2015 Negotiating Culture Conference News Production Culture

2015 Negotiating Culture
Conference
News Production Culture
Program Overview
Conference hashtag: #NewsCulture
Wednesday 28th October at Balliol College
19.30-onwards
Dinner at Balliol College (location)
Thursday 29th October at St Catherine’s College, Arumugam
building (location).
8.00-8.30am
Registration and coffee
8.30-8.35
Opening remarks by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (Director of
Research, RISJ)
8.35-10.00
1st Keynote lecture by Lucy Küng (Research Associate,
RISJ, Research Fellow, Green Templeton College)
10.00-10.30
Break
10.30-12.30
Panel 1
12.30-13.30
Lunch
13.30-15.30
Panel 2
15.30-16.00
Break
16.00-18.00
Panel 3
19.00-onwards
Dinner at Jam Factory (location).
Friday 30th October at St Catherine’s College, Arumugam building
8.00-8.30am
Arrival and coffee
8.30-10.00
2nd Keynote lecture by Robert G. Picard (North American
Representative, RISJ)
10.00-10.30
Break
10.30-12.30
Panel 4
12.30-13.30
Lunch
13.30-15.30
Panel 5
15.30-16.00
Break
16.00-17.45
Panel 6
17.45-18.00
Next steps and Wrap Up
2015 Negotiating Culture Conference: News Production Culture
Program Overview
Hosted by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford
THURSDAY THE 29TH
1st Keynote by Lucy Küng 8.30 – 10.00
Panel 1 10.30 – 12.30
Panel 1: Strategy, Organizational Change and Innovation
Chaired by Mary Lynn Young
Fry Cook at the Waffle House: How the Boundaries Inside U.S. Newspapers are Shifting in a Digital
Age. Alecia Swasy, University of Illinois
Dynamic Capabilities: exploring industry level capabilities in News Media. Dr John Oliver,
Bournemouth University
Conflicting Objectives in Innovation Management: A Case Study of a Newspaper Company. Joschka
Mütterlein, Dr. Reinhard Kunz, Lea Püchel, Universität Bayreuth, Germany
Digital First? Digital Last! How change management makes sense in newsrooms at regional media in
the Netherlands in their struggle in the transition to a digital environment. Henk Jan Karsten,
Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The Netherlands
Clashes or consensus? What editorial, commercial and senior newspaper executives believe about
business model innovation and each other’s ability to deliver. François Nel and Katja Lehtisaari,
UCLAN/Helsinki
Panel 2 13.30 – 15.30
Panel 2: Changing Newsroom Practices
Chaired by Alfred Hermida
Connect and Engage: Negotiating Community in Newsroom Values and Practice. Melissa Tully,
Shawn Harmsen, Jane B. Singer, Brian Ekdale, University of Iowa, City University London
From Teaching Newsroom to Content Lab: Changes in the Norms and Standards of News Production
at a Learning Newsroom. Amy A. Ross, Northwestern University, USA
Assembling Journalism: Conflict, adaptation and mutual conditioning in the new journalistic
landscape. Eugenia Siapera, Jane Suiter, Dublin City University
‘Newsroom Cultures’. Aljosha Karim Schapals, City University, London
When Creative Potentials Are Being Undermined by Commercial Imperatives. Brigitte Hofstetter and
Philomen Schönhagen, University of Fribourg
Panel 3 16.00 – 18.00
Panel 3: Impact of New News Technologies
Chaired by Suzanne Franks
“Front potential” as a new success criterion in web-TV: Production and publishing practices in
VGTV. Vilde Schanke Sundet, Lillehammer University College, Norway
I, Robot: Tools, Conditions and Challenges of Automated Journalism in German Newsrooms.
Findings of a Participatory Observation among Online Editors. Stephan Weichert, Volker Lilienthal,
Dennis Reineck, Annika Sehl, Macromedia University/ Hamburg Media School, University of
Hamburg, TU Dortmund University
Don’t tweet this! How journalists and media organisations negotiate tensions emerging from the
implementation of social media policy in newsrooms. Dr Vittoria Sacco and Dr Diana Bossio,
University of Neuchâtel, Swinburne University of Technology
Journalists and tecnoactors: the negotiation of professional cultures in the online newsrooms. João
Canavilhas, Diógenes Luna, Ivan Satuf, Vitor Torres, Alberto Marques, Alciane Baccin, UBI-Portugal,
UFBA-Brasil, UnB-Brasil, UFRGS-Brasil
The algorithms for journalism: interpreting and writing rules for robots. Carl-Gustav Lindén,
University of Helsinki, Swedish School of Social Science
Finding the Data Unicorn: A hierarchy of hybridity in data and computational journalism. Alfred
Hermida and Mary Lynn Young, UBC Graduate School of Journalism
FRIDAY THE 30TH
2nd Keynote by Robert G. Picard: 8.30 – 10.00
Panel 4 10.30 – 12.30
Panel 4: News culture meets the challenge of national culture
Chaired by Diana Bossio
How Newsroom Culture is Related to the Ways in Which Newspapers in China and the UK have
Responded to Technological Changes: a comparative study. Miao Mi and Hugo de Burgh, University
of Westminster
New technology and newsroom cultures: A case study of two Kurdish news channel. Abdulsamad
Zangana, University of Liverpool
From Crisis to Departure? Newsroom Culture under the Impact of Digital Structural Change in
Germany. Dr. Leif Kramp, Dr Stephan Weichert, University of Bremen, Macromedia University/
Hamburg Media School
Reducing Complexity: A Behavioral Perspective on Journalistic Quality. Bartosz Wilczek, Prof. Dr.
Stephan Russ-Mohl, Institution: Università della Svizzera italiana, European Journalism Observatory
Panel 5 13.30 – 15.30
Panel 5: Inside Newsroom Culture
Chaired by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Embracing Change: the role of institutional integrity on the responsiveness of newspaper
organisations. Sara Ekberg, Folker Hanusch, Maria Norbäck and Patrik Wikström, Jönköping
International Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Gothenburg University
What’s the Matter with Newsroom Culture? A Sociomaterial Analysis of Professional Knowledge
Creating in the Newsroom. Steen Steensen, Oslo and Akershus University College
Innovative Learning Culture (ILC) at Dutch newspapers in transformation. Ornella Porcu, City
Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
Tensions in the newsroom: a case study of a Fynske Medier’s digitalization process. Aske Kammer,
University of Southern Denmark
News Production Cultures. Natacha Yazbeck, Annenberg School for Communication
Panel 6 16.00 – 17.45
Panel 6: News Culture, Local Communities and National Politics
Chaired by John Oliver
All the Actions Fit to Print: Nonprofits as digital intermediaries in US journalism and the rise of
“what next?” reporting. David Conrad, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for
Communication
Organisational Culture and Its Influence on Strategy in Local Media in the Digital Age. Sarah O’Hara,
Canterbury Christ Church University
The interactions between journalists, digital technologies, the audience and the political field. Florin
C. Serban, Hong Kong Baptist University
Campaign culture 2015: embracing intermediality to “tell the story” in ITV news’ election 2015. Amy
P. Smith, Royal Holloway, University of London
Where Journalists cannot report. Negotiating the dilemmas of covering Syria between MarchSeptember 2011. Professor Suzanne Franks, Lisette Johnston, City University, London
Next steps and Wrap ups 17.45-18.00
2015 Negotiating Culture Conference: News Production Culture
Program Overview
Hosted by Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford
1st Keynote by Lucy Küng: 8.30 – 10.00
Panel 1 10.30 – 12.30
Panel 1: Strategy, Organizational Change and Innovation
Chaired by Mary Lynn Young
Fry Cook at the Waffle House: How the Boundaries Inside U.S. Newspapers are Shifting in a Digital
Age. Alecia Swasy, University of Illinois
ABSTRACT
Jennifer Brett spends her days chasing down stars Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Hamm, who
are all in Atlanta filming movies. But the entertainment reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
drops everything when an ice storm cripples the city or a gunman opens fire at a Federal Express
warehouse. While waiting for a traffic light to change, Brett tweets about road closings, police calls and
anything else she sees. “I’m not a fancy pants red-carpet glamoratti,” Brett said. “I’m a fry cook at the
Waffle House. I’m here to serve customers.”
Her shift from covering a single beat reflects how the social media platform Twitter has reshaped the
routines and news production priorities inside newsrooms. No longer able to concentrate on just one
beat, reporters in the digital age must scurry to cover a broader range of topics and publish in seconds
to meet the demands of a faster-moving news cycle fueled by the demands of social media. “It has
recalibrated how I think about my job,” Brett said. “I have a customer-service mentality.”
This study uses boundary theory to examine how Twitter has shaken up the journalistic norms inside
four of America’s top metropolitan newspapers. In-depth interviews with 50 reporters, editors and
online producers at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Dallas Morning News, the Denver Post and
the Tampa Bay Times sought to answer two questions: How do journalists view Twitter affecting their
work routines? How do journalists see Twitter affecting the news they produce?
