THEORY AND PRACTICE- FINDING COMMON GROUND IN ASIAN JOURNALISM

Journalism in Asia represents many diverse approaches to the task of informing and entertaining public audiences located in a broad range of cultures and traditions. The search for core values in the practice of journalism in the Asian region must therefore be framed by very general concepts of the role of the news media in the historic, social and political contexts of these societies. Past explorations of this issue have tended to pivot on a functional view of the news media and have applied models or theories of the media against research into media practice in a particular country to determine which of those models or theories are illustrated by that country. This paper will look at the issue from a normative perspective that attempts to identify broad commonalties in approaches to news production and reception. It will seek to answer the question: what are the unifying elements of journalism practice in Asia that transcend differences in national ideology and culture; how do journalists serve universal needs for public discourse as well as national communication objectives? Theories and Models Since the Fifties, Western media theorists- particularly the Americans- have sought to devise formulas to define and categorize news media systems as they operated in different societies