The Newsroom (HBO) Audience in Spain: Profiles, Identification and Journalistic Roles
- María Fernanda Novoa-Jaso Universidad de Navarra https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1858-8343
- Javier Serrano-Puche University of Navarra https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6633-5303
Abstract
This article presents the results of a survey of 719 followers of The Newsroom (HBO) in Spain. The study examines identification with favorite characters and recognition of journalistic roles in audiovisual fiction. The results present six different profiles of fans based on their opinion of the series (realistic, idealistic, critical, or didactic) and their occupation (communicators, students, or general public). Among the followers, who have a strong and positive emotional involvement with the series, the perception prevails that it offers an idealized vision of the profession. The most recognized roles in The Newsroom are participatory journalist, journalist as a watchdog, and citizen mobilizer.
Downloads
Author Biographies
Doctora en Comunicación (2021). Licenciada en Periodismo (2016) y Máster de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales (2017) en la Universidad de Navarra. Ha trabajado en distintos medios de comunicación locales. Actualmente, es profesora Ayudante Doctor en la Facultad de Comunicación de la Universidad de Navarra donde imparte las asignaturas International Communication & Public Opinion y Sociology. Ha dedicado su atención a los estudios de recepción en la ficción audiovisual. En 2017 recibió el premio predoctoral otorgado por la Revista Dígitos al mejor artículo académico. Ha colaborado en estudios empíricos de opinión pública en los que ha empleado metodología cuantitativa y cualitativa. Su tesis doctoral abordó la influencia de las workplace TV drama series en las expectativas sociales y profesionales sobre el trabajo periodístico.
Profesor titular de Periodismo en la Facultad de Comunicación de la Universidad de Navarra, donde ejerce el cargo de Vicedecano de Ordenación Académica. Es licenciado en Periodismo (2003), con la distinción de Premio Nacional Fin de Carrera, y Doctor en Comunicación (2009) por la Universidad de Navarra. Tiene dos sexenios de investigación (2007-2012 / 2013-2018) evaluados positivamente por la CNEAI. Su carrera académica se desarrolló inicialmente en el campo del periodismo literario y los estudios del discurso, tomando como punto de partida la obra del escritor y columnista italiano Leonardo Sciascia. Posteriormente, su investigación se ha centrado en comprender el impacto de la tecnología digital en la comunicación y la interacción social, y más concretamente en el campo del consumo de noticias, poniendo especial énfasis en las implicaciones emocionales y afectivas, tanto a nivel personal de los usuarios como en el ámbito público.
References
Anaz, N., Ozcan, C.C. (2016). Geography of Turkish Soap Operas: Tourism, Soft Power, and Alternative Narratives. En I. Egresi (Ed.). Alternative Tourism in Turkey. GeoJournal Library, 121. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47537-0_15
Ang, I. (1989). Watching Dallas: Soap opera and the melodramatic imagination. Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315002477
Atkin, D. (1991). The evolution of television series addressing single women, 1966-1990. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 35(4), 517-523. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838159109364144
Bandura, A. (1986). Fundamentos sociales del pensamiento y la acción: una teoría cognitiva social. Prentice-Hall.
Banerjee, S. C. & Greene, K. (2012). Role of transportation in the persuasion process: Cognitive and affective responses to antidrug narrative”. Journal of health communication, 17 (5), 564-581. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2011.635779
Berganza Conde, M. R., Lavín, E. & Naval, V. P. (2017). La percepción de los periodistas españoles acerca de sus roles profesionales. Comunicar: Revista científica iberoamericana de comunicación y educación, 25(51), 83-92.
Black, J. E., & Barnes, J. L. (2021). Fiction and morality: Investigating the associations between reading exposure, empathy, morality, and moral judgment. Psychology of Popular Media, 10(2), 149. https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2022.2051447
Britto, S., Hughes, T., Saltzman, K. & Stroh, C. (2007). Does ‘special’mean young, white and female? Deconstructing the meaning of ‘special’in law & order: Special victims unit. Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 14 (1), 39-57. https://bit.ly/3wjNjWx
Brown, W. J. (2015). Examining four processes of audience involvement with media personae: Transportation, parasocial interaction, identification, and worship. Communication Theory, 25 (3), 259-283. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/comt.12053
Busselle, R. W. & Bilandzic, H. (2008). Fictionality and perceived realism in experiencing stories: A model of narrative comprehension and engagement. Communication theory, 18 (2), 255-280. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2008.00322.x
Calderón, M., Mora, M., & Rubio, S. (2021). La ciencia inunda los medios: análisis del tratamiento de las ciencias en las series de televisión españolas. En Vela, S. M., Sierra, N. N., & Martínez, B. P. (Coords.). Ficcionando sinergias: Los profesionales se buscan en la ficción televisiva española (pp. 157-176). Dykinson.
