Final exam DCW4 – Domain module Political

Communication and Journalism

20 December 2022 – 16h00

ANSWER KEY EXAM INSPECTION/INZAGE TENTAMEN

PART I. CONCEPTS (20 points)

QUESTION 1. Please define the following concepts. If an example is requested, make it
concrete. It can be a real or fictional example.
1) Global (or foreign) news paradox (50 words, 2 points)
Trend towards less (or at least not more) foreign/global news, investments in foreign
news are declining, while at the same time, societies are only getting more globalized
in various ways, so foreign news = more important
2) Populist mobilizer journalistic role conception (50 words, 2 points)
This term refers to the journalistic role conception that involves journalists to feel
responsible to actively engage citizens in the public debate and give citizens a voice,
to seek stories important to the public and to try to put them on the agenda. It is
directly related to populism.
3) External pluralism (50 words, 2 points)
This term refers to the situation in which media in a certain country are aligned with
the various ideological groups in society. All voices are heard, but not within the same
media outlets. To hear all voices, several media need to be consumed.
4) Inversion narrative (50 words, 2 points)
journalist claim that instead of hindering them, their employment at a state-funded
media company is beneficial. Due to bigger budgets, they actually have more
autonomy and time to work on a story than the colleagues working for private
companies. They get better access to information, places and people.
5) Algorithmic gatekeeping (explain what it is and how this works) (75 words, 3
points)
Algorithmic gatekeeping is the selection of news stories based on algorithms, instead
of journalists. It optimizes clicks. The selection is based on the wisdom of
the crowd similar to the use (collaborative filtering).
 NAME: ________________________________

6) Issue Ownership (+ include an example) (75 words, 3 points)

Issue ownership is when a specific politician/party (not just any organization or public
figure) is deemed to be fit to handle/solve a specific issue, by the public. For example
in the United States, democrats have issue ownership on LGBTQ rights as they are
deemed fit to resolve problems regarding these rights and are seen as a protector of
them, having worked towards improving them in the past.
7) Privatization (Van Aelst et al.) (+ include an example) (75 words, 3 points)
The form of personalisation that refers to the process of increased attention for the
personal, non-political characteristics and the private life of politicians in the news
media (examples anything that is concrete and refers to either non-political traits or
private life, e.g. hobbies or family).
8) Scope enlargement as a function of media coverage for social movements (+
include an example) (75 words, 3 points)
This term refers to the fact that social movements need the media to find allies, to get
other organisations to get to know what they are doing and to stimulate them to join
them in their actions to reach their goals. Examples include situations in which an
organization is linked to support from other organization(s) in their protest.

Note that for all these definitions, points can be deducted for providing wrong
information (even if the complete correct definition is there as well) or explanations
and examples which are not clearly an example of the concept (not specific enough, too
vague).

2
 NAME: ________________________________

PART II. OPEN QUESTIONS

QUESTION 2 (12 points in total)

Think of yourself as a political PR professional. Your client is Giorgia Meloni (Prime

Minster of Italy, nationalist and right-wing populist, Party: Fratelli d’Italia/Brothers of
Italy) and she wants advice on how much and how she should engage in
personalization and infotainment.

Note that there is no need to know or use any specific names of Italian people or television
programs in your answer.

a) Advice on how much and in what manner she should engage in

personalization (maximum 125 words, 6 points). Make sure to give at
least one concrete tip, and justify your suggestion(s) (using arguments).

b) Advice on how much and in what manner she should engage in

infotainment (maximum 125 words, 6 points). Make sure to give at least
one concrete tip, and justify your suggestion(s) (using arguments).

Answer key:
6 points could be awarded for both a) and b). Full points required advice on how much to
engage in it (with some arguments why, including reference to potential backlash, very
convincing = full points) and how to engage in it (with some arguments why, including
reference to tailored approaches to specific audiences, very convincing full points). The
absence of a specific (sufficiently concrete) suggestions could lead to a deduction of up to 2
points for each.

QUESTION 3 (25 points in total):

The World Cup in Qatar just ended, but the problems regarding human rights and
unsafe working conditions there are likely to remain as important issues in the media.

Suppose you are a journalist from the Dutch Public Broadcaster NOS, who plans to
make a news report about the current human rights situation in Qatar. You will be a
parachute journalist in Qatar for about a week immediately following the World Cup
final.

a) What would you do to make this news report about human rights in Qatar
sufficiently interesting for your home audience in the Netherlands? Name the
concept from the course that is most relevant for this, explain how it works, and
give at least two concrete examples of elements you would include in the news
report to make the item sufficiently interesting for your home audience in the
Netherlands. (Max. 125 words, 7 points).

The term we were looking for was domestication. All examples linked to forms of
domestication were accepted (e.g. interviewing a Dutch person in Qatar, linking reports to

3
 NAME: ________________________________

national symbols, using a Dutch reporter, comparing the situation with the situation in the
Netherlands etc.). It was specifically asked to domesticate the news for The Netherlands.

b) What would be potential advantages AND disadvantages of being a parachute

journalist in this situation? How would being a parachute journalist compare to
making this news report as a fixed correspondent in Qatar and how would it
compare to making this news report from the home country (Netherlands) news
desk (without being in Qatar)? Explain this in the context of this specific case
(Max. 150 words, 8 points).

Here it was important to compare the parachute journalist with both the fixed correspondent
and the home desk.

