Russell Waltz

Ideally, democratic citizens enjoy equal opportunity to deliberate, vote, and express feedback, as well as equal voice enabling them to civically participate in order to further their projects and interests. To take full advantage of these equalities, journalism must serve as an effective mechanism to ensure that citizens are able to participate effectively. Many news stories feature personal and dramatic elements of events exclusively, but those hoping to become informed and motivated require socially contextualized information as well. In this dissertation, I argue that the journalistic presentation of hybrid accounts consisting of narrow- and broad-context information best enables citizens to become informed about, and motivated to resolve, societal problems. In chapter one, I argue that seeking resolution to social issues is best accomplished via deliberating, voting, and expressing feedback. Because of this, I argue that journalists should aim to produce informed citizens who are motivated to resolve social issues. To show how journalists can meet this aim, I describe narrow- and broad- context accounts, and demonstrate how journalists can weave such accounts together to form hybrid narratives. In chapter two, I examine the notion of journalistic objectivity, questioning its status as an ideal journalists should strive to attain. I argue that because framing decisions are grounded upon value-laden appraisals, constructing an objective, value-free account of an event is impossible. In chapter three, I argue by appeal to work in cognitive psychology that some types of framing inhibit citizens' ability to form contextually rich views of events. Doing so buttresses my claim that journalists should avoid framing stories in ways that feature narrow-context information exclusively, and instead frame accounts that present both narrow- and broad-context information. In chapter four, I investigate the psychological ground of emotional arousal to show why both standalone narrow- and broad-context accounts fail to render citizens informed and motivated and why accounts must include both narrow- and broad context information. In chapter five, I examine empirical evidence that shows that citizens prefer consuming narrow-context accounts to hybrid narratives, and argue that this is because citizens lack confidence about their ability to acquire political knowledge, use that knowledge effectively, as well as the likelihood of seeing any governmental response due to their efforts. Citizens can gain such confidence by using information presented via hybrid accounts to participate effectively. Upon feeling empowered by such narratives, citizens will readily seek them out. While it may appear obvious to some that presenting hybrid accounts is desirable, such is not what we see in the media today. I provide philosophical and psychological arguments in support of doing so. For instance, while some accounts providing support for contextualized reporting have addressed the pernicious effects of the presentation of narrow-context accounts, this work has failed to examine deep seated biases rooted in perceptual processing that make such accounts unattractive. While many have cast doubt on the possibility of achieving journalistic objectivity, no one has provided a philosophical account of why doing so is impossible. Thus, my dissertation seeks to bring normative and descriptive theory to clarify the epistemic responsibilities of journalists in a democratic society.