The findings suggest that Twitter has changed the boundaries of journalists’ work routines and news
production because they now use the social media platform to cover topics well beyond their traditional
beats, play the role of editor because they must choose what to post and put social media first when
breaking news. This is a dramatic change from the days of reporters guarding their scoops until the
morning print edition and a dismantling of editor hierarchies that controlled what gets published. And
even bigger shift in boundaries and culture is seen as the traditional wall between news and advertising
departments has been torn down because marketing experts are calling the shots on how, when and
where to promote and publish news. Beyond this, reporters are expected to be their own marketers by
sending out tweets to drive traffic to the newspapers’ websites. This has been an uncomfortable shift
for tradition-bound journalists, but they concede that financial pressures on their industry mean they
must play by the new rules.
Dynamic Capabilities: exploring industry level capabilities in News Media
Dr John Oliver, Bournemouth University
ABSTRACT
Jennifer Brett spends her days chasing down stars Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jr. and Jon Hamm, who
are all in Atlanta filming movies. But the entertainment reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
drops everything when an ice storm cripples the city or a gunman opens fire at a Federal Express
warehouse. While waiting for a traffic light to change, Brett tweets about road closings, police calls and
anything else she sees. “I’m not a fancy pants red-carpet glamoratti,” Brett said. “I’m a fry cook at the
Waffle House. I’m here to serve customers.”
Her shift from covering a single beat reflects how the social media platform Twitter has reshaped the
routines and news production priorities inside newsrooms. No longer able to concentrate on just one
beat, reporters in the digital age must scurry to cover a broader range of topics and publish in seconds
to meet the demands of a faster-moving news cycle fueled by the demands of social media. “It has
recalibrated how I think about my job,” Brett said. “I have a customer-service mentality.”
This study uses boundary theory to examine how Twitter has shaken up the journalistic norms inside
four of America’s top metropolitan newspapers. In-depth interviews with 50 reporters, editors and
online producers at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Dallas Morning News, the Denver Post and
the Tampa Bay Times sought to answer two questions: How do journalists view Twitter affecting their
work routines? How do journalists see Twitter affecting the news they produce?
The findings suggest that Twitter has changed the boundaries of journalists’ work routines and news
production because they now use the social media platform to cover topics well beyond their traditional
beats, play the role of editor because they must choose what to post and put social media first when
breaking news. This is a dramatic change from the days of reporters guarding their scoops until the
morning print edition and a dismantling of editor hierarchies that controlled what gets published. And
even bigger shift in boundaries and culture is seen as the traditional wall between news and advertising
departments has been torn down because marketing experts are calling the shots on how, when and
where to promote and publish news. Beyond this, reporters are expected to be their own marketers by
sending out tweets to drive traffic to the newspapers’ websites. This has been an uncomfortable shift
for tradition-bound journalists, but they concede that financial pressures on their industry mean they
must play by the new rules.
Conflicting Objectives in Innovation Management: A Case Study of a Newspaper Company
Joschka Mütterlein, Dr. Reinhard Kunz, Lea Püchel, Universität Bayreuth, Germany
ABSTRACT
Introduction and Research Aim
Technological change, deregulation, convergence and a change of customer needs are factors that
demand companies to change and consider new avenues for revenue (Nguyen, 2010). These factors
are especially relevant to the media industry, which is forced to adjust to a rapidly changing
environment (van Kranenburg and Ziggers, 2013). As a consequence, the management of innovations
is of paramount importance for media businesses (Sylvie and Schmitz Weiss, 2012; Adams, 2008).
In order to be successful, innovation management has to follow a company’s objectives (e.g. Hamel,
1974, Leiponen and Helfat, 2010). Yet, many differing organizational objectives exist that need to be
balanced in order to reduce tensions between departments and employees. Due to their unique
features (cf. Albarran et al., 2006; Eisenbeis, 2007), media companies and especially newspaper
companies experience unique tensions (Lampel et al., 2000; Ziv, 2002; Achtenhagen and Raviola, 2009).
With our research, we want to add to the limited understanding of such tensions in an innovation
management context by comparing the objectives of different departments, namely the journalism,
business, and technology departments of a newspaper company. Thus, our research question is: How
do objectives of journalism, business, and technology departments differ regarding newspapers’
innovation management?
Methodology
Our object of investigation is one of the most influential newspaper companies in Germany, distributing
its content in print, online, and TV. We interviewed 23 decision-makers of the company in semistructured interviews regarding innovation management in general and innovation objectives in
particular. The interviews were conducted and evaluated based on the value-focused thinking method
(Keeney, 1992). We identified innovation management objectives of different departments and
aggregated and visualized them in a network of objectives. We then used this network to detect
conflicting objectives.
Results and Discussion
On a general level, the different departments agree on the same objectives. However, although the
print journalists’ objectives demonstrate a certain willingness to change, most interviewees criticized
the print journalists reluctance to change. This is due to many conflicting explicit objectives, i.e.
objectives concerning the way change can be achieved. On this level, our results show departmental
differences. This can be due to cognitive assumptions about technology and content (Ellonen et al.,
2014; Valanto et al., 2012) or path dependent behavior (Sydow et al., 2009), leading to different
objectives in print and online content management (Järventie-Thesleff et al., 2014). Our empirical indepth investigation of the innovation objectives of the media firm complements the emerging work on
innovation-related capabilities (Park, 2005) and adds to the literature on change management of
traditional media companies.
Digital First? Digital Last! How change management makes sense in newsrooms at regional media in
the Netherlands in their struggle in the transition to a digital environment
Henk Jan Karsten, Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, Zwolle, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
For legacy media in transition to a digital environment with a strong emphasis on online journalism a
digital first strategy is told to be a sine qua non, but research in the Netherlands shows that newsrooms
with a regional scope struggle with the internalization of the new journalistic values characterizing
contemporary journalism. According to Nikki Usher those values are immediacy, interaction and
participation. Change of an organizational culture has never been easy, but especially newsrooms are
worldwide known for their defensive attitude.
This research paper explores the critical success and fail factors in a newsroom that is adapting a digital
first strategy. The paper analyses the relation between leadership and the mindset of the employees in
such a newsroom. The aim of the research is to determine which aspects of leadership influence the
perception of a digital first strategy as an important first step in internalizing the new journalistic
principles.
The analysis is based on the results of a research project. Between October 2014 and April 2015 sixteen
students interviewed in depth approximately one hundred journalists at three regional broadcast
companies, nine regional newspapers and a regional media centre, a joint venture between a local
newspaper and a local broadcasting station. The experiences of the journalists with a digital first
strategy are augmented with the insights from in-depth interviews with key figures in leading positions
within the branch.
It turned out that there is a significant difference in perception of a digital first strategy between
newspapers and broadcast stations. Digital first seems second nature for broadcast journalists, but still
feels more or less unnatural at the newspaper offices. At some of the newspapers editors are openly
unwilling to follow the strategy, at other newsrooms they are open minded but not well equipped to
work digital first. Often the digital first strategy is only an abstract phenomenon, because the strategy
is poorly articulated or communicated, or even not articulated at all. It is interesting to note that
employees can persist in their resistance, because at the news floor this attitude is not seen as
problematic, but is condoned.
The analysis shows that several aspects of leadership influence the perception of a digital first strategy:
articulating a vision, communicating this vision and giving it sense and meaning affects the intrinsic
motivation; translating the vision in guidelines, investing in empowerment, expecting excellence and
autonomy, but demanding compliance if necessary affects the extrinsic motivation. Both contribute to
the success of a digital first strategy. The paper presents a process model, which can be used in
newsrooms, both broadcast and newspaper, to establish a digital first mindset.
Clashes or consensus? What editorial, commercial and senior newspaper executives believe about
business model innovation and each other’s ability to deliver
François Nel and Katja Lehtisaari, UCLAN/Helsinki
ABSTRACT
Succeeding in the newspaper industry has never been simple, but traditionally the business model was
straightforward: compile news and information for which readers pay in time and/or money, and then
also sell their attention on to advertisers looking to connect with customers (Nel 2010). No longer. That
news media firms need to innovate if they are to succeed in today’s increasingly turbulent,
technologically advanced and competitive environment has been widely discussed, inside and outside
the academy. Though the debate about how forward thinking executives should go about meeting their
firm's ambitions continues, two key strands of thought have emerged: on the one hand, there are those
who believe the business of newspapers will continue to be underpinned principally by revenue
generated from content sales and/or advertising, whether online and off; on the other hand,
there are those who believe their organisations will need to look beyond these traditional income
streams to achieve their goals. While it may be too early to judge these approaches, this much we do
know: “a company cannot achieve its goals and fulfill its mission unless there is clear consensus on the
means by which its goals will be met” (Schein 2004, p. 95).
Drawing on Schein’s conceptualisation of organisational culture, we will mine nearly 2,000 responses
to five annual cycles of the 21question World Newsmedia Innovation Study to explore the extent to
which there are clashes or consensus amongst editorial and commercial managers about the strategic
direction their businesses should follow, and how this correlates with the ambitions for change of senior
executives.
Findings from this unique quantitative study will analysed with SPSS to provide further insights into the
extent to which the strategic direction of firms may influence the levels of confidence various executive
groups have in their colleagues’ ability to help achieve success as well as in their own. It will also shed
light on the extent to which the executives’ professional roles and their strategic orientations relate to
their beliefs about whether their companies’ cultures encourages everyone to be innovative.
