Hvad er vinklen?

En kortlægning og diskussion af vinkelbegrebets flertydighed i danske journalistiske lærebøger

Abstract

Among Danish journalists, there is a widespread acknowledgement that the technical term 'angle' (da: vinkel) is ambiguous. The ambiguity challenges those who want to adopt the journalistic terminology and the professional identity it represents. The author maps the meanings of the concept by close reading passages where the concept appears in 30 newer Danish textbooks about journalism. She finds four different definitions: Angle in the sense of focus, point of view, claim and message. The author clarifies the underlying theoretical framework that inspires each of the four definitions and shows how each definition captures key professional competences related to deciding the angle of a journalistic story. This leads her to conclude that it is more productive to embrace the ambiguity of the concept than to work against it. Inspired by Wittgenstein's language game theory, she argues that each of the existing definitions provide an enlightening answer to how the concept is used in a practical journalistic context, and when taken together the four definitions capture the versatility of activities and reflections that constitute a systematic practice of working out the angle of a story. This leads her to suggest a new, broad definition of the concept of angle.