Calvert, S. L. & Kotler, J. A. (2003). Lessons from children’s television: The impact of the Children’s Television Act on children’s learning. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(3), 275-335. https://bit.ly/3ZQdZf7
Cantwell, M. (2004). Collapsing the extra/textual: Passions and intensities of knowledge in Buffy the Vampire Slayer online fan communities. Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media, 5. https://bit.ly/3JqxS6L
Cascajosa, C. (2007). La caja lista: televisión norteamericana de culto. Barcelona: Laertes.
Cascajosa, C. (2018). Un nuevo sentido del lugar: las narraciones del sur y la geopolítica en el proceso de renovación de la ficción televisiva española de género criminal. Arbor, 194(789), a473. https://doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2018.789n3015
Cavender, G. & Deutsch, S. K. (2007). CSI and moral authority: The police and science. Crime, Media, Culture, 3(1), 67-81. https://bit.ly/408TryD
Chittick, W. O. (1970). American Foreign Policy Elites: Attitudes Toward Secrecy and Publicity. Journalism Quarterly, 47(4), 689-696.
Clerc, S. (1996). Estrogen brigades and ‘Big Tits’ threads. Wired Women: Gender and New Realities in Cyberspace, Seattle: Seal Press. En David Bell & Barbara Kennedy (eds), The Cybercultures Reader (pp. 216-29). Routledge.
Cohen, J. (2001). Defining identification: A theoretical look at the identification of audiences with media characters. Mass Communication & Society, 4, 245-264. https://bit.ly/3GZARjG
Colbran, M. (2014). Media representations of police and crime: Shaping the police television drama. Springer.
D’Adamo, O., Virginia García Beadoux, V. & Freidenberg, F. (2007) Medios de comunicación y opinión pública. McGraw-Hill Interamericana.
Davis, M. H., Hull, J. G., Young, R. D., & Warren, G. G. (1987). Emotional reactions to dramatic film stimuli: The influence of cognitive and emotional empathy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52(1), 126–133. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.52.1.126
De la Serna, R. R., Gelado-Marcos, R., & Puebla-Martínez, B. (2021). Abogados en las series españolas. De la tensión política a la tensión dramática. En Vela, S. M., Sierra, N. N., & Martínez, B. P. (Coords.) Ficcionando sinergias: Los profesionales se buscan en la ficción televisiva española (pp. 93-108). Dykinson.
Donovan, K. M. & Klahm, C. F. (2015). The role of entertainment media in perceptions of police use of force. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 42(12), 1261-1281. https://bit.ly/3QWbiVf
Dunn, D.D. (1969). Public Officials and the Press. addison-Wesley.
Elasmar, M., Hasegawa, K., & Brain, M. (1999). The portrayal of women in US prime time television. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 43(1), 20-34. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838159909364472
Emons, P., Wester, F.& Scheepers, P. (2010). “He Works Outside the Home; She Drinks Coffee and Does the Dishes” Gender Roles in Fiction Programs on Dutch Television. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 54(1), 40-53. https://bit.ly/3WyqLvA
Ferracioli, P., Kniess, A. B., & Marques, F. P. J. (2022). The Watchdog Role of Fact-Checkers in Different Media Systems. Digital Journalism, 1-21.
Ferrucci, P. & Painter, C. (2014). “Pseudo newsgathering: Analyzing journalists’ use of pseudo-events on The Wire”. The Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture, 5, 135-169.
Galán Fajardo, E. (2007). Fundamentos básicos en la construcción del personaje para medios audiovisuales. Enlaces: revista del CES Felipe II, 7(9), 1-11. https://bit.ly/2ogJqOY
García, A. N. (2016). Moral emotions, antiheroes and the limits of allegiance. In Emotions in contemporary TV series (pp. 52-70). Palgrave Macmillan.