Panel 2 13.30 – 15.30
Panel 2: Changing Newsroom Practices
Chaired by Alf Hermida
Connect and Engage: Negotiating Community in Newsroom Values and Practice
Melissa Tully, Shawn Harmsen, Jane B. Singer, Brian Ekdale, University of Iowa, City University London
ABSTRACT
Although most empirical studies attempt to isolate particular aspects of newsroom upheaval and
conflict, cultural shift tends to operate simultaneously at multiple levels within contemporary news
organizations. This in-depth case study explores the impact and interplay of rapid and dramatic changes
in technologies, work practices, and media output on attempts to shift journalists’ normative
orientation from an inwardly facing newsroom perspective to an externally facing community one.
To do so, it draws on lessons from U.S. experiments in civic or public journalism, which during a period
of greater industry stability in the late 1980s and early 1990s sought to focus journalists’ attention on
understanding and addressing community issues and concerns from the perspective of citizens rather
than officials or other elites (Haas, 2012). It enjoyed only limited success – many journalists were
resistant – and industry attention soon shifted to the emerging Internet. Yet the Internet, particularly
the rise of social media and other forms of user involvement in the news, has brought civic journalism
concepts back to the fore. This paper explores how civic goals are faring amid other ongoing attempts
to modify newsroom outlook, goals, and practices. Focusing on one converged news organization in a
medium-sized U.S. city, this paper serves the dual purpose of updating civic journalism concepts and
connecting them with scholarship that explores the newsroom transition to a digital environment. It
also extends the lessons from contemporary studies that have analyzed either newsroom values and
practices or, separately, features of online news sites, by considering how values and practices
permeate digital products (Bucy, 2004; Chung, 2008; Domingo, 2008; Doudaki and Spyridou, 2015).
Management at the organization studied here has placed community relationships and forms of
engagement that were fundamental to civic journalism a generation ago at the center of the company’s
mission and vision. Interviews, observations, and survey data collected in 2012, along with website
feature analysis conducted in 2013 and 2015, offer insight into newsworkers’ understanding and
acceptance of these goals in a rapidly evolving media environment, as well as their perceived relevance
to newsroom practices and online products. We find that although the organization’s formal position
aligns with civic journalism goals, newsworkers are highly selective in their embrace of those goals.
They have incorporated some aspects of “community engagement” in their perceptions of proper
journalistic work, though not necessarily in ways that mesh with management views or with the
rationale underlying civic journalism. The website analysis, which draw on public journalism and
interactivity criteria proposed by Nip (2006) and Chung (2008) respectively, reflects similar
ambivalence. The 2013 news sites suggested commitment to community connections but had few
features to promote public deliberation, a core civic journalism value. By 2015, the organization had
implemented a major civic journalism initiative and website redesign, spearheaded by management.
However, the civic journalism project remained distinct from the core news products, “living” on a
separate website with its own stated mission. Thus, the integration of civic journalism ideals remains
more management vision than newsroom practice.
From Teaching Newsroom to Content Lab: Changes in the Norms and Standards of News Production
at a Learning Newsroom
Amy A. Ross, Northwestern University, USA
ABSTRACT
The accelerated transformation of information technologies over the past two decades, coupled with
radical changes in media consumption patterns, challenges modern-day journalists to rethink some of
the most fundamental tenets on which their occupation is based. A growing body of academic research
has explored the evolution of production and distribution practices within news organizations;
however, much less attention has been paid to how journalism schools are addressing the demands of
the profession in the twenty-first century.
To help fill this void, in this paper I explore these changes within the context of a “learning newsroom”
at one of the top journalism schools of the United States. The research is based on both qualitative and
quantitative methods, including over 200 hours of ethnographic fieldwork carried-out between January
and June of 2015; interviews with journalism graduate students and faculty members; content analyses
of the articles published on the news organization’s website; and a survey administered to a cohort of
students at the end or their time in at the lab.
In this paper I focus on a recent shift within this site from a “learning newsroom” framework to a
“content-lab” alternative envisioned to prepare graduate journalism students for a radically different
media ecosystem than existed in the past. This shift made visible major renegotiations among actors
about traditional routines, practices, and rules of news production.
Preliminary findings show that this transition has meant a pedagogical approach to journalism that has
become more experimental and medium-centric, emphasized the use of alternative storytelling
“modes” through multimedia, and invested more time on product considerations and less on
substantive ones than in the past. The emphasis on creating appealing and interactive content, together
with the increasing use of metrics, implies heightened audience-awareness. However, efforts to
address the audience rarely transcend conceptualizations of readers as more than consumers. They
also fail to tackle issues regarding how to engage with non-journalistic actors on deeper levels or even
as potential co-producers of content. The findings also show the adoption of a more lax notion of what
constitutes news and an increasingly flexible understanding of the type of work a journalist can be
expected to do. These transformations take place while avoiding explicit conversations regarding how
changes in news production practices conflict with traditional journalistic norms such as autonomy,
neutrality and objectivity, and their impact on the preexisting standards of newsworthiness.
The role of journalism schools is particularly relevant in countries dominated by commercial, marketdriven media, and traditionally characterized by high levels of journalistic professionalization, such as
the United States. Understanding how journalism schools approach these changes offers valuable
insight into the potential reconfiguration of traditional professional norms and standards as they are
transmitted to upcoming generations of journalists. Furthermore, analyses of these changes can help
shed light into the roles young journalists expect to play in the world of digital as it relates to the
commercial demands of the market and the traditional public service ideology of the profession.
Assembling Journalism: Conflict, adaptation and mutual conditioning in the new journalistic
landscape
Eugenia Siapera, Jane Suiter, Dublin City University
ABSTRACT
The proposed paper is concerned with the specific kinds of adaptations, clashes, and mutual
conditionings between the various components that comprise journalism today. It addresses these
through an analysis of four different types of news organizations that operate nationally and
transnationally in the context of Ireland. These include a public service broadcaster (RTE), a digital
native news organization (Journal.ie), an entrepreneurial, innovation-based organization (Storyful), and
a traditional, print to online organization (The Irish Times). Based on ethnographic observations and
interviews with key informants, the paper is looking to identify primarily the main sources of tensions,
dilemmas and conflicts, and then to examine how these different organizations have coped with them,
how they have re-socialized core journalistic practices, values and ethics, and the extent to which a new
journalism is emerging out of these differential ways of coping in and adapting to the present
environment.
Specifically, the last 20 years or so have been very difficult for journalism. It saw its monopoly over
news production eroded and its values challenged by the rise of user generated content, its control
over distribution undermined by social media, and its publics scatter across various media platforms.
Yet somehow, these tensions, conflicts and occasional open clashes have not killed journalism. The
main question is how can we understand the ways in which journalism adapts or fails to adapt in the
new environment?
Theoretically, the paper relies on DeLanda’s (2006) assemblage theory. Assemblages refer to fluid
combinations of disparate components, which when assembled together acquire a set of new,
emergent properties out of their mutual adaptations, learning and conditioning of each component to
the others. Both organizations and social fields can be understood as assemblages varying in scale. In
assemblage theory, DeLanda argues that the various components of an assemblage are connected via
relations of exteriority, which allows them to retain their autonomy and to be plugged in and out of
various assemblages at the same time. This allows the analysis to include actors such as social media
corporations, data analytics, legal and regulatory rules and requirements, organized publics, and so on,
which are both extraneous and occasionally antagonistic to journalism but part of journalistic
assemblages at the same time. The analysis also makes use of the concepts of territorialisation and
deterritorialization, whereby the various components move to stabilize or destabilize an assemblage’s
identity. Using this conceptual apparatus, the analysis will seek to show the emergent properties of
journalism in the current environment, and the varying degrees of successful adaptation of different
news organizations.
Newsroom Cultures
Aljosha Karim Schapals, City University, London
ABSTRACT
This paper will begin by outlining the concept of ‘convergence’ in line with the emergence of integrated
newsrooms and analyse which strengths and weaknesses have been brought about by the inclusion of
social media networks into daily newsgathering processes. Not only has the incorporation of social
media platforms greatly transformed journalistic sourcing practices, but it has also raised pressing
questions of journalistic verification techniques at a time where news production processes embody
the intersection between traditional and evolving journalistic norms and values. In order to uncover
the extent of sources deriving from social media platforms in contemporary news reporting, the author
has chosen the Egyptian revolution of January – February 2011 in live blogs and in traditional print and
online news articles using a large scale content analysis (n = 1,024). In a second stage, the author will
use data from previously conducted semi-structured research interviews with senior British journalists
to shed light on the various conflicts brought about by the incorporation of social media platforms into
the daily news flow. The paper will demonstrate that not only does the inclusion of social media
challenge established journalistic sourcing practices, but it also places additional demands on the
journalists’ verification techniques. Furthermore, the interviewed journalists voiced concern about the
organizational pressures in using social media, the ensuing tension field between speed and accuracy
in an accelerated news cycle as well as transforming role perceptions as a result of clashes between
print and online newsroom cultures. This analysis will help shed light on how newsrooms are adapting
to the rise of digital media, and which challenges emerge for the journalistic profession as a result of
that. The paper’s conclusion will include pointers towards future research.
