Papers by Daniel Bennett
The live blog or live page has emerged as a bespoke format for covering breaking news online and ... more The live blog or live page has emerged as a bespoke format for covering breaking news online and represents an important “site” to investigate the impact of social media on news sourcing. This article assesses whether the adoption of live online coverage has facilitated a more “multiperspectival” journalism through the inclusion of “non-official” sources. The article is based on comparative content analyses of the BBC’s coverage of Anders Behring Breivik’s killing spree in 2011 and the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. The article is strengthened by “triangulating” data from interviews, access to BBC documents and observation work at the BBC. The comparison reveals that the incorporation of eyewitness accounts has driven an increase in the inclusion of “non-official” sources in the BBC’s live online coverage, but it suggests that further significant increases are unlikely. In particular, the use of Twitter was becoming normalised by 2011 both in the range of actors who use the microblogging tool and the BBC’s approach to sourcing content from Twitter. The article suggests that journalists’ approach to sourcing continues to depend as much on conceptions of news values and editorial approach as it does on the live blogging platform through which the news is disseminated.
Explanations for the non-reporting of the phone hacking scandal need to delve beyond simplistic, ... more Explanations for the non-reporting of the phone hacking scandal need to delve beyond simplistic, if valid, assertions of industry cover-up. In order to explain why the majority of national newspapers failed to regard phone hacking as newsworthy, it is necessary to unpick a tangled web of contributing factors. This book chapter explores competing professional, political and commercial interests; the failure of other organisations – particularly the Metropolitan Police – to investigate the matter thoroughly; and the intimidating power of News International.
British Journalism Review, 2012
Information, Communication and Society, 2015
This paper explores how social media spaces are occupied, utilised and negotiated by the British ... more This paper explores how social media spaces are occupied, utilised and negotiated by the British Military in relation to the Ministry of Defence’s concerns and conceptualisations of risk. It draws on data from the DUN Project to investigate the content and form of social media about defence through the lens of ‘capability’, a term that captures and describes the meaning behind multiple of representations of the military institution. But ‘capability’ is also a term that we hijack and extend here, not only in relation to the dominant presence of ‘capability’ as a representational trope and the extent to which it is revealing of a particular management of social media spaces, but also in relation to what our research reveals for the wider digital media landscape and ‘capable’ digital methods. What emerges from our analysis is the existence of powerful, successful and critically longstanding media and reputation management strategies occurring within the techno-economic online structures where the exercising of ‘control’ over the individual – as opposed to the technology – is highly effective. These findings raise critical questions regarding the extent to which ‘control’ and management of social media– both within and beyond the defence sector – may be determined as much by cultural, social, institutional and political influence and infrastructure as the technological economies. At a key moment in social media analysis, then, when attention is turning to the affordances, criticisms and possibilities of data, our research is a pertinent reminder that we should not forget the active management of content that is being similarly, if not equally, effective.
This paper explores how social media spaces are occupied, utilized and negotiated by the British ... more This paper explores how social media spaces are occupied, utilized and negotiated by the British Military in relation to the Ministry of Defence's concerns and conceptualizations of risk. It draws on data from the DUN Project to investigate the content and form of social media about defence through the lens of ‘capability’, a term that captures and describes the meaning behind multiple representations of the military institution. But ‘capability’ is also a term that we hijack and extend here, not only in relation to the dominant presence of ‘capability’ as a representational trope and the extent to which it is revealing of a particular management of social media spaces, but also in relation to what our research reveals for the wider digital media landscape and ‘capable’ digital methods. What emerges from our analysis is the existence of powerful, successful and critically long-standing media and reputation management strategies occurring within the techno-economic online structures where the exercising of ‘control’ over the individual – as opposed to the technology – is highly effective. These findings raise critical questions regarding the extent to which ‘control’ and management of social media – both within and beyond the defence sector – may be determined as much by cultural, social, institutional and political influence and infrastructure as the technological economies. At a key moment in social media analysis, then, when attention is turning to the affordances, criticisms and possibilities of data, our research is a pertinent reminder that we should not forget the active management of content that is being similarly, if not equally, effective.
This article analyses the evolution of a war and terror blogosphere between 2001 and 2011. It ide... more This article analyses the evolution of a war and terror blogosphere between 2001 and 2011. It identifies seven areas where blogs and related online genres could provide ‘alternative’ accounts to traditional media narratives of conflict. The article also assesses the challenges and opportunities of blogs in each area from the perspective of the working journalist in order to deepen our understanding of the changing influence of blogs on traditional media narratives of
conflict. Parallel accounts and interpretations of conflict will collaborate and compete in a war and terror blogosphere in the future, but it has been significantly influenced by the adoption of blogging by military actors since 2008. The war and terror blogosphere is no longer a relatively unmonitored online space which is having an impact on both the production of ‘alternative’ accounts of conflict and the incorporation of these accounts into traditional journalism.
This article argues that explanations for the non-reporting of the phone hacking scandal need to ... more This article argues that explanations for the non-reporting of the phone hacking scandal need to delve beyond simplistic, if valid, assertions of industry cover-up. We analyse how a definition of ‘newsworthiness’ based on the public interest can be undermined by a combination of professional, political
and commercial interests. Together they form an explanation for the press’s collective redaction of developments in the phone hacking story until July 2011. We demonstrate, therefore, that the vigour of journalism and healthy democratic debate is not merely dependent on the effective regulation of what is reported, it is also dependent on ensuring that harmful illegal activity is regarded as sufficiently ‘newsworthy’ to be investigated and reported.