García, A. N. (2021). Series contra cultura: una guía humanista de la ficción televisiva. EUNSA.
Gastón-Lorente, L., Gómez-Baceiredo, B., & Martínez-Illán, A. (2022). How Fiction Makes Amends for Journalism: The Case of When They See Us. Journal of Communication Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1177/01968599221088265
Gerbner, G. (1998). Cultivation analysis: An overview. Mass communication and society, 1(3-4), 175-194. https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.1998.9677855
Gómez Ponce, A. (2020). De series televisivas, intensidades y miedos posmodernos. Estudios-Centro de Estudios Avanzados. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba,1 (43), 27-44.
Grandío, M. D. M. (2009). Audiencia, Fenómeno Fan y Ficción Televisiva El Caso de Friends. LibrosEnRed.
Green, M. C. & Brock, T. C. (2002). In the mind’s eye: Transportation-imagery model of narrative persuasion. In M.C. Green, J.J. Strange, T. Brock, & C. Timothy. Narrative impact: social and cognitive foundations (pp. 315-341). Erlbaum.
Green, M. C., Brock, T. C. & Kaufman, G. F. (2004). Understanding media enjoyment: The role of transportation into narrative worlds. Communication theory, 14(1), 311-327. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2004.tb00317.x
Greenberg, B. S. (1982). Television and role socialization. En D. Pearl , L. Bouthilet, & J. Lazar (Eds.). An overview. Television and behavior: Ten years of scientific progress and implications for the eighties (pp. 179-190). National Institute of Mental Health.
Greenberg, B. S., & Collette, L. (1997). The changing faces on TV: A demographic analysis of network television's new seasons, 1966-1992. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 41(1), 1-13.https://doi.org/10.1080/08838159709364386
Gutiérrez Delgado, R. (2018). La estética televisiva en las series contemporáneas. Anagramas-Rumbos y sentidos de la comunicación-, 17(33), 293-297.
Hadas, L. (2013). Resisting the romance: ‘Shipping’and the discourse of genre uniqueness in Doctor Who fandom. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(3), 329-343. https://bit.ly/3H1ptUr
Hanitzsch, T. (2011). Populist disseminators, detached watchdogs, critical change agents and opportunist facilitators: Professional milieus, the journalistic field and autonomy in 18 countries. International Communication Gazette, 73(6), 477-494.
Hassard, J. & Holliday, R. (Eds.). (1998). Organization-representation: Work and organizations in popular culture. Sage.
Hellekson, K., & Busse, K. (Eds.). (2006). Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the internet: new essays. McFarland.
Hills, M. (2002). Fan cultures. Psychology Press.
Hoffner, C. & Buchanan, M. (2005). Young adults’ wishful identification with television characters: The role of perceived similarity and character attributes. Media psychology, 7(4), 325-351.
Hoffner, C. A., Levine, K. J., & Toohey, R. A. (2008). Socialization to work in late adolescence: The role of television and family. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 52(2), 282-302. https://bit.ly/3woqz7S
Hudelet, A., & Crémieux, A. (2021). Exploring Seriality on Screen. Audiovisual narratives in.
Igartua, J. J. (2010). Identification with characters and narrative persuasion through fictional feature films. Communications, 35, 347–373. https://bit.ly/3HpYfIw
Igartura, J. J., & Múñiz, C. (2008). Identificación con los personajes y disfrute ante largometrajes de ficción. Una investigación empírica. Comunicación y sociedad. vol. XXI, 1, 25-52.
Imbert, G. (2010). Cine e imaginarios sociales. Cátedra.
Jenkins, H. (1995). ‘Do you enjoy making the rest of us feel stupid?’: alt. tv. twinpeaks, the trickster author, and viewer mastery. En David Lavery (Ed.), Full of secrets: Critical approaches to Twin Peaks (pp. 51-69). Wayne State University Press.
Jenkins, H. (2014). Fandom studies as I see it. The journal of fandom studies, 2(2), 89-109. https://bit.ly/3Xxjyxm
Johnstone, J. W., Slawski, E. J.& Bowman, W. W. (1972). The professional values of American newsmen. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(4), 522-540.
Kahlenberg, S. G. (1995). Character portrayals on prime-time television: A content analysis [Master's thesis]. University of Delaware.