When Creative Potentials Are Being Undermined by Commercial Imperatives
Brigitte Hofstetter and Philomen Schönhagen, University of Fribourg
ABSTRACT
The media and especially newspapers are currently facing an economic and structural crisis. Advertising
revenues, audience numbers and thus the resources available to news organizations are shrinking
(Curran 2010; McChesney and Nichols 2010). To remain competitive media managers have adopted
newsroom convergence to improve the quality of journalism as well as to reduce production costs.
Previous studies have shown that the organizational integration of previously separated newsrooms
leads to conflicts between medium specific values, norms and practices complicating the intended
cross-media news production (Erdal 2009, Silcock and Keith 2006). As Singer notes ”cultural clashes
remain a major stumbling block to convergence and may well be a hallmark of the process in every
newsroom” (2004: 18).
This raises questions about whether or not newsroom restructuring changes daily news production and
if so, how and to what extent. Moreover, it remains unclear how journalistic routines and their
underlying norms and values may influence the implementation of convergence strategies. In order to
capture this interplay between structure and agency, we carried out six case studies in Swiss news
organizations (French- and German-speaking newsrooms). 30 qualitative interviews were conducted
with editors-in-chief, journalists, ‘dropouts’ and CEOs and analyzed by a qualitative computer-assisted
content analysis. We adopted Anthony Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory as analytical framework in
which norms and values are part of organizational structure.
A common view amongst interviewees was that bringing together editorial staff of different news
media in the same office space helped to overcome previously compartmentalized communication
flows and improved cooperation. The experience of some journalists suggests that sharing of
information and knowledge enables the publication of a broader range of topics across different media
channels. But our research results also show that cross-media strategies are put into practice mainly in
the daily news planning and information-sharing and, moreover, only between print and online media.
It appeared from statements that due to downsizing there is not enough time to make use of the
different media channels in a meaningful way. Hence, most of the journalists are still working for the
media they are familiar with and are resisting part of the planned reorganization. Furthermore, our
data shows that in converged newsrooms the continuous updating of news on digital channels sets the
pace for the entire news production process. Speed, as central benchmark for online or desk journalists,
is becoming more and more the guiding principle for action in all units. This leads to conflicts with the
aim of accurately researching content and building a network of sources – goals that are highly valued
among journalists. Following our interviewees, essential skills and resources that are needed to
produce background reporting (such as expert knowledge on particular issues and networks of sources)
are in decline. This value conflict tends to be aggravated by the increasing orientation toward click rates,
as journalists fear a negative influence on news, both online and offline. Overall, our findings suggest
that the creative potentials of cross-media news production cannot be realized mostly due to
commercial imperatives.
Panel 3 16.00 – 18.00
Panel 3: Impact of New News Technologies
Chaired by Suzanne Franks
“Front potential” as a new success criterion in web-TV: Production and publishing practices in
VGTV. Vilde Schanke Sundet, Lillehammer University College, Norway
ABSTRACT
How do a former-newspapers-turning-online-news-media translate the opportunities and challenges
of web-TV production? Which production and publishing practices do it use to make, distribute and
promote web-TV content for an online audience? And, more generally, what are the success criteria
under which such a web-TV organization’s operations are measured and defined?
This paper address television news production from outside the traditional television industry. It
focuses on a former printed newspaper (VG) that have succeeded in expanding its business and core
values towards an online news site (vg.no) as well as a web-TV portal (the subsidiary VGTV). Through a
case study of the web-TV series “Oljebarna”/”The Children of the Oil” (2014-), the paper asks how VGTV
translated the opportunities and challenges given in web-TV production, which practices they used to
produce and publish the web-TV series, as well as under which success imperative they evaluated it.
On a more generally level, the paper aims to address how news organizations allow for experimentation
and creativity within more defined areas of the firm. Hence, it aims to build on and further contribute
to the existing work within production and organizational studies, addressing the importance of
understanding the relation between the dominating organizational culture and sub-cultures.
Empirically, the paper uses two key methods: First, it is based on interviews with key industry executives
working with producing and publishing web-TV content in VGTV, and second, it is based on a period of
observation within the VGTV organization. The first method aims to uncover how industry workers with
different professions, roles and functions think, resonate and justify their practices and strategies,
whereas the second method aims to reveal the more informal, unspoken or “taken-for-granted” norms
and rules operating within the organization.
A key argument in the paper is that VGTV has introduced “front potential” as a new success criterion
for web-TV content, that is, the web-TV content’s potential to be presented (“fronted”) in a way that
generates clicks and viewers on the front page. As VGTV’s viewers for the most part are attracted
though promotion on the larger news site vg.no, VGTV content needs to compete with all the other
news stories for clicks and viewers. If failing to do so, the web-TV content is removed from the front
page, and do not reach a larger audience. This rationale for online news publishing – here also used on
web-TV publishing – do not only impact how web-TV content is published and promoted, but also what
kind of content VGTV arrange for in the first place. Hence, I argue the publishing model and the success
criterion it favours, greatly impact web-TV production routines in VGTV.
I, Robot: Tools, Conditions and Challenges of Automated Journalism in German Newsrooms.
Findings of a Participatory Observation among Online Editors. Stephan Weichert, Volker Lilienthal,
Dennis Reineck, Annika Sehl, Macromedia University/ Hamburg Media School, University of
Hamburg, TU Dortmund University
ABSTRACT
Their names are “Tame“, “Hootsuite“, “Datawrapper“, “Icerocket“ and “Dlvr“: More and more
German journalists have been aiming to implement technical tools into their editorial working
environment. These crawlers, dashboards, real‐time‐clients, search engines and software for data
mining are partially or fully automated systems fulfilling a broad range of tasks such as the collection,
aggregation, visualization or semantic processing of extensive datasets. Somehow, these algorithmic
helpers represent the scope for the ongoing structural changes of professional journalism. Tools,
conditions and challenges deriving from the handling of newsrooms with big data are subsumed under
the term of „automated journalism” (see e.g. Carlson, 2014; Clerwall, 2014; Van Dalen, 2012). This study
in question is the latest to represent empirical findings from an observation conducted in German
newsrooms. It examines actions on all of the four journalistic levels (research, production, publishing
and user interaction) which are adopted by technical systems automatically – either half or fully. “Robot
journalism” is largely understood as algorithmic activity used in the journalistic field of fact‐based
reporting like news coverage about sport results and the stock market. However, this paper claims that
certain “robotic trends” can also be found in the processes of digital production and distribution
through the explicit use of technical aids, e.g. programs and software applications, that observe, search
and assess on different states of action and also in varying degrees of intensity.
The paper addresses the question in how far technology‐driven automation of journalism affects the
settings of the journalistic profession and potentially enhances its quality. The presented findings are
based on a participatory observation of a total of ten German editors in four online newsrooms from
different types of media: “DRadio Wissen” (radio), “Rhein‐Zeitung” (regional newspaper), “
Spiegel
Online” (nationwide news magazine), “Tagesschau.de” (public television); each editor was observed
one workday that is approximately eight hours. The qualitative study was conducted during the summer
period of 2013. It focusses on alternative forms, functions and consequences of automated journalistic
work such as research, production, distribution and the reception of the user’s feedback.
Each of the five female and five male editors with rather varying job profiles were observed and
accompanied on a typical working schedule to empirically reflect their professional activities and
capture automation trends. In regard of the results data‐driven journalism appears to be one of the
most promising areas of development in the newsroom, but there are also other significant job profiles
originating in the rise of digitization identified in the study such as audience engager, mobile reporter
or social journalist. Based on the research the paper discusses the professional perspectives of
automated ways of working in the journalistic field and its potential for enhancement of quality.
The study shows that due to the digital transformation process different kinds of new distribution and
publishing channels have been evolved. As they are mostly attributed to the popularity of mobile
Internet, technical systems have taken over editorial tasks automatically. The surveyed examples for
this latest developments are mainly the editorial handling with social media and search tools, e.g. the
automatic filling of Twitter accounts via RSS feed, a search engine based research that is completely
aligned with the recommendation principles from Google, the fully automated analysis of postings and
likes from the Facebook community and, finally, the click‐driven control panels of user statistics.
Don’t tweet this! How journalists and media organisations negotiate tensions emerging from the
implementation of social media policy in newsrooms. Dr Vittoria Sacco and Dr Diana Bossio,
University of Neuchâtel, Swinburne University of Technology
ABSTRACT
For many news organisations, the use of social media represents an important new potential for
increased information gathering and dissemination. While research has already shown the positive and
negative impacts of social media on ‘doing’ journalism (Dieakopoulos et al., 2007), less attention has
been given to the transition of the the newsroom and news organisation itself to the use of social media
by journalists. Since the introduction of the Web and more recently of social media, news organisations
have experienced technological, cultural and economic changes, and are considered to be in a
‘transitional’ period (Aris and Bughin, 2009; Lampel and Shamsie, 2006; Picard, 2004; Killebrew, 2002).
