Review of the Objective of Norm in American by Michael...

The objective of norm in American, by Michael Schudson, explores how and why the objective norms developed in American journalism. Objective is one of the most important occupational values of American journalism, it can be identified by following measures: express allegiance, ethnographers’ observations and occupational routines, resist with the challenging behaviour, impersonality and non-partisanship in news content. Differencing from some scholars’ opinions that economic and technological change enhances the ethic of objective, Schudson thinks four conditions encourage the articulation of norms. Two of them are Durkheimian, the other two are Weberian. One of the Durkheimian conditions thinks the emergence of norm is to achieve†¦show more content†¦The Durkheimian and Weberian conditions are presented. Both of them can cause articulate moral norms. The second part to the forth part (p.153-158) separately discusses three periods of American journalism: colonial period, the early 19 century, the late 19century and the early 20 century. In these three periods, objective was emerged in different form. Such as the business neutrality in colonial American journalism, the stenographic fairness phenomena in 19th century American journalism and occupational journalism culture in the late 19th century and early 20th century. These phenomenons are more or less belonging to objective practice. They can be regard as the objective soil of American journalism. However, these objective practices still did not develop into the objective norm. After such long period development, the American journalism stepping into fact-centered and news-centered era, but it does not develop the objective norm. American journalists gradually identify themselves as an occupational group. The fifth part (p.158-161) refutes Shaw’s and Carey’s argument that the objective norm emerge in the late of 19th century. The author thought the economically motivated theory is entirely unjustified. He point out a hypothesis and separate the objective norm emergence into two parts: the fact emerges between 1870s and the First World War and the professional discussion about the objective norm after the First World War. The sixth part (p.161-165)