ABSTRACT

In recent years, the growth of new alternative media has brought greater editorial choice and diversity to political coverage in many advanced democracies. But their coverage of mainstream media and portrayal of professional journalism has been subject to little academic attention. This study examined the role alternative political media play in advancing public debate about the value and editorial standards of a national media system. Drawing on a longitudinal content analysis of UK alternative media between 2015 and 2018 (N = 3452), we found that mainstream media was often crticised—particularly in left-wing sites—and that disapproval of professional journalism intensified over time, most strikingly during the 2017 general election campaign. We also discovered that BBC news was often singled out for its political reporting, with criticism directed at its perceived bias and lack of impartiality. Overall, we argue it is the dominant characteristics of mainstream media in national media systems that help shape the editorial agenda of alternative media and the nature of criticism directed at professional journalism. We conclude that more comparative research is needed about how alternative media represent professional journalism, and whether they are influencing people’s understanding of politics and public affairs.

摘要

近年来，新的替代媒体的增长为许多先进民主国家的政治报道带来了更多的编辑选择和多样性。但是它们对主流媒体的报道和对专业新闻的刻画很少受到学术上的关注。这项研究探讨了替代性政治媒体在推动有关国家媒体系统的价值和编辑标准的公众辩论中所扮演的角色。利用2015年至2018年间英国替代媒体的纵向内容分析（N = 3452），我们发现主流媒体经常受到批评-特别是在左翼网站-随着时间的流逝，对专业新闻的不满加剧，尤其是在2017年大选期间。我们还发现，英国广播公司的新闻经常被选作政治报道，批评指向它的偏见和缺乏公正性。总的来说，我们认为这是主流媒体在国家媒体系统中的主导特征，有助于塑造替代媒体的编辑议程以及针对专业新闻业的批评的性质。我们得出结论，关于替代媒体如何代表专业新闻以及它们是否影响人们对政治和公共事务的理解，还需要进行更多的比较研究。