It is thus important to analyse the policies and procedures different media organisations have
implemented to integrate (Standley, 2013: 144) and regulate the use of social media in their newsrooms
and how this might impact on news production and dissemination. The aim of this paper is to compare
and critically analyse social media management policies in Australian newsrooms, as well as the
associated challenges posed by the use of social media by journalists and related media workers in and
out of the newsroom. Based on 30 qualitative research interviews with editors, social media managers
and news media staff from major Australian media companies, this study also reflects more broadly on
the potential conflicts created by the implementation and regulation of social media use in newsrooms
and how various personnel respond to them. Preliminary results suggest that media management
policy can clash with the individual professional expectations of journalists and other media workers
used to working in a particular media culture. Social media managers and editors report difficulties in
training journalists and creating efficient newsrooms, whereas journalists and associated media
workers report dissatisfaction with social media policy ‘dictating’ the way social media can be used to
research and report the news. The methods of dealing with these potential conflicts however, differ
according to the size and culture of the particular organisation.
Journalists and tecnoactors: the negotiation of professional cultures in the online newsrooms. João
Canavilhas, Diógenes Luna, Ivan Satuf, Vitor Torres, Alberto Marques, Alciane Baccin, UBI-Portugal,
UFBA-Brasil, UnB-Brasil, UFRGS-Brasil
ABSTRACT
Online news production faces challenges resulting from content digitization and the growing demand
for computational skills. The narratives incorporate databases and multimedia elements that require
knowledge in informatics tools and data-processing languages that are beyond the basic skills of
journalists (Cohen, Hamilton and Turner, 2011; Parasie and Dagiral, 2012). Work on the web
newsrooms therefore depends on the presence of the so-called tecnoactors (designers and
informatics), responsible for ensuring the execution of tasks that are part of the journalistic narrative
(Nielsen, 2012; Canavilhas, Satuf, Luna and Torres, 2014). This article aims to explore how the
interactions occur between journalists and tecnoactors in the production of online news.
The research is carried out through interviews with six online newsroom professionals, three Brazilian
(O Globo, Diário do Nordeste, Zero Hora) and three Portuguese (Público, Expresso, Correio da Manhã).
All vehicles have relevance in their respective countries. In Brazil, a country with continental
dimensions, O Globo has national representation, while Diário do Nordeste and Zero Hora are leaders
in their regions (North and South). In Portugal, the three newspapers have national distribution,
Expresso is the weekly leader and Correio da Manhã the daily leader. The interviewees are journalists,
designers and programmers, either face-to-face or online (via Skype).
The interviews are structured with questions that seek to understand the negotiations between the
different actors (Robinson, 2011). The research questions are: Can we still say that journalists are the
centre of the working network inside the newsroom? To what extent may the emergence of new actors
interfere with journalistic production mechanisms? Do designers and informatics share the same
concept of “news” with journalists? Is there a place for hybrid professionals in the newsrooms (Royal,
2012), as the journalist-programmer or the designer-journalist?
Despite the occurrence of specific situations due to different organizational structures used in our
sample, the results obtained from crossing the interviews may point out some trends. The journalist
still is a prominent element in the newsroom, whether a reporter or an editor. Nevertheless, his
performance is increasingly dependent on the action of designers and informatics. Despite working
together, one can identify the maintenance of "professional cultures" that distinguish journalists and
tecnoactors. These differences arise difficulties for the mutual recognition of the complexity of the tasks
performed by each of the actors and the deadlines for their execution.
The study shows that overcoming the difficulties depends on obtaining basic knowledge of the different
functions that would improve communication in newsrooms and improve news production. We
propose the concept of "liminal knowledge" to frame this simultaneous expansion and intersection of
knowledge. The interviews also indicate that the present and the near future of online journalism
depend on the presence of professionals with different backgrounds, although professional
hybridization is still viewed with reservation.
The algorithms for journalism: interpreting and writing rules for robots. Carl-Gustav Lindén,
University of Helsinki, Swedish School of Social Science
ABSTRACT
In recent years software generated news has become part of the news making ecosystem, thus blurring
the boundaries (Loosen 2015) between journalism, computer science and statistics. Popularly labelled
“robot journalism” these are algorithm driven processes using strictly structured sets of data from
sports, real estate and stock markets to create news items that are almost indistinguishable from
human written news (Clerwall 2014). This case study takes a close look at six commercial operations in
the United States as well as Sweden to explore how the logic of journalism is interpreted and translated
into software, “rules for robots”. It is focused on the news institution rules - routines, procedures,
conventions, roles, strategies, organizational forms, and technologies - as well as the web of values,
beliefs, paradigms, codes, cultures, and knowledge that surround that concept.
The main motivating question concerns the nature of journalism. At the moment software generated
news are applied in a narrow category. What about more advanced journalism practice; if, how and
when can that be simulated and optimized by smart machines? Can programmers interpret and write
precise rules despite the uncertainty and fluidity of journalism? Will evolutionary algorithms do the
job?
The study aims to be part of the “fourth wave” of research on digital journalism (Steensen, Ahva 2015)
or, the unifying concept I prefer in this case, computational journalism which, according to Young and
Hermida (2014), refers to “forms of algorithmic, social scientific and mathematical processes and
systems for the production of news” or with a more normative approach “the combination of
algorithms, data, and knowledge from the social sciences to supplement the accountability function of
journalism” (Hamilton, Turner 2009, 2).
The empirical material consist of 35 in-depth interviews with data journalists, news managers,
computer scientists and industry experts that inhabit and reproduce this new ecosystem. These are
thought to represent the present and future of computational journalism.
From a normative perspective I believe there is a strong reason to incorporate algorithms into the
research on media and journalism because we are talking about “public relevance algorithms”,
formulas for producing and certifying the knowledge on which we depend (Gillespie 2014).
Finding the Data Unicorn: A hierarchy of hybridity in data and computational journalism. Alfred
Hermida and Mary Lynn Young, UBC Graduate School of Journalism
ABSTRACT
This study examines the impact of data and computational journalism on norms, practices and cultures
in journalism content organizations in Canada. We explore the development of data and computational
journalism in seven legacy organizations through interviews with journalists and freelancers who have
been identified as key data and computational journalists in Canada. Our central question is how these
emergent journalistic identities are both shaping intra and inter organizational and professional
boundaries and being shaped by them.
Data and computational journalism are meaningful sites to explore how power is being deployed
through what Chadwick (2013) identifies as a new “media system hybridity” (2013, 8) through the
interplay of legacy and emergent journalistic roles within organizational structures. Data and
computational journalism are also domains in which it is important to examine technologists,
technological adaptation and their role as shapers of journalism identities (Nielsen, 2012).
Methodologically, we are using semi-structured interviews and have completed 12 interviews to date,
with another five scheduled. We focus on themes such as, how the field of data and/or computational
journalism is perceived by these journalists, how these journalists operate within and outside of legacy
institutions, technological adaptation processes, how the skill set is labeled in professional contexts,
and conceptualizations of the role of the audience/user.
Our early findings suggest that encounters between the new and old in Canadian media indicate a
hierarchy of hybrid cultures with only the public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,
showing signs of new power and the ability to mobilize adaptation in generative ways. Similar to
Chadwick’s assessment of the BBC, we found that the CBC “shows signs of resilience and of the
successful creation of reserved domains of power” (Chadwick, 2013, 5).
Indeed, while demand across well-funded journalism content organizations (see Fink and Anderson,
2014) for ‘unicorns’ who combine editorial and data expertise was high, that need was filtered in some
organizations by historic norms and practices and understandings of IT as a service industry. For
example, in one organization, we found content managers trying to negotiate hybrid categories with
professional labeling, labour policies and practices both creating and limiting the possibility for
expansion.in the technologist category. These new technologists were being hired in a ‘service’ role
located in marketing and/or IT, contributing to journalistic output but with no writing or traditional
journalism capacity. Finally, we identified a category of technologist, the freelance data wrangler, who
benefits from the collaborative and emergent professional labeling and fills an expertise gap in legacy
media organizations.
FRIDAY THE 30TH
2nd Keynote by Robert G. Picard: 8.30 – 10.00
Panel 4 10.30 – 12.30
Panel 4: News culture meets the challenge of national culture
Chaired by Diana Bossio
How Newsroom Culture is Related to the Ways in Which Newspapers in China and the UK have
Responded to Technological Changes: a comparative study. Miao Mi and Hugo de Burgh, University
of Westminster
ABSTRACT
This paper is drawn from the author’s PhD thesis which investigates whether Internet technology and
New Media innovations have been homogenizing British and Chinese press journalism, and, if not, in
which ways and why they have responded differently. The basic assumption of the PhD research has
been raised from Fidler’s mediamorphosis theory and the author examines how the transformation of
the press has been brought about by a complex interplay between many variables in China and the UK.
In the PhD research, the author first takes a historical perspective identifying the commonalities and
differences between press journalism of the two countries as well as social and economic conditions
that have influenced the ways in which newspapers have responded to the development of
communication technologies. The thesis then selects four well-established newspapers, the Guardian,
the Daily Mail from the UK and the China Youth Daily, the Southern Metropolis Daily from China as the
case study to compare the commonalities and differences between the online content they produced
by conducting content analysis and in further interviews 32 editors, journalists and managers from
press industries in the two countries to identify the changes of editorial organizational patterns and
journalistic culture in the four selected newsrooms. This study in the end discusses the impacts of the
complex interplay between historical journalistic traditions, commercial drives and organizational
structure as well as journalistic practices upon the ways in which newspaper organizations in the two
countries have responded to Internet technology and New Media innovations. In this paper, the author
presents the findings from the chapter which investigates how newsroom culture is related to the ways
in which newspapers in China and the UK have responded to technological changes. Specifically, the
author examines
(1) how journalistic practices and values have interacted with the social and technical dimensions of
the Internet in the two countries;
(2) what kind of cultural negotiations has been made in the newsrooms as responses to the change of
organizational structure and journalistic practices in the four selected newspapers. From the empirical
data collected from the interviews and the comparison between the newspapers’ print version and
their online sites, the author discovered that the British journalists and editors have considered more
about how to transfer the traditional standards of journalistic practice in their news organizations into
the online world.
