Inclusive Journalism: Handbook

"The relationship between media and the social cohesion of diverse societies has become one of the most debated issues today."

This handbook, developed by the Media Diversity Institute (MDI), outlines the main principles of diversity and inclusion in an effort to promote responsible reporting in the age of increasing inequalities and divisions. It is designed to be used as a textbook in journalism schools and is intended for academics, journalism students and journalists. Using examples of existing media coverage of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, geography, and social and marital status, it offers a set of educational tools that can be used in a classroom to develop sensitivity to diversity, to increase students' analytical skills in relation to news content and to enrich students’ knowledge and understanding of the relationship between social diversity and the media. Although it has been written in the context of China, the publishers state that its content and examples would also serve journalism teachers across the globe.

As explained in the handbook: "Several studies on media representation of social groups have confirmed that racism, bigotry, xenophobia, ageism, sexism and other forms of discrimination are learned by text and talk, namely that journalists play a crucial role in the reproduction of prejudices." The handbook, therefore, seeks to "open a critical dialogue about journalism practice that sheds light on voices misrepresented or left out in news coverage."

According to the Handbook, inclusive journalism can be defined "as a set of normative discourses, editorial policies and reporting practices that have arisen and have been developed to provide a diversity of voices in the media domain. Rooted in the political notion of inclusive democracy and a political system that goes beyond recognizing formal equality of all individuals, the idea of inclusive journalism examines actions and special measures journalists use to address and respond to inequalities of unjust social structures." In addition, "The objective of inclusive journalism is to develop inclusive communicative competence to enable reflective thinking, experience of social, political and cultural pluralism, and recognition of otherness and a critical stand towards the process of constructing identities (Rupar and Pesic 2012). As an analytical tool, inclusive journalism looks at media representation of people in social settings. Reporters' choice of sources and the decision to include and exclude, correlate to functional differentiation where establishing who is inside and who is outside of a boundary, defines 'included' only in relation to ‘excluded’."

The book is divided into two parts.

• Part 1: This part of the book introduces theoretical and methodological frameworks and has two chapters:
  • Media and Society - This chapter provides an overview and critical discussion of the relationship between media and society and the ways contemporary journalists approach, represent, and promote diversity issues. Inclusive journalism critically approaches the place of journalism in society by discussing a social system's capacity to respond, adjust, and transform in the face of tensions, conflict, and adversity. This chapter lays out the theoretical framework for the analysis in the next chapter.
  • News analysis - This chapter introduces a methodological framework of critical discourse analysis and explains how it could be used in a classroom. Arguing that discrimination is learned through the many discourses we are confronted with in our daily life, it positions the upcoming task within the wider efforts made to improve journalism performance in reporting on diversity issues. This section is based on the idea that discriminatory discourses are produced and controlled by the symbolic elites, and educating future journalists on how to avoid reproducing stereotypes, prejudices, and hate speech is an important part of their education. Once they enter the industry, they will play an important role in the struggle against discrimination in any context.
• Part 2: The second part of the handbook presents case study examples of media coverage of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, geography, and social and marital status. Each chapter looks at one of these issues, introducing the subject and giving a brief overview of existing research on the media representation of the diversity issue, followed by examples taken from Chinese and international media. The analysis of journalistic tools used is done by using in-text comments to highlight the main points of ethical decision-making that require students' attention. These examples could be used in a classroom but, more importantly, they could serve as a model of unpacking news content and discussing key issues considering relevant academic scholarship, with the objective of raising students' awareness around media's contribution to presentation, interpretation, and construction of diversity discourses. Each chapter also includes a section with questions that could be addressed in class discussion.

The final chapter revisits the issue of news media's role in structuring public debate, followed by the appendices that include a list of references, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Federation of Journalists' Global Charter of Ethics for Journalists.