The Research Group for Governmental Communication has carried out a trend study of governmental communication within The Netherlands (1). Research topics were: the major tasks for communication, current issues, profiling the communication department, and policy plans for communication. Another study focused on quality control as a management function for the communication department (2). A tool was developed to measure the communication quality of governmental organisations. Looking back on the results of both studies we asked ourselves the question: How can the academic field pursue the research of communication practice in governmental organisations and then support this field with results? The article focuses on governmental communication in The Netherlands, but the results might also be interesting for researchers and communication experts in governmental communication in other countries. The author argues that the priorities in the research agenda within the field of governmental communication should include: monitoring methods, quality control and accountability.
In this article, the main question is whether and, if so, to what extent online journalism raises new moral issues and, if any, what kind of answers are preferable. Or do questions merely appear new, since they are really old ones in an electronic wrapping, old wine in new bottles? And how does journalism deal with the moral aspects of online journalism? The phenomenon of the Internet emerged in our society a few years ago. Since then, a large number of Dutch people have gone online, and the World Wide Web is now an integral part of our range of means of communication. Dutch journalism is online too, although certainly not in the lead. More and more journalists use the Internet as a source, especially for background information. Newspapers have their web sites, where the online version of the printed paper can be read. And that is it for the time being. There are no more far-reaching developments at present, certainly not on a large scale. Real online journalism is rather scarce in the Netherlands. The debate concerning the moral aspects of online journalism is mainly being conducted in the United States. First of all, by way of introduction, I will present an outline of online journalism. The first instance is the online version of the newspaper. Here, only to a certain degree new issues come up for discussion, since the reputation of reliability and accuracy of the papers, in spite of all criticism, also applies to their online versions. Besides, especially in the United States and increasingly in European countries as well, there is the so-called dotcom journalism, the e-zines, the online news sites without any relationship with printed newspapers. This may be the reason why these sites do not have a strong commitment to moral standards, at least as they have developed in the journalistic culture of the newspapers. After having outlined the moral issues arising in online journalism, the question will be addressed whether and, if so, to what extent it is meaningful and desirable to develop instruments of self-regulation for this new phenomenon of journalism.
Deze publicatie steunt in grote mate op twee onderzoeksprojecten die de afgelopen anderhalf jaar zijn uitgevoerd. Het eerste onderzoeksproject betreft het onderzoek naar Web 2.0 als leermiddel dat in opdracht van Kennisnet is uitgevoerd door BMC en het lectoraat Crossmedia Content van de Faculteit Communicatie en Journalistiek Hogeschool Utrecht. De doelstelling van het onderzoek was inzicht te verkrijgen in het gebruik en de opbrengsten van informele leermiddelen en de toepassing van Web 2.0 voor leren door leerlingen voortgezet onderwijs en middelbaar beroepsonderwijs. Het onderzoek was een aanvulling op voorafgaand onderzoek naar informele leermiddelen en Web 2.0 in het onderwijs vanuit het perspectief van de docent en de onderwijsorganisatie (Onstenk, 2007). Een samenvatting van de belangrijkste resultaten van het onderzoek zijn gepubliceerd door Kennisnet (Kanters & Van Vliet, 2009). Voor dit cahier Wijs met Media is teruggegrepen op het onderliggende onderzoeksrapport en is aanvullend literatuuronderzoek gedaan. Het tweede onderzoeksproject dat ten grondslag ligt aan deze publicatie is het project Cultuurwijsheid. Dit project is uitgevoerd door een breed consortium van kennisinstellingen (Hogeschool Edith Stein, Hogeschool Utrecht), cultureel erfgoed instellingen en science centra (TwentseWelle, Universiteitsmuseum Utrecht, Naturalis, Museon en andere), onderzoeksinstellingen (Novay), intermediairs (BMC) en basisscholen, in het kader van de RAAK-Publiek subsidieregeling. Uitgangspunt voor dit project was de stelling dat cultureel erfgoed bij uitstek geschikt is als duiding van een complexe wereld door (historische) context te bieden aan (actuele) gebeurtenissen.
