ABSTRACT Central Asia has been generally omitted from most academic debates, including those on the causes and consequences of widespread plagiarism and copy-and-paste behaviour among journalists. In this article I address this problem by interviewing working journalists from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The article argues that plagiarism in journalism is not only thriving but also encouraged by a variety of mechanisms, such as the distribution of “ready-to-publish” media content by government press secretaries and encouragement for journalists to simply “add your name” to these materials. It finds that some journalists are proud of the fact that others plagiarise their work, saying “it indicates we are doing a superior job”, which in turn encourages further copyright breaches within the profession. This is significant, because students and early career journalists may witness such practices and conclude that plagiarism is a norm and that is how it should be, thus creating a false “model of excellence” for future journalists and the public. The results are also discussed in relation to agenda-setting theory, whereby governments predominantly control media outlets. In such a context, the public may end up only having access to news that is subsidised and approved by their governments.

中文翻译：

---

中亚记者抄袭的原因与后果

摘要中亚在大多数学术辩论中通常被忽略，包括关于记者普遍抄袭和复制粘贴行为的原因和后果的辩论。在本文中，我通过采访来自哈萨克斯坦、吉尔吉斯斯坦、塔吉克斯坦和乌兹别克斯坦的在职记者来解决这个问题。文章认为，新闻剽窃不仅猖獗，而且受到各种机制的鼓励，例如政府新闻秘书分发“准备发布”的媒体内容，鼓励记者简单地“添加你的名字”这些材料。它发现一些记者为其他人抄袭他们的作品而感到自豪，称“这表明我们的工作做得很好”，这反过来又鼓励了行业内进一步侵犯版权的行为。这很重要，因为学生和早期职业记者可能会目睹这种做法，并得出结论认为抄袭是一种常态，应该是这样，从而为未来的记者和公众创造了一个错误的“卓越模式”。还讨论了与议程设置理论相关的结果，即政府主要控制媒体。在这种情况下，公众最终可能只能访问由政府补贴和批准的新闻。