Publications

Cheas, Kirsi 2023: Enhancing Efficiency in Investigation through Cooperation. 

transKom 16, 43-57.

This peer-reviewed article examines how cross-border collaboration between journalists, activists, and academic researchers enhances the efficiency of journalism. The article argues that collaboration enables journalists to avoid wasting time or energy in the investigative process. Another form of efficiency is manifested in how collaborative coverage holds abusers accountable for their actions. This article  concurs with previous studies that collaboration helps to increase the security of the investigators involved, which also enhances their efficiency.

transKom is a German academic Journal of Translation and Technical Communication Research. The article was published in a Special Issue focused on Communicative Efficiency, edited by Kristina Pelikan and Alexander Holste.

Read article here (Open Access).

Cheas, Kirsi 2024: Countering Xenophobic Frames and Contextualizing Coverage through North-South Collaboration. 

International Journal of Communication 18, 4490-4510

This frame theoretical peer-reviewed examines how virtual and in-person cross-border collaboration counters xenophobic framing and contextualizes coverage of Central America and Mexico and forced migration from the region between 2016 and 2022.  The study found that cross-border collaborative journalism effectively exposed wrong-doing by the Central American, Mexican, and U.S. governments, while countering misinformation about Central American and Mexican migrants. The coverage also expanded humanitarian frames, providing nuanced descriptions of the  suffering of Central American citizens. However, deep historical context concerning U.S. hegemony in Central America and its impact on the cycle of violence and forced migration was missing from the coverage produced in virtual collaboration.  The most critical and contextual coverage was produced in in-person collaborations, where journalists from both sides of the North-South border worked side by side in Central America. The findings raise concern about what kinds of context, dialogue, and awareness fail to emerge in North-South collaborations limited to virtual spaces. 

Read article here (Open Access)..

Cheas, Kirsi 2024: Psychological Capital and Safety in Global North-South Cooperation. Journalism (Online First).

This field theoretical article elaborates on the concept of psychological capital and argues for its relevance in the study of cross-border collaborative investigative journalism. A key finding resulting from this research is that in most collaborative projects, psychological and other capital of the Central American and Mexican journalists was outweighed by the capital of the U.S. journalists. The psychological, social, and cultural capital of the Southern journalistic fields were highly relevant for the successful implementation of the examined projects, but not explicitly recognized in most reporting. The article also suggests the Southern journalists did not feel safe enough to suggest critical perspectives challenging the position of their Northern partners, who funded and supervised the collaborations. However, three projects, in which Northern and Southern journalists worked in Central America and Mexico side by side, manifested exemplary solidarity and recognition of the psychological and other capital of the Southern fields. Hence, it seems that witnessing the dangers affecting the region's journalists firsthand can enable Northern journalists to better understand and appreciate the circumstances in which their Southern partners are living and working, reflected in more genuine appreciation of their psychological, cultural, and social capital.

This article forms part of a forthcoming Special Issue on Cross-Border Journalism Practices, edited by Saumava Mitra, Yennue Zarate Valderrama, and Roy Krovel.

Read article here (Open Access).