Books by Daniel Bennett
This book explores the impact of new forms of online reporting on the BBC’s coverage of war and t... more This book explores the impact of new forms of online reporting on the BBC’s coverage of war and terrorism. Informed by the views of over 100 BBC staff at all levels of the corporation, Bennett captures journalists’ shifting attitudes towards blogs and internet sources used to cover wars and other conflicts. He argues that the BBC’s practices and values are fundamentally evolving in response to the challenges of immediate digital publication. Ongoing challenges for journalism in the online media environment are identified: maintaining impartiality in the face of calls for more open personal journalism; ensuring accuracy when the power of the "former audience" allows news to break at speed; and overcoming the limits of the scale of the BBC’s news operation in order to meet the demands to present news as conversation.
While the focus of the book is on the BBC’s coverage of war and terrorism, the conclusions are more widely relevant to the evolving practice of journalism at traditional media organizations as they grapple with a revolution in publication.
Research by Daniel Bennett
Defence and military practice increasingly incorporates media into the planning, delivery and man... more Defence and military practice increasingly incorporates media into the planning, delivery and management of strategic and tactical defence activities. This is evident in the evolving doctrine and philosophy of Strategic Communications through which defence actors attempt to harness, and mitigate against ‘Now Media’ – the term used to describe the effect of the media rather than its character. Social media in particular, by virtue of its immediacy, mobility, and networked capabilities, is positioned as having particular utility in this regard. Yet, simultaneously, there is recognition of ‘risk’ emanating from the use of social media platforms in Strategic Communications practice. Throughout the Strategic Communications’ philosophy and doctrine then – which, among other things, attempts to map the pervasiveness of digital technology with a pervasive strategy – are the inherent contradictions of opportunity and risk that characterize the ambiguity of the role of social media within (and beyond) the defence sector.
Project Aims
The D.U.N Project directly speaks to the foregrounding of the concerns above and the uncertainty in defence as a result of rapid technological developments. Our main objective is to offer a comprehensive understanding of social media as both a tool for strategic communication and a tool for uncertainty. It will do this by interrogating the ways in which social is perceived, organized, managed and responded to by defence actors operating within the strategic environment.
In the context of evolving social media use in defence, the project asks what lessons have been learnt, and should be learnt, in order to avoid strategic surprise.
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Papers by Daniel Bennett
conflict. Parallel accounts and interpretations of conflict will collaborate and compete in a war and terror blogosphere in the future, but it has been significantly influenced by the adoption of blogging by military actors since 2008. The war and terror blogosphere is no longer a relatively unmonitored online space which is having an impact on both the production of ‘alternative’ accounts of conflict and the incorporation of these accounts into traditional journalism.
and commercial interests. Together they form an explanation for the press’s collective redaction of developments in the phone hacking story until July 2011. We demonstrate, therefore, that the vigour of journalism and healthy democratic debate is not merely dependent on the effective regulation of what is reported, it is also dependent on ensuring that harmful illegal activity is regarded as sufficiently ‘newsworthy’ to be investigated and reported.
Books by Daniel Bennett
While the focus of the book is on the BBC’s coverage of war and terrorism, the conclusions are more widely relevant to the evolving practice of journalism at traditional media organizations as they grapple with a revolution in publication.
Research by Daniel Bennett
Project Aims
The D.U.N Project directly speaks to the foregrounding of the concerns above and the uncertainty in defence as a result of rapid technological developments. Our main objective is to offer a comprehensive understanding of social media as both a tool for strategic communication and a tool for uncertainty. It will do this by interrogating the ways in which social is perceived, organized, managed and responded to by defence actors operating within the strategic environment.
In the context of evolving social media use in defence, the project asks what lessons have been learnt, and should be learnt, in order to avoid strategic surprise.
conflict. Parallel accounts and interpretations of conflict will collaborate and compete in a war and terror blogosphere in the future, but it has been significantly influenced by the adoption of blogging by military actors since 2008. The war and terror blogosphere is no longer a relatively unmonitored online space which is having an impact on both the production of ‘alternative’ accounts of conflict and the incorporation of these accounts into traditional journalism.
and commercial interests. Together they form an explanation for the press’s collective redaction of developments in the phone hacking story until July 2011. We demonstrate, therefore, that the vigour of journalism and healthy democratic debate is not merely dependent on the effective regulation of what is reported, it is also dependent on ensuring that harmful illegal activity is regarded as sufficiently ‘newsworthy’ to be investigated and reported.
While the focus of the book is on the BBC’s coverage of war and terrorism, the conclusions are more widely relevant to the evolving practice of journalism at traditional media organizations as they grapple with a revolution in publication.
Project Aims
The D.U.N Project directly speaks to the foregrounding of the concerns above and the uncertainty in defence as a result of rapid technological developments. Our main objective is to offer a comprehensive understanding of social media as both a tool for strategic communication and a tool for uncertainty. It will do this by interrogating the ways in which social is perceived, organized, managed and responded to by defence actors operating within the strategic environment.
In the context of evolving social media use in defence, the project asks what lessons have been learnt, and should be learnt, in order to avoid strategic surprise.