Theorizing News: Toward a Constitutive Model of Journalistic Discourse

Abstract

The article views news as an archetypal journalistic genre. Informed by different approaches to theorizing journalism and communication, it proposes a constitutive model of journalistic metadiscourse, based on features of news, journalistic practices, and theoretical underpinnings. The proposed model is a metaparadigm composed of fundamental ethical principles and attributes comprising several dimensions of metatheoretical orientations. The principles and attributes constitute a framework for interpreting journalistic discourses. The article offers conceptual tools that can be used in researching and reflecting upon contemporary journalistic discourses.