structure to illustrate the recursive nature of journalistic ideology for the maintenance of professional boundaries. More here

Hilde Arntsen: Betwixt and Between. Case Studies in Gender, Culture and the Media in Zimbabwe in the 1990s.

Arntsen's dissertation presents three case studies from Zimbabwe, and discusses how themes such as gender, culture and history created tensions in Zimbabwean media culture in the 1990s. The dissertation title "Betwixt and Between" suggests the analysed media texts and informants challenged the current political sentiments concerning Zimbabwean media culture during that decade. The dissertation is based on theoretical discussions on globalisation, postcolonial theory and gender research in Southern Africa.

Astrid Gynnild: Creative Cycling in the News Profession. A Grounded Theory 

Gynnild's dissertation analyses journalists' strategies for creative cycling, both in daily life an during the span of an entire career. This cycling contributes to speed up the individual creative processes behind every journalistic product, and is as such a prerequisite for effective and productive news work. The dissertation is based on empirical data collected from a dozen Norwegian media houses, upon which Gynnild develops a theory about creative cycling as a basic socio-psychological process. Amongst other things, the theory explains the survival strategies employed in an individual creative process.

Jan Fredrik Hovden: Profane and Sacred. A study of the Norwegian Journalistic Field

In this thesis, using the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of social fields as a guide, Hovden analyses the structures of the Norwegian journalistic field and the journalists’ habitus, based on a survey of Norwegian journalists. Hovden argues journalists' increased autonomy from external influences - in particular from political parties and the state - has contributed to the construction of a particular informal social structure, what Bourdieu calls a social field. In this way Hovden's thesis is a study of the strong constraints latent in any prospect of “free and independent” journalism. More here