To be more specific, the online strategy and the practice implemented by the two British newspapers
have indicated that they have considered
(1) how to maintain the journalistic values that helped the news organization to be successful as a
traditional print paper in their competition with social media, online news aggregators and the
expectations from the public about the immediacy of online news reporting;
(2) how to make the most of the technological development and characteristics of the Internet in terms
of its hypertextuality, interactivity and multimediality and immediacy;
(3) how to extend their brand and journalistic values by building up and maintaining communities in
the online world.
Although there is no evidence from the interviews indicating that editors and journalists from the two
selected British newspapers consider themselves to have experienced increasing difficulties in fulfilling
their job descriptions, the interviews indicate that the requirement for multitasking, the pressure for
immediacy, and the concentration on popular stories after the introduction of live traffic tracking
system in the newsroom have reduced the awareness of the bureaucratic systems and editor’s personal
preferences in the two British newsrooms and have created a danger for newspaper journalism in terms
of compromising the quality of serious journalism, as well as the trust and integrity that journalists are
expected to maintain to legitimize themselves. For the two Chinese newspapers, however, their
credibility, authority and journalistic integrity have been challenged by the social media as a balancing
act to encourage social transparency, fairness and openness. The author finds that the culture
dimension, rather than the technical dimension of the Internet, had had a greater impact upon the
ways in which journalists in China have responded to the development of communication technologies.
The interviews also revealed a possible decline in journalist’s self-identity, and an erosion of Party
journalism in the two selected Chinese newsrooms. The findings of the paper have also shown that
there is a danger of deterioration in the quality of journalism, and the reasons have been identified as:
1. Requirements for multimedia skills; 2. increased competition between 24-hour news channels, online
news portals and social media platforms; 3. the replacement of traditional editorial judgments and
journalistic practice through the availability of various technical supplements.
New technology and newsroom cultures: A case study of two Kurdish news channel. Abdulsamad
Zangana, University of Liverpool
ABSTRACT
This article provides an ethnographic account of newsroom culture in two Kurdish news channels. The
cases cover a modern digital newsroom and a more traditional analogue newsroom. The two channels
were KNN and GK in the Kurdistan Reign of Iraq. The key goal is to explore and compare the role of
different news technologies - digital AVID News and more traditional analogue methods – in everyday
workplace practice and culture. The ethnographic study draws on in-depth interviews with journalists
in the newsroom, non-participant observation, collected documentation and secondary data. The
framework of Kurdish news production provides a number of key contexts. These include the recent
implementation of state of the art digital news production alongside the existence of older newsroom
formats. At the same time there has been an expansion of TV channels and media sources.
This context provided a unique opportunity to comparatively explore the development of new forms
of newsroom practice and culture. Hence, the research was able to compare both the case of the
modern digital and the analogue newsroom. In this way, the research is able to overview the two
different principles of news-work culture and environments. The study draws upon the theory of
Communities of Practice (CoP) developed by anthropologists Etienne Wenger (1998) and Jean Lave
(1991). The CoP approach provides a focus on issues of workplace culture training, shared history of
learning and shared knowledge. The newsroom communities of practice offer the members routes and
methods to develop their skills and experiences within the workplace. For example, the newsroom COP
gives provide the context for opportunities for the workers to engage the daily interaction, processes
of learning, joint working, shared practice, and joint projects in the workplace. In this manner, the
newsroom becomes a focus of social activities and action in order to reach their workplace goals.
Hence, the workers by engaging in the social activities are able to develop an identity within the
newsroom community. Moreover, in this context the newsroom members shared their goals, history
of learning and experience in order to develop and maintain their community. The daily interaction of
workers provides the community with a dynamic social situation that can: develop the skills of workers;
help exchange information, and knowledge; and share stories. Additionally, the new technological tools
play a role in developing the community of practice and build the members relationships within their
physical or virtual workplace. For instance, the technological tools give the workers a better means to
communicate between themselves, to exchange information or documents, to send messages, to make
use of database services and to build a virtual community. The Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Bruno
Latour, 1992. Michel Callon, 1992. John Law, others) provides the best tools to carry out the
investigation about socio-technical phenomena in the modern newsroom. ANT is useful to explore the
interactions between technology use and workplace cultures within the workplace network. The use of
ANT provides a basis for understating both the workers and the technologies as actors (the human and
nonhuman) in the system of news production.
ANT offers the researcher a means to explain the infrastructure of the newsroom network and the
shape of the network in the workplace. ANT provides the chance to describe in more detail the
connections between the human and nonhuman actors in the network. This project argues that ANT
can propose the ontology of news production and the methods used based on actions within the
modern newsroom network. The ANT focuses more on the explanation of the assembly of a
heterogeneous network in the newsroom by understanding the connection between the different
forms of actors and roles and position of each in the operation of news production. In this context ANT
helps to explore the wide-ranging heterogeneous network in the newsroom community. Additionally,
the project is based on grounded theory which was used to analyse the data. Through this approach
the researchers are able to obtain an indicative method in order to create a systematic analysis for
generating knowledge. The study found a number of developments in the context of KNN where digital
technologies had been employed. First, an increase in both the speed and the volume of news
production were observed. Second, the study identified a reduction in the number of employees in the
newsroom.
Third, there was a flattening of hierarchy and increase in interaction among newsroom workers. Fourth,
there was a broadening and deepening of skills in workers across the newsroom, leading to multiskilling and merged roles. Last, there was a greater focus on visual literacy and skills in digital as
compared to traditional news production that remained more linear and text based. The flexibility of
production and skill set lead to a greater culture of writing to the pictures and thinking visually about
the news. However, the study discovered in the case of the GK analogue newsroom that the news crew
were more numerous than at KNN. The news production was found to be very slow compared to KNN
and not as fruitful and as dynamic as the modern newsroom. The workers have fewer and less varied
skills to deal with news stories elements and news production process. In this context the journalists
did not have any flexibility to work more efficiently and to create the more contemporary forms of
news packages. These differences have important impacts on the form and context of the news
produced and upon the representations of Kurdish news coverage. Importantly this has led to digitally
produced Kurdish news coverage having forms and content closer to the major global news channels.
From Crisis to Departure? Newsroom Culture under the Impact of Digital Structural Change in
Germany. Dr. Leif Kramp, Dr Stephan Weichert, University of Bremen, Macromedia University/
Hamburg Media School
ABSTRACT
The newspaper industry is under immense pressure. In most western countries press diversity
decreases steadily. The ongoing turmoil in the international press markets has led to the notion of a
long-lasting “newspaper crisis” in the Western hemisphere (cf. Brüggemann et al., 2015; for Germany
cf. Kolo/ Weichert 2014). However, in respect to the situation on many national press markets, there is
a lack of empirical data on the mood and value conflicts of editors in this existential period of structural
transition. The study "The Newspaper Makers: Departure into Digital Modernity" (German title “Die
Zeitungsmacher: Aufbruch in die digitale Moderne”) focuses on the conditions in the national context
of German newspapers and their most affected protagonists: The survey among 73 (of a total of 130)
newsrooms of local and national newspapers in Germany analyzes job satisfaction and change
management issues as well as the organizational requirements for an agile innovation culture (e.g.
executive education and off-the-job training), not to forget the value conflicts of newspaper personnel
due to altering professional standards and new technical possibilities of user participation or
storytelling. Our scientific goal was a thorough analysis of the impact of the digital structural change on
newsroom culture and the prospects of enhancements in journalistic ambitions.
This study is the first representative survey on the journalistic state of mind after the fallout of the
latest newspaper crisis in Germany. Our theoretical-empirical approach was to explore the ongoing
conflict among newspaper personnel between vanishing publishing ideas of newspaper organizations
and their willingness to adapt to the creative potential of digitization. Two thirds of the sample were
surveyed via CATI, one third via PAPI in the period between January and June 2012. In addition to the
assessment of the survey data via statistical analysis, we also conducted a cluster analysis that
generated a typology of newsrooms depending on their innovation capacities.
The results of the survey reveal that newspaper organizations must understand themselves as “learning
organizations” in order to create a sustainable infrastructure fostering innovation and a creative
editorial environment. Above all deficits, we identified a huge distance between editors and users of
newspapers and their websites. De facto, the openness of newspaper editors towards the involvement
of their readers has its (narrow) limits: While most editors take participation of the reader seriously
only in the field of investigation, a consistent concept of inclusion is not an issue for the vast majority
of respondents. The results show that in most newspaper companies there is a lack of concepts of
involving the editorial staff into the strategic further development of news products.
Systematic change management to promote and anticipate innovation in the newsrooms is rare as well.
