International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

The term advocacy journalism describes the use of journalism techniques to promote a specific political or social cause. The term is potentially meaningful only in opposition to a category of journalism that does not engage in advocacy, so-called objective journalism (→  Objectivity in Reporting ). This distinction tends to be a focus of attention in the United States, especially in the second half of the twentieth century, rather than elsewhere in the world; use of these terms does not necessarily translate to other political landscapes, though US (and more generally western) models are becoming dominant (→  Journalists' Role Perception ). In western Europe, some newspapers have long identified openly with a political position, even though journalists from these papers are considered professionals not typically engaged in advocacy (→  Party–Press Parallelism ). For example, in Italy Il Manifesto identifies itself as a communist newspaper philosophically but does not associate with any party and operates as a workers' cooperative (→  Italy: Media System ). In developing nations that have become independent since World War II, journalism was typically part of freedom movements in support of liberation from colonialism. Many independent publications retain the opposition to entrenched power, for example, the Hindu in India. The press in the United States, which was distinctly ... log in or subscribe to read full text