Technology, Monitoring, and Imitation in Contemporary News Work (original) (raw)
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, International Communication Gazette volume 75, no. 1, 2013, pp. 76-98., 2013
The move to a networked media environment presents a range of challenges to journalistic roles, norms and daily practices. The article employs Actor Network Theory to investigate how different actors negotiate and ultimately shape the manner in which the internet and related digital technologies are embedded in the newsroom. Findings suggest that professional culture –articulated in skills, ideas and practices- acts as a network that weakens the potential impact of technology towards innovation and audience-oriented models of journalism. The results point to the conclusion that the internet and related tools are seen as empowering journalists to do their (traditional) jobs better rather than moving on to the next stage built around a stronger commitment to capitalize on the growing socio-technical potential.
Future of Journalism Conference: Cardiff, 2011
Newsgathering is an increasingly technological practice, and professional newsgathering is also increasingly under fire from amateur competition in the form of “citizen” or “participatory” journalism. In the public eye the debate is often framed as the “death of traditional journalism” and the rise of the new “digitally empowered” masses. Journalists are increasingly being told that they need to use these new tools to connect with audiences, and news organisations encourage journalists to use tools which are considered to be more efficient, more time-saving and therefore a cost-saving to the news organisation. Within the context of this changing environment, this qualitative study will examine the ways in which journalists and reporters use social media as a news gathering tool. This is part of a series of studies which examine the impact of social media on journalism practice from a variety of angles and perspectives. Working within existing theoretical frameworks of sourcing and newsgathering, and through participant observation and unstructured interviews with journalists at national newspapers in the UK, this study will focus on changes in the daily news routine of journalists, the impact of this on the stories covered, and the voices represented in the final copy, on the training and skilling of journalists for this new environment, and on the larger impact on the newsroom management and structures. Preliminary findings from the project indicate that the use of social media is not as widespread as the way it is presented in public discourse, and that traditional news practices are still firmly entrenched within the mainstream media, although there are exceptions to this within the larger environment.
Journalism in the Age of Digital Technology
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies
The information age has created many challenges for every profession. In the case of journalism the introduction of information technology has altered considerably various aspects of the profession. The high tech revolution has significantly altered the way the public obtains its news and information, and has deprived the mass media of its traditional monopoly. This paper will explore intersections between new media, journalism and technology in order to enhance our understanding of the influence of information and communication technology, specially internet technology on traditional journalism. The media and the practice of journalism, however, have been slow to adjust to the Internet and the global ramifications produced by the new information technology. In the past decades, journalists in the Western World have benefited from the tremendous growth in information communication technologies-ICTsand in the last ten years the ICTs have also penetrated the developing world and have made available computers, Internet access, and mobile technology. This development has probably eased journalistic working procedures in these parts of the world. Though journalists throughout the world still separate "domestic" from "foreign," while their audiences casually chat between continents. Today various computerized sources are regularly being used in media organizations. This paper investigates the adoption of information technology, three broad themes reflecting the role of the media in the digital age emerged from the Journalism, how journalists use these new tools to advance their profession, write for global audience and news gathering, the role of Internet; what the security and ethical implications are in this new realm; and whether freedom of the press necessarily means freedom of access, confusion created by new digital technologies and the power, speed and usefulness of digital creation, transmission and reception. This paper also considers that while the new digital platforms and technologies do present significant challenges to traditional journalism, they are also enabling technologies that offer
Understanding journalism as newswork: How it changes, and how it remains the same
Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture, 2008
For a media profession so central to society's sense of self, it is of crucial importance to understand the influences of changing labour conditions, professional cultures, and the appropriation of technologies on the nature of work in journalism. In this paper, the various strands of international research on the changing nature of journalism as a profession are synthesized, using media logic as developed by 1991) and updated by Dahlgren (1996) as a conceptual framework. A theoretical key to understanding and explaining journalism as a profession is furthermore to focus on the complexities of concurrent disruptive developments affecting its performance from the distinct perspective of its practitioners -for without them, there is no news.