ABSTRACT

We conducted interviews with conflict journalists who covered the conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Iraq and who work for the major international news agencies and media companies. These journalists did most of their reporting from remote locations as the conflict zones were too dangerous to be physically present. We investigated how the journalist did their jobs with the communicative affordances of digital tools and how digital trust-building occurred. The trust-building process between journalists and sources shifted across platforms and according to the technologies’ communicative affordances. We established that reporters had embraced the flow of news material on social media platforms as a valuable source of information, but after exercising extreme caution. Journalists upheld the boundaries that separated them from amateurs by emphasizing their role in making sense of events. They also fortified their gatekeeping role through verifying and vetting information – a task needed to maintain credibility and protect readers and viewers from misinformation and propaganda. Encrypted messaging applications such as WhatsApp played a major role in speeding up communication with and protecting potential sources and verification.

摘要

我们采访了报道叙利亚、也门、利比亚和伊拉克冲突以及为主要国际新闻机构和媒体公司工作的冲突记者。这些记者的大部分报道都是从偏远地区进行的，因为冲突地区太危险了，无法亲自到场。我们调查了记者如何使用数字工具的交流功能来完成工作，以及如何建立数字信任。记者和消息来源之间的信任建立过程跨平台转移，并根据技术的交流能力进行转移。我们确定，记者已经将社交媒体平台上的新闻材料流视为有价值的信息来源，但要格外谨慎。记者通过强调他们在理解事件中的作用来维护将他们与业余爱好者区分开来的界限。他们还通过核实和审查信息来加强他们的守门人角色——这是维持可信度并保护读者和观众免受错误信息和宣传的影响所必需的任务。WhatsApp 等加密消息传递应用程序在加快与潜在来源的通信以及保护潜在来源和验证方面发挥了重要作用。