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Robert A. Hackett is a scholar, and researcher who has published and conducted research to the studies of political communication and news media. He is currently a professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University. He has been researching, writing, and teaching in the respective areas since 1980. The first half of his academic career was focused on the critical analysis of news. (He became aware of the importance of media in politics during his graduate studies at Queen's University in the 1970s and 80s). By the 1990s, he no longer considered it sufficient to be a critic of news, and turn attention to what was then a nascent movement for media reform. From 1993 to 2003, he held the position of Co-director of NewsWatch Canada, an organization devoted to drawing attention to hidden stories in which Canadian news media might have missed. Since joining the SFU faculty in 1984, his scholarship has focused on the critical monitoring and assessment of news media in relation to criteria of democratic communication, on paradigms and discursive regimes in journalism, on movements for media democratization more broadly, and on the roles of news media in relation to war and peace processes.

Research Interests
A revisiting of his work during the 1990s, on the ethos and structures of journalism objectivity as a discursive regime; its political and ideological implications in the context of globalization and networked digital communication. Emerging paradigms that challenge and may replace the ‘regime of objectivity,’ e.g. the communication rights movement and citizen journalism.
 * journalism studies; news objectivity; normative paradigms

Citizen efforts to make media institutions more accountable and diverse; advocacy for democratic media reform; often in conjunction with movements to decentralize or equitably redistribute political, cultural, economic and symbolic capital; media democratization as itself an emergent social movement; impact of citizen participation on communication policy in Canadian context.
 * media democratization; media activism; social movement theory; communication rights; democratic communication models

Textual and content analysis of news; journalism as political and ideological discourse; media monitoring (NewsWatch Canada); determinants of media content – all with particular emphasis on peace journalism and international news reporting of/in relation to conflict; and informed by theories of news determinants, particularly the approach developed by Pierre Bourdieu to analyze journalism in relation to other institutional fields.
 * news analysis in peace & war; peace journalism; media frames; content and textual analysis; news determinants

Contributions

 * In the past six years, Hackett has participated in international collaborations to develop peace journalism as both an emerging movement and an analytical framework for assessing media performance in relation to conflict cycles and global crises, including the environment. This is the subject of his latest collaborative book, Expanding Peace Journalism, a co-edited volume under contract to be published by Sydney University Press in 2011.  His previous publications have included one single-authored book, four co-authored books (for three of those, he was senior author), one co-edited book, several monographs, 22 refereed journal articles, and over forty book chapters and non-refereed articles.


 * His book Remaking Media, described by scholars elsewhere as a pioneering effort to theorize media democratization as a distinct social movement, continues to resonate internationally. Published in 2006, it is based on a SSHRC-funded five-year study of media activism in Canada, Britain and the US. Scholars have described it as timely and thought-provoking contribution to debates on media activism, globalization, democracy and social movements.


 * His earlier work with Yuezhi Zhao on the objectivity regime in North American journalism has gained new traction internationally, both in the English-language literature on alternative media and the current crisis of journalism, and in such transition societies as Serbia, where Sustaining Democracy? was recently translated for publication.


 * Analysis of the emerging media democratization movement, as well as relations between media and more traditional social movements, especially anti-war movements.


 * Undertaken and/or directed numerous textual and content analyses of Canadian news media since 1983; collectively, they are important empirical contributions to Canadian media studies and relevant to assessing media as a form of political communication.


 * Conceptual elaboration and analysis of journalism’s regime of objectivity and implications for democratic communication.


 * Mentoring of students and future researchers, especially at the graduate and senior undergraduate level. Through co-authorship with him, at least a dozen students have published their first academic article or book. He has also agreed to take on co-directorship of the NewsWatch Canada project for ten years, partly as a way to engage and train students in the techniques and substance of media analysis.


 * Taken on the role of public intellectual – disseminating research, participating in public discussion of media issues, working with and even co-founding community and professional groups to promote public awareness; conducted approximately 1,000 media interviews since 1984.

Introduction
As media technology revolutionizes, the ways in which people obtain news also changes. The format of the newspaper has been, and still is a dominant mass medium for democratic communication. Its "possibilities for accessibility, in-depth analysis, diversity of views, and reflection on important political and economic issues" continues to uphold itself as an important vehicle of information. In the following passages, Hackett's interpretation of media democracy will be presented. Also, his analysis of the reality and truth of the newspaper, gives readers an insight to who is accountable for determining what to report, and the blind spots and filters in determining so. He accounts this by suggesting the ways and consequences in which economic and political context comes in to play. Traditional forms of media, such as the newspaper, as Hackett suggests, sees themselves as the guardians of orthodoxy “gatekeepers”. They represent the community’s dominant values while supporting the surrounding culture. In a sense, the mainstream media is able to create an image of the social and political world that fits the dominant culture’s notion of reality.

Media Democracy
From a business perspective, media is controlled by mainly large corporations who tend to put profit and business as their main priorities. Whereas in a political sense, the press is expected to meet social responsibilities and legal restraints. These factors together contribute to the content of press presented to the public. The concept of media democracy relates journalism and democracy as interconnected. Journalists sees freedom of press as the foundation of democracy, and regard themselves as the 'defender of the public’s right to information and diversity in the press'. However, as much as the public would like to believe in the totalitarian of freedom of press, the reality is not the case. As Hackett contextualizes, newspaper owners and publishers tend “to think more of profit as the criterion for evaluating a newspaper than of conformity to ethical and intellectual principles”. The form of media democracy does not exist on its own, instead, it goes hand in hand with the economic and political constraints of society. While businesses must attract audience to succeed, this does not mean they merely reflect popular values or politics. Commercial media “give some of the people part of what they think they want—programming that media corporations find economical and convenient to offer”. .