King, M. M., & Multon, K. D. (1996). The effects of television role models on the career aspirations of African American junior high school students. Journal of Career Development, 23(2), 111-125. https://bit.ly/3J8otAk
Knaggs, A. (2011). Prison Break general gabbery: Extra-hyperdiegetic spaces, power, and identity in Prison Break. Television & New Media, 12(5), 395-411. https://bit.ly/3HpYqUc
Koliska, M. & Eckert, S. (2015). Lost in a house of mirrors: Journalists come to terms with myth and reality in The Newsroom. Journalism, 16(6), 750-767. https://bit.ly/3H1pPdJ
Lacalle, C. (2008). Doctors in TV fiction. Quaderns del CAC, 2, 51-60. https://bit.ly/3kBhTs2
Lane, P. J. (2001). The existential condition of television crime drama. The Journal of Popular Culture, 34(4), 137-151. https://bit.ly/3QWbTWZ
Lauzen, M. M., Dozier, D. M.& Horan, N. (2008). Constructing gender stereotypes through social roles in prime-time television. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 52(2), 200-214. https://bit.ly/3iWxMbV
Levine, K. J. & Hoffner, C. A. (2006). Adolescents’ conceptions of work: what is learned from different sources during anticipatory socialization? Journal of Adolescent Research, 21(6), 647-669. https://bit.ly/3WAlFPw
Mann, M. (2005). The CSI Effect: Better jurors through television and science. Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal, 24 (1), 211-238. https://bit.ly/3wor5CQ
McQueen, A., Kreuter, M. W., Kalesan, B. & Alcaraz, Kassandra I. (2011). Understanding narrative effects: The impact of breast cancer survivor stories on message processing, attitudes, and beliefs among African American women. Health psychology, 30(6): 674-82. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025395
Mellado, C. (2020). Beyond Journalistic Norms: Role Performance and News in Comparative Perspective. Routledge.
Mellado, C., & Hermida, A. (2021). A Conceptual Framework for Journalistic Identity on Social Media: How the Personal and Professional Contribute to Power and Profit. Digital Journalism, 1, 1-16. https://bit.ly/3Da5sK1
Mellado, C., Hellmueller, L., & Donsbach, W. (Eds.). (2016). Journalistic role performance: Concepts, contexts, and methods. Taylor & Francis.
Mellado, C., Hellmueller, L & Weaver, D. H. (2016). Revisiting journalists’ role conceptions research. En C. Mellado, L. Hellmueller & Weaver (Eds.), Journalistic Role Performance (pp. 39-58). Routledge.
Miller, P. H. (2002). Theories of developmental psychology. Macmillan.
Moïsi, D. (2017). La geopolítica de las series o el triunfo global del miedo. Errata naturae.
Morley, D. (2003). Television, audiences and cultural studies. Routledge.
Nærland, T. U. (2020). From pleasure to politics: Five functions of watching TV-series for public connection. European Journal of Communication, 35(2), 93-107. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323119894481
Nelson, R. (2013). State of Play: Contemporary “high-end” TV drama. Manchester University Press.
Nelson, S., & Spence, B. (2020). Narrative time. Oxford Research Ecyclopedia of Literature. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1076
Nicolás-Gavilán, M. T., Galbán-Lozano, S. E., & Ortega-Barba, C. F. (2017). The newsroom: uso de una serie de televisión para la formación ética de futuros profesionales de la información. El profesional de la información (EPI), 26(2), 277-282. https://bit.ly/3XD2xC4
Nimmo, D. (1964). Newsgathering in Washington: A study in political communication. AldineTransaction.
Northcott, H. C. (1975). Too young, too old. Age in the world of television. The Gerontologist, 15(2), 184-186. https://bit.ly/3XvrlMd
Nothias, T. (2020). Representation and Journalism. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication.
Novoa-Jaso, Sánchez-Aranda, Serrano-Puche (2019). De la Redacción a la (gran) pantalla: roles profesionales del periodismo y su representación en la ficción audiovisual. Icono14, 17(2), 32-58. https://bit.ly/3HqZuHt
Otero, J. & Rubio, D. (Ed.). (2016). Política en serie. Libros.com
Painter, C., & Ferrucci, P. (2012). Unprofessional, ineffective, and weak: A textual analysis of the portrayal of female journalists on sports night. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 27(4), 248-262.