Furthermore, there seems to be a need of implementing co-working spaces we would call “creative
zones” that enable project-related cooperation without the common editorial boundaries, e.g.
between editors, web designers and developers. Finally, there is a high but unattended demand among
journalists for well thought out strategies concerning editorial training programs that are adjusted to
the new digital job profiles in journalism.
Where Journalists cannot report. Negotiating the dilemmas of covering Syria between MarchSeptember 2011. Professor Suzanne Franks, Lisette Johnston, City University, London
ABSTRACT
The Syrian uprising began in March 2011. For the following 6 months all international journalists were
banned from the country and news organisations had to find other ways to report this dramatic and
important story. This paper will focus upon how BBC TV World News covered the Syrian crisis over
this period, in particular the use which was made of user generated content in news bulletins. It will
highlight the mechanisms which were developed in response to this new form of harvesting material
and assess the risks which were involved to the newsgathering process.
The paper will firstly, taking advantage of privileged access to broadcast logs, present a content
analysis of the news items devoted to Syria which were broadcast on BBC World. The intention will be
to explore and demonstrate what material was used and where it was sourced from over this period,
in addition to examining how and whether sources were attributed. This analysis will be
complemented with a series of semi-structured interviews with key newsroom personnel involved in
the process, discussing the systems that were developed and how they evolved in order to locate
material, develop robust verification techniques and confront the various risks involved – both to the
impartiality of the output and also to the security of those involved in gathering the footage. This will
highlight the evolution of some of the new mechanisms for locating and curating material online and
in particular through social media platforms, that subsequently became embedded in BBC newsroom
practices. It will, amongst other things, demonstrate the development of a new relationship with the
BBC Monitoring services, as a source of advice and expertise.
This study will rely on a discussion of gate-watching, which has emerged as an evolution from
gatekeeping theory. It will serve as a way of demonstrating how an established news outlet when it
was unable to use trusted inhouse sources and resources for newsgathering, developed new
mechanisms to report and sought to find ways to negotiate this change in order to uphold accepted
guidelines and practices.
Reducing Complexity: A Behavioral Perspective on Journalistic Quality. Bartosz Wilczek, Prof. Dr.
Stephan Russ-Mohl, Institution: Università della Svizzera italiana, European Journalism Observatory
ABSTRACT
1. Introduction
What shapes journalistic quality? Is it the "commercialization" (Picard, 2004), the "economization"
(Siegert et al., 2005), and the "disruption" (Christensen et al., 2012)? We aim to shed new light on these
developments. We investigate the process through which changing market conditions have an effect
on journalistic quality. Specifically, we investigate the causal mechanism underlying quality formation
and quality realization related to digital journalism during newsroom convergence in two so-called
quality newspapers of two major Swiss media companies.
2. Quality formation and quality realization
We conceptualize quality formation based on features of product strategy formation. We
operationalize these features based on literature on newsroom convergence and on quality
assurance/management1. Quality formation consists of the formulation of goals (e.g., Russ-Mohl, 1992;
Porter, 1996; Dahinden et al., 2004), the allocation of resources (Bower and Gilbert, 2007), and the
design of the structure (e.g., Chandler, 1962; Gilbert, 2006; Raisch et al., 2009; García-Avilés et al.,
2014). Quality realization consists of actions that realize a certain quality (Mintzberg, 2007).
3. Theory
As the broader theory frame we choose (Behavioral) Economic Theory. It focuses on actors, their
preferences, restrictions, trade-offs, decision rules, and external effects (e.g., Diekmann and Voss,
2004). 1 However, based on our framework, we suggest using the term quality formation. In contrast
to the term product the term quality incorporates the notion that a product respectively its quality is
also shaped by preferences of actors within media companies. Preferences describe what actors like
more and what corresponds with their goals (Diekmann and Voss, 2004). In contrast to the term
assurance the term formation incorporates the notion, that actors are constrained by restrictions.
There decisions don't necessarily lead to an assurance of a quality they prefer. Also, preferences and
thus definitions of quality differ between actors. Finally, quality might be the result of exploitation, i.e.,
a process through which the existing definition of quality gets assured or even improved, but it might
also be the result of exploration, i.e., a process through which a new definition of quality gets
implemented (March, 1991). In contrast to the term management the term formation incorporates the
notion, that quality might be the result of topdown planning and intention but also of bottom-up
emergence (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985). Moreover, we operationalize these features with concepts
from organizational theories. We draw particularly on Behavioral Organizational Theory that discusses
drivers (e.g., conflicting goals) and resolutions of complexity in organizations (Cyert and March, 1963;
Cohen et al., 1972; March and Simon, 1993).
4. Research question
− What causal mechanism within media companies shapes the quality of digital journalism?
5. Methods
We investigate the causal mechanism (Muno, 2011) through which digitalization and disruption of
media markets have an effect on the quality of digital journalism. We investigate it on four hierarchical
levels (board of directors, media management, editorial management, and editorial departments) and
related to quality formation and quality realization. We investigate the formation and realization of the
following quality criteria of digital journalism: timeliness of reporting, scope of reporting, extent of inhouse reporting, video production, and the use of corporate and private Twitter accounts. We apply a
temporal, embedded, and multiple case study design (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009), i.e., we investigate
changes during newsroom convergence in the business and science sections of two major so-called
quality newspapers located in Zurich, Switzerland. We conduct process tracing (Bennet and Elman,
2006) to investigate the quality formation and collect data based on document analysis, interviews, and
observations. We conduct strategy tracking (Mintzberg, 2007) to investigate the quality realization and
collect data based on a content analysis of the news websites and the Twitter accounts.
Panel 5 13.30 – 15.30
Panel 5: Inside Newsroom Culture
Chaired by Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Embracing Change: the role of institutional integrity on the responsiveness of newspaper
organisations. Sara Ekberg, Folker Hanusch, Maria Norbäck and Patrik Wikström, Jönköping
International Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Gothenburg University
ABSTRACT
The newspaper industry is marked by a state of flux (Spyridou, et al., 2013), revolution, and
discontinuous change (van Moorsel, He, Oltmans, and Huibers, 2012) and newspaper organisations
show resistance and responsiveness in relation to change efforts (Franklin, 2008; Massey and Ewart,
2009; O’Sullivan and Heinonen, 2008). The majority of scholarly work tends to focus on the lack of
change in these organisations, suggesting that there is an active resistance to the fluctuations in the
industry (Williams and Franklin, 2007). Yet, there is an urgent need to better understand the internal
dynamics and how these organisations are managing the changes in the industry (McDowell, 2011; Siles
and Boczkowski, 2012). Providing such an insight is the aim of this paper, which explores the role of
institutional integrity on organisational change. Emanating from institutional theory, the concept of
institutional integrity is defined as the fidelity to self-defined values and principles (Dacin, Goodstein,
and Scott, 2002; Selznick, 1957). It includes the balancing act between change and stability, as change
is seen as harmful to institutional integrity, and organisations attempt to preserve their familiar
environment by resisting change (Selznick, 1957). However, if organisations did not change at all, they
would not be able to survive, and the maintenance of institutional integrity can be taken too far, to the
point that it becomes rigid. Thus, this study provides a new theoretical perspective to the academic
discussion on change in newspaper organisations. It is based on a single case study and extends our
understanding of how newspaper organisations behave during change. By highlighting the rationale of
the changes that they are embracing, this paper contributes to a micro-level understanding of how
newspaper organisations are responding to the current changes in the industry.
What’s the Matter with Newsroom Culture? A Sociomaterial Analysis of Professional Knowledge
Creating in the Newsroom. Steen Steensen, Oslo and Akershus University College
ABSTRACT
This paper investigates negotiations between legacy and digital newsroom cultures through a
sociomaterial analysis of how journalism students create professional knowledge during periods of
internship in conventional, yet highly digitized newsrooms. 16 Norwegian j-students are interviewed
and 30 internship reports analysed in order to map the different actors – both humans and nonhumans – that matter when students learn through practice in such newsrooms. The paper combines
sociomaterial perspectives from educational studies and journalism studies to investigate the material
aspects of learning and knowledge creation when j-students do their periods of internship in
newsrooms marked by both legacy and digital cultures. A sociomaterial approach highlights
interactions among objects, technologies and various human actors and analyse how these
interactions affect the news production culture and the way in which journalists in the making create
professional knowledge. Hence, the paper breaks down the negotiations between legacy and digital
culture into how different materialities – e.g. the physical structure of the newsroom, various groups
of people, hardware, software, etc – interact. The newsrooms in which the students had their
internships were all marked by conventional ways of organising news work, while at the same time
producing content for digital only platforms. The students’ experiences with professional knowledge
creation in these newsrooms are therefore a fruitful empirical basis for understanding how
negotiations between legacy and digital culture shape contemporary news work. The research is
guided by the following research questions: What role does materiality play to the learning outcome
of journalism students during periods of internship in newsrooms, and what can this role of
materiality tell us about how newsroom culture is transforming? The aim of the research is in other
words twofold: First, I wish to descriptively map the different materialities that play a role in a
learning-through-practice situation for j-students who are exposed to newsrooms marked by
negotiations between legacy and digital cultures. Second; by foregrounding the material aspects of
journalistic learning-through-practice, I wish to highlight the specific and time-bound sociomaterial
relations that shape contemporary newsroom culture. The findings show that anything from
construction workers to a driver’s licence can perform agency when j-students learn through practice
in legacy, yet highly digitized newsrooms. However, two types of materialities stand out as
particularly important: 1) The physical layout of the newsroom and the manifestation of role
hierarchies in that material space, which were very much bound by legacy newsroom culture; and 2)
The vast diversity of software applications and the ways in which these are integrated into the
newsroom culture. Differences in these two types of materialities proved vital to the students’ ability
to create professional knowledge, and they proved vital to the degree of friction between legacy and
digital cultures in the newsrooms.
