Journalistic practice of emotionality. A cross-cultural comparison of India and the United Kingdom

In the past, the appearance of emotions in news journalism has been evaluated largely negatively. This concerns both the professional norms guiding journalistic work practice, and actual news output. Television news drawing on emotionalizing elements has been associated with ‘bad’ journalism practice, infotainment or sensationalism. In this way, it was even considered a threat to the democratic role of news journalism. However, this trend is changing, giving space to a more nuanced examination of the role of emotions within the field of journalism.
In particular, this study is interested in what role emotions play for news producers in television – how they experience, manage and handle personal emotions, how they judge and treat emotive news contents and elements, what they think of emotionality with regard to their audience, and linked to this, what emotionalizing devices they employ in order to establish “audience connect”.
This research draws on a comparison between a Western and a non-Western journalism culture – the United Kingdom and India. This cross-cultural selection is also based on the assumption that culturally distinct emotion philosophies can exercise diverse influences on the understanding and acceptance of emotions in different journalism cultures.
The research focused especially on television as the “medium of feeling”. Interviews with more than 50 Indian and British journalists showed a remarkable set of commonalities in their reflections about emotions, but also some very fundamental differences. Among the most important findings are that journalists agree about emotions as a positive work resource (as gut feeling, empathy, or passion) and about the increasing importance of emotion-driven audience bonding in competitive news markets. On the other hand, differences emerged in the much higher approval of interventionism among Indian journalists, but also in how news emotionality is shaped by relevant extra-media factors such as national broadcasting regulations and the degree of journalistic autonomy in a country.