Painter, C., & Ferrucci, P. (2019). Taking the White Gloves off: The Portrayal of Female Journalists on Good Girls Revolt. Journal of Magazine Media, 19(2), 50-71.
Peters, C. (2015). Evaluating journalism through popular culture: HBO’s The Newsroom and public reflections on the state of the news media. Media, Culture & Society, 37(4), 602-619. https://bit.ly/3wm9wD4
Raemy, P., & Vos, T. P. (2021). A negotiative theory of journalistic roles. Communication Theory, 31(1), 107-126.
Ramos, F. J. M., & Talavera, M. D. M. L. (2020). Sports Journalism in Fiction Media: an Ethical Analysis Oriented to the Teaching of Professional Ethics. Estudios Sobre el Mensaje Periodistico, 26(4), 1499.
Reiner, R., Livingstone, S. & Allen, J. (2012). Casino culture: media and crime. En Crime, Risk and Justice. En K. Stenson, & R. Sullivan (Eds.), Crime, Risk and Justice (pp.175-93). Cullompton.
Rodrigo-Martín, I., Jiménez-Gómez, I., & Rodrigo-Martín, L. (2020). Propuesta metodológica para el análisis de los roles profesionales de la comunicación en las series de TV. Comunicación y Métodos, 2(1), 59-75.
Rodríguez-Virgili, J., Sádaba, T., y López-Hermida, A. (2010). La ficción audiovisual como nuevo escenario para la Comunicación Política. Cuadernos de Información y Comunicación, 15, 37-54.
Roses- Campos, S. R. & Humanes, M. L. (2019). Conflictos en los roles profesionales de los periodistas en España: Ideales y práctica. Comunicar, 27(58), 65-74. https://bit.ly/3kADYXH
Ross, S. M. (2011). In focus: Writing and producing tv in the post-network era: Introduction. Cinema Journal, 50(2), 128-131.
San José-De la Rosa, C., Gil-Torres, A., & Miguel-Borrás, M. (2022). El periodismo como protagonista esencial en la trama de la serie The Crown. Revista de Comunicación, 21(2), 263-283.
Signorielli, N. (1983). Health, prevention and television: Images of the elderly and perceptions of social reality. Prevention in human services, 3(1), 97-117. https://doi.org/10.1300/J293v03n01_09
Signorielli, N. (1989). Television and conceptions about sex roles: Maintaining conventionality and the status quo. Sex roles, 21(5-6), 341-360. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00289596
Signorielli, N., & Kahlenberg, S. (2001). Television's world of work in the nineties. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45(1), 4-22. https://bit.ly/3ZUNbdy
Soto-Sanfiel, M.-T. & Angulo-Brunet, A. (2020). How European adolescents get engaged with films?: Psychometric properties of the narrative engagement scale. Profesional de la información, 29(5), e290502. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.02
Stacey, J. (1998). Brave new families: Stories of domestic upheaval in late-twentieth-century America. University of California Press.
Standaert, O., Hanitzsch,T., & Dedonder, J. (2021). In their own words: A normative-empirical approach to journalistic roles around the world. Journalism, 22(4), 919-936.
Tulloch, J., & Jenkins, H. (1995). Science fiction audiences: watching Doctor Who and Star Trek. Routledge.
Williams, R. (2004). It’s about power”: Spoilers and fan hierarchy in on-line Buffy fandom. Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies, 11, 1-15. https://bit.ly/3ZWDOKj
Wright, J. C., Huston, A. C., Truglio, R., Fitch, M., Smith, E. & Piemyat, S. (1995). Occupational portrayals on television: Children's role schemata, career aspirations, and perceptions of reality. Child development, 66 (6), 1706-1718. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131905
Article download
Crossmark
License
In order to support the global exchange of knowledge, the journal Estudios sobre el Mensaje Periodístico is allowing unrestricted access to its content as from its publication in this electronic edition, and as such it is an open-access journal. The originals published in this journal are the property of the Complutense University of Madrid and any reproduction thereof in full or in part must cite the source. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 use and distribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This circumstance must be expressly stated in these terms where necessary. You can view the summary and the complete legal text of the licence.