- Compared to fixed correspondent: Parachute journalist is less expensive and can

be sent to the exact right spot (which may not be the base for the fixed
correspondent). Disadvantages include (required element) that they produce more
episodic news, have less knowledge about the country, situation and local media,
and have no or less of a network, making it harder to find relevant sources, which
leads to an elite-focus.
- Compared to the home desk: Parachute journalists are more expensive, and it
costs a bit of time to get there. But at least they have the chance to look into things
locally, they can go to places and collect their own information and footage, and
potentially talk to many different sources, which is much more limited for the
home desk, since they are bound by the material made available to them by the
news agencies and other broadcasters (which is often very elite-focused), they
have less control.

c) What is journalism of attachment? Define the concept and explain how a

journalist using this form of reporting would cover this topic? Be concrete in
your answer, and use at least the two instruments of journalism of attachment
we discussed in the lecture. (Max. 125 words, 6 points).

Form of public journalism, involving that journalism is deviating from the

neutrality/objectivity norm by being engaged, exposing problems and
trying to stimulate societal debate. Journalism of attachment takes a side, it wants to
be part of the debate in favor of victims.

The two instruments are instrumental actualization (emphasizing, downplaying or

even leaving out certain elements to fit your point) and using opportune witnesses
(only giving voice to sources supporting your chosen side of the story).

d) Suppose you were not working for NOS, but instead you were working for Al
Jazeera. In which ways would that make a difference on how you would report
on the topics of human rights in Qatar? Briefly explain why. (Max. 100 words, 4
points).

There is not one norm answer here. An important element would be to name and
discuss the status of Al Jazeera as a state-funded Arab medium (funded by Qatar),
which would logically lead to public diplomacy content. This then needs to be
explained and applied to this particular topic.

4
 NAME: ________________________________

QUESTION 4 (13 points in total):

a) In his video in week 1, Alessandro Nai stressed the importance of (also)

knowing what Negative campaigning is NOT. Name and explain which three
“false friends” he identified. (Max. 150 words, 9 points)

(3 points awarded for each)

1) Incivility: Breaking norms of politeness, being vulgar, insulting opponents and/or

using aggressive sarcasm

2) Negative emotional appeals: Fear, anxiety inducing campaign messages (e.g., your
brain on drugs)

3) Populism: Anti-elitism and anti-intellectualism (two “aggressive” components)

b) In week 7, Van Aelst et al. (2017) discuss 6 concerns with regard to key
changes and trends in the political information environment. Name one of
those concerns that -according to you- is most closely related to negative
campaigning, and explain why. (Max 100 words, 4 points).

Note: several of these concerns can be a correct answer, it is your explanation, showing
understanding of course content, which will determine the evaluation of your answer.

Declining supply of political information (e.g. link to less information about where parties
stand themselves)
Declining quality of news (less suitable, but e.g. link to news media reporting about negative
campaigning, or letting their agenda being set by it)
Increasing media concentration and declining diversity of news (not really suitable,
arguments are linked to polarization, rather)
Increasing fragmentation and polarization (very suitable choice, negative campaigning can be
linked to polarization in society and politics)
Increasing relativism (not very suitable, be careful not to align negative campaigning with
fake news just like that)
Increasing inequality in political knowledge (less suitable, although e.g. again a link could be
drawn with less substantial information about issues stances of politicians on those media
people with low political knowledge consume most).

5
 NAME: ________________________________

PART III. Mini essay (Max. 700 words, 30 points)

Write a mini-essay about the statement below. Remember to explicitly state your position for
or against the statement. Follow the structure of the essay as we learned in class during the
essay assignment. References are not important in this mini-essay. We do expect you to include
the arguments you can build based on what you have learned in this course. Of course, you can
also add other arguments. If you want to, you can mention names of scholars, but that is not
necessary and this is not part of the evaluation criteria. The mini-essay is also a bit shorter than
the earlier essay, and space is limited, so try not to elaborate too much on one specific element
or argument (30 points in total).

Statement: The public news broadcaster NOS in the Netherlands should

avoid being a channel for populist communication from politicians.

Note that in Testvision, you should be able to see 4 subscores (on 5), corresponding to the
four parts in the matrix below. The total score that is recorded, is calculated based on the
different weights of these parts and it is a score on 30.

Grading scheme:
Insufficient (0 or 1) 2 Moderate (3) 4 Excellent (5)
Introduction No introduction Statement and position present Clear position
(20%) Introduction is not a separate Basic relevance present, but Compelling description of
paragraph. not especially creative or relevance
Relevance not or not well original Specific, creative and well-
explained Example present, but link to fitting example.
No example statement is not very clear. Example clearly linked to
No explicit mentioning of the Too short, or too long. statement
statement Key concepts not or not well Key concepts well defined.
No clear position taken defined
2. Use of More than four avoidable No or few errors No or few errors, no big ones.
language & errors. Fluent text (max. one Fluent text, fun to read.
readability More than one sentence not passage a little vague) Inspiring writing, reader’s
(15%) finished. enthusiasm is stimulated.
Unreadable pieces of text.
Arguments None, or only one Several PRO arguments, Many (some original) PRO
(50%) (convincing) PRO argument some of them convincing and several CON arguments.
No CON argument At least one CON argument Almost all very convincing,
Inconsistent reasoning (which also needs to be CON arguments refuted
refuted to get 3+). convincingly.
Some arguments of the All arguments from the course
course content present content present
Good structure of the
argumentation.
Conclusion No conclusion. Conclusion includes a short Compelling conclusion
(15%) Too short (less than three summary of the arguments. Also CON arguments get a
Lines) Reference to the introduction place.
No reference back to the is present. Strongly convincing
introduction Position is evaluated. Reference back to an example
No evaluation of the position Persuasive elements in the introduction
based on the arguments (conclusion is convincing)