Democratic Defecit of Mainstream Media
Media’s impact on public orientation towards political issues can be seen through various concept such as the use of agenda-setting, and spiral of silence. Rather than propaganda or consumer sovereignty, the media’s agenda-setting role is a by-product of reader’s collective dependence on mass media for information beyond their direct experience, and is evident to how perceptions can be media affected. Hackett address the unequal representation of different groups in the media with the white, middle class, heterosexual as the main focus, namely those that conform to the governing body. Under these constraints, audience do however, actively interpret media texts, but not under conditions of their own choosing.

Paradigms and Discursive Regimes
Hackett relates to how the journalistic practice is based on the regime of objectivity, defined as an ensemble of ideals, assumptions, practices, and institutions. This form of practice has become a fixture of public philosophy and a supposed form of self-regulation. It forms a sense of hierarchy that privileges the literary over the oral, the middle class over the working class, high politics over the everyday, and information over storytelling. The term “regime” itself implies a connection between journalism and relations of social and political power. In treating journalism objectivity as a discursive regime, the validity of this ‘objectivity’ is questioned. By comparing the association of the sense of objectivity as ‘claims that facts speak for themselves’, readers might differentiate the so-called ‘truth or reality as simply products of language games. Under different kind of social and political order, Hackett writes, would generate a different kind of journalism. The objectivity can shift and adapt to its cultural and social contexts. As a cultural and institutional complex, the regime of objectivity not only facilitates but also regulates, constrains, and disciplines the production of public knowledge.

Marginalized Voices
One important component of media democracy is recognizing the different presence of voices in the media. Hence, giving marginalized groups a platform in the presence of these numerous voices. As Hackett argues, with the mainstream values catering towards the 'idea values of the governing body, whom are often white, middle-class, and heterosexual', there are bound to be groups that are underrepresented.

This power of corporate presence and biased sense of political entity deny certain demographics representation in the news, thus unable them to achieve equality in choosing content and gaining exposure. He calls this phenomenon the "democratic deficit of mainstream media". With the continuation of oppression, a group might become "a spiral of silence', where people who hold viewpoints that are excluded in the media tend to become reluctant to express them for fear of social isolation of ridicule. The concept depicts how minority groups become reluctant to express their thoughts for fear of social isolation. This sense of fear disables them to express their views in public, and overtime, their own adherence to these viewpoints will even decline. Media may actively contribute to this erosion, as marginalized groups are denied representation. Through these roles, the press has the ability to focus public attention on some events and issues, and away from others, the media influence public perceptions of what exists, what is important, what is good and bad etc.

Social Responsibility
The enactment of the Charter of Rights in 1982 entails Canada to a tradition of press freedom along with other liberal-democratic countries. However, such freedom is not absolute. It is tempered by general expectations that the press will 'meet certain social responsibilities (such as accuracy, balance, diversity and fairness) and by legal restraints.' Readers believe in the notion of media’s social responsibility, and respects newspapers as adhering to the same rules and restrictions. Some might argue that the news agencies are simply presenting what consumers want, as a way to deflect criticisms. This is based on the notion of consumer sovereignty, and their own consumer's choices that supports the nature of advertising, but as Hackett suggests, is often not true.

Media Activism
Media activism implies a redefinition of the very idea of democracy to include new rights—the right to communicate—and a broader and deeper version of democracy as entailing not simply elections and individual liberties, but also popular participation and social equality. Progressive movements have been slow to respond with a media-oriented politics of their own. But there are growing signs that media democratization may be becoming a movement in its own right.

Citizen’s Mobilizations
Citizen’s mobilizations against democratic defecit has taken different forms through the emergence of new technology and social media tools, enabling them to have the opportunity to mobilize using these mediums. The networks and flows of electronic communication have opened new possibilities for organizing and mobilizing, and diffusing critiques to broader constituencies. However, this ease in communication and speed has ‘integrated major public communication institutions into the logics and circuits of global capital.’ Hence, resulting in new problems with social movements from media concentration, convergence and commercialization. Two kinds of visions seem to be competing for attention: an optimistic view of internet media revolution, highlighting the potential economic, cultural and political benefits of the new technology to humankind; and a more critical view, darker but unfortunately more realistic, stressing the absence of a powerful movement to democratize communication and the implementation of technology.

Blindspots and Media Filters
Through Hackett's research cooperation with NewsWatch Canada, he conducted interviews and surveys exposing the uncovered, but significant stories in Canada. His findings indicate that when social phenomenons such as ethnocentrism and nationalism are in questions, the media tend to filter out these types of news that might upset a country's sense of unification and patriotism, for example, Canada's francophone rights. Also, complex stories such as white-collar crime are also filtered. Consequently, the reliance on institutional sources, combined with the decline of investigative journalism, pushes journalists to obtain sources merely from established institutions, hence, giving these institutions more exposure than the unorganized, unaffiliated individuals.