Sandra Vera Zambrano

• PhD
• Faculty Member at Ibero American University

This article examines the formation of a belief in journalism as a worthwhile career in France and the United States. Using journalists’ memoirs, early textbooks and novels depicting journalism, we show that a life in news became appealing in the late nineteenth century due to the novel mixture of material and symbolic rewards on offer. Promising p...

Tackling the tech scenario for j-schools How should instructors convey knowledge and teach skills in online course delivery formats, and in an informative and engaging way? This challenge was accelerated with COVID-19, and the trend can be expected to continue. Journalism education, being heavily focusing on experiential learning and face-to-face i...

Building on literatures that emphasize (1) the standardizing effects of markets and technology, and (2) the historical patterns and social functions of the press, this article theorizes the simultaneous co-presence of cross-national similarities and differences in journalistic judgment. Drawing from Max Weber's early twentieth century writings on j...

At first glance, journalists appear to form a socially homogeneous professional group. Nothing seems to distinguish them with respect to their position in the social space. Men and women from diverse social origins work in the profession, being mostly urban and with higher education, employed by different media, and who also define themselves–and t...

This paper explores journalists’ reactions to economic constraints and technological transformations in two cities: Toulouse, France, and Seattle, United States. Through semi-structured interviews, we show that journalists in both places either endure these conditions, invest in them as professional opportunities, or ignore them altogether. Drawing...

Current discussions about the state of comparative research in journalism studies and political communication suggests the field is characterized by a methodological imbalance (i.e., many quantitative studies, few qualitative ones). This paper suggests the problem is better understood as an epistemological imbalance. We suggest that one epistemolog...

As pesquisas comparativas sobre a mídia são bastante numerosas atualmente. Contudo, poucas abordam as dificuldades precisas da comparação como estratégia metodológica ou ainda as condições de produção da pesquisa comparativa. Com o objetivo de trazer pistas de reflexão sobre este último aspecto, o artigo propõe um exercício de objetificação partici...

This article examines journalists’ use of social media in France and the United States. Through in-depth interviews, we show that shared practical sensibilities lead journalists in both countries to use social media to accomplish routine tasks (e.g. gather information, monitor sources, and develop story ideas). At the same time, we argue that the i...

This article examines the differential formation of online news startups in Toulouse, France, and Seattle, United States. While Seattle is home to many startups, in Toulouse there have been just 4—and only 1 continues publishing. Drawing on Bourdieu's field theory, we argue that amount and types of capital held by journalists in the 2 cities varied...

"S'amuser, c'est être d'accord". Si l'on en croit Adorno et tant d'autres depuis, les médias dominants sont réputés dépolitiser à plusieurs niveaux. D'une part, ils divertissent pour faire diversion comme ils persuadent clandestinement le téléspectateur qui "s'amuse à en mourir". La thèse remonte au moins au XIXe siècle: en jouant sur les affects e...

Est-ce que des individus aux caractéristiques sociales diverses tendent à regarder et à aimer les mêmes séries comiques? Et lors-qu'ils le font, les regardent-ils de la même manière et por les mêmes raisons? Comment se différencient les goûts en matière de séries comiques? Les réflexions proposées dans cet article reposent sur une enquête menée à T...

This article presents key results of a comparative journalists’ survey on media accountability, for which 1762 journalists in 14 countries had been interrogated online. The article explores how European journalists perceive the impact of old versus new media accountability instruments on professional journalistic standards – established instruments...

This chapter presents a cross-national study of two local news ecosystems: Toulouse, France and Seattle, Washington. We ask how and in what ways the news media of these two interestingly similar cities have been impacted by the economic and technological transformations of the past decade, and examine how news organizations have responded to these...

The purpose of this chapter is to explore what field theory (Benson 1999; Benson and Neveu 2005) might add to the understanding of media accountability in a comparative manner, in order to add an additional theoretical perspective to the discussion of the MediaAct survey data.

À la fin des années 1980 et au début des années 1990, les magazines comme Voici lancés par le groupe de presse Prisma ont paru suffisamment nouveaux pour que se diffuse l’expression, nouvelle, de « presse people ». Plus récemment, et en particulier autour de l’élection présidentielle de 2007, alors que des médias généralistes accordaient une place,...

This study examines how media system differences in the form of news change or stay the same as newspapers in the United States (liberal), Denmark (democratic corporatist), and France (polarized pluralist) move from print to online. Internet technological affordances are posited to move online news toward more advertising and information (liberal m...