Innovative Learning Culture (ILC) at Dutch newspapers in transformation. Ornella Porcu, City
Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands
ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to investigate the drivers and obstacles of a culture that can facilitate
explorative innovation (O’Reilly and Tushman, 2013) within the newsrooms of legacy media
transforming to digital platforms. Underpinned by the literature we will define this culture as Innovative
Learning Culture (ILC). ILC consists of six characteristics: leadership, collaboration, communication,
time, trust and autonomy. When optimal, ILC makes it possible to create explorative innovation as it
fosters the necessary space for experimenting with new ways of working, new ways of telling stories
and new business models that are sustainable in the digital age. It is presumed that a breach of one or
more of the six characteristics of ILC will hinder this type of ‘radical’ innovation aiming at long term
survival.
Methodologically the paper relies on data from research that is currently being conducted at a major
Dutch national newspaper and a regional newspaper. It consists of a mixed methods research design
involving a quantitative survey containing an online ‘scan’ to measure ILC on a 5-point Likert scale,
followed by several qualitative interviews to give depth to, and explain, the results of the scan. The data
are expected to be analysed this summer.
Older and recent ethnographic literature point out that the so called journalism culture, seen as the
shared values and common work practices of journalists (Deuze, 2004), typically hinders innovation in
newspaper newsrooms (Buijs, 2014; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2004; Ryfe, 2012; Tameling and Broersma,
2012; Tameling and Broersma, 2013; Smit (2013), Usher, 2014). In these studies transformation
problems are generally viewed from a management point of view. The editor in chief wants online
activities, and the journalists in the newsroom do not seem to comply. Hence journalism culture is
blamed. By putting journalism culture in the broader perspective of innovative learning culture, a more
nuanced picture may be presented when studying innovation processes in the newsroom. This has not
been done before.
As news organisations are struggling with innovative transformation it is crucial to understand the
underlying rules of how change and innovation take place and, ultimately, what influences this course.
With this research the multidisciplinary field of journalism studies gains a crucial understanding of the
drivers of the innovation processes in news organisations. A thorough understanding of this matter is
also vital for the news industry to learn lessons for its own survival.
Tensions in the newsroom: a case study of a Fynske Medier’s digitalization process. Aske Kammer,
University of Southern Denmark
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the results of a sub-study in an exploration of the 2014-2015 digitalization process
in Fynske Medier, a regional newspaper organization in Denmark. The process involved changes in the
structuring of the journalistic workflow, increased attention to digital platforms, and the launch of
segmented subscription model online. The paper explores the tensions between occupational and
organizational considerations that occurred in the digitalization process, asking how different (and
often opposing) regards are negotiated in outlining future directions for the organization.
Theoretically, the study builds upon Evetts’ (2003) distinction between occupational and organizational
professionalisms; that is, professional conduct that is grounded in, respectively, the ideological,
normative regards of the vocation and the pragmatic, (often) profit-oriented regards of the
organization. Örnebring (2009) has appropriated this framework to the context of journalism, arguing
that journalism finds itself shifting from an occupational to an organizational professionalism.
Empirically, the paper draws upon data obtained from interviews with managerial actors as well as
observations from workgroup meeting. In the analysis, it focuses on instances, where disagreement
about the values and interests of the organization stand out, and where the negotiation of
organizational identity, culture, and strategy, of occupational and organizational imperatives, become
prominent. This way, the study illustrates how media professional considerations collide with
journalistic norms in the digital era as organizations of publishing face the challenge of adapting to a
transformed economic and technological context.
The analysis identifies two important tensions in the newsroom during the digitalization process. First,
a tension exists between different types of actors who express very diverse understandings of proposed
digital initiatives, obfuscating the implementation of the management’s strategy of increased digitality.
Second, the two editors-in-chief disagree about the sense of the segmented subscription online
because their understandings of it derive from, respectively, occupational norms and organizational
demands. In this case, organizational consideration trump the occupational one, and this finding
supports the argument made in earlier work by the author (Kammer, 2013) that journalism is, in the
digital age, increasingly mediatized and subsumed to media professional imperatives.
News Production Cultures. Natacha Yazbeck, Annenberg School for Communication
ABSTRACT
Against a backdrop of the digitization and hyper-commercialization of the news industry, and as foreign
bureaus of even the most established newsgroups are forced to close their doors, stringer-based
reporting is on the rise, from Camden to Damascus. Nowhere are stringers, and digital media, more
central than in press coverage of the Syrian crisis. If the 2003 war on Iraq saw the rise of embedded
reporting and reliance on fixers as central to coverage, this paper argues, the Syrian crisis has brought
to the centre of newsrooms stringer-based reporting on a story that has become all but inaccessible to
professional journalists as traditionally defined. This paper explores stringer-based reporting as a
practice central to legacy news media as they adapt, or struggle to adapt, to the digital and finds that
changes in technology and business models have conterminously seen major changes in the labour of
reporting. Drawing on interviews conducted in person and via Skype with 14 editors, journalists,
photojournalists and stringers working on the Syria beat for leading newsgroups out of Lebanon and
Syria, this paper explores the inner mechanisms of news production. These mechanisms include both
digital and physical practices, which are employed jointly along all levels of the news-production
process – from editorial bureaus to the streets. This paper argues that while much attention has been
paid to the rising role of the participatory audience in the era of digitization (e.g., Boczkowski, 2004;
Ryfe, 2012; Anderson, 2013; Usher, 2014) and the role of citizen journalists or “produsers” (e.g., Bruns,
2008; Bruns and Highfield, 2012; Papacharissi, 2014), the divide between professional and nonprofessional journalists continues to obfuscate a third category. This third category consists of a
marginal majority of sorts which stands, in the words of one editor interviewed for this paper, as “the
backbone of all and any coverage out of Syria today”: stringers, de facto local reporters. The data
collected for this paper reveals three central changes in news media: 1) the rise of stringer-based
reporting and changing typologies of foreign correspondence; 2) the disappearance of the traditional
inverted pyramid as a news form; and 3) discriminatory frameworks of credibility and compensation.
Finally, while war reporting holds a unique place in both the practice of journalism and its study, the
dynamics at play in newsrooms covering the Syrian crisis may well reflect broader changes in
transitioning news media.
Panel 6 16.00 – 17.45
Panel 6: News Culture, Local Communities and National Politics
Chaired by John Oliver
All the Actions Fit to Print: Nonprofits as digital intermediaries in US journalism and the rise of
“what next?” reporting. David Conrad, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for
Communication
ABSTRACT
The digitization of media has tossed the institution of U.S. journalism in total upheaval and in dire need
of a new economic model to support its international coverage. At the same time, through grants
awarded to journalists, the nonprofit sector is asserting itself as an ally to digital innovation and
progress, claiming that journalism can innovate out of its professional crisis and that it can provide the
financial support necessary for it do so. This article considers the nature and degree of emerging
nonprofit involvement in the news, paying particular attention to the role played by the language of
digital innovation in enhancing that involvement. This study ultimately asks whether by transforming
the funding structures of news institutions, the nonprofit sector is also changing the priorities of U.S.
journalism.
Focusing on a single case study, this article explores how Public Radio International’s (PRI) The World,
the largest news organization dedicated solely to international news in the United States, is turning
toward grants to both fill significant gaps in global reporting and support the transformation of its digital
strategy. More specifically, this study analyzes a recent Knight Foundation grant that funded the author
(from Jan. 15 - April 15, 2015) to employ a digital tool, called ‘StoryAct’, that was designed to “change
the culture” of The World’s newsroom. In short, the ‘StoryAct’ grant pushed the digital producers of
The World’s website — www.pri.org — to prioritize the production of measurable actions (through
clicks), housed in ‘StoryAct’ boxes published alongside web articles, that audiences could take on the
stories produced by the radio producers. The tool assigned five categories to audience prompts: learn
more, act, contribute, spread, and suggest. While ‘learn more’ prompts included links to articles and
resources related to the story, published ‘actions’ included prompts for audiences to intern, volunteer,
and donate to various organizations involved in the issue being covered, or even to participate in
related advocacy campaigns. Put another way, the grant tasked the newsroom with dictating more than
the “who?”, “what?”, and “where?” of a story, but the “what next?”
In its attempt to drive the formation of a culture of action-oriented production practices and values
among radio and digital producers, the project opened a central conflict for the newsroom. At the risk
of oversimplifying this conflict, it can largely be traced to a tension between the legacy value that a
journalist’s role in international reporting should end at the provision of information, on the one hand,
and the digital-first value, advanced by the ‘StoryAct’ grant and digital strategy of PRI, that journalists
should provide specific actions that audiences can take on their reporting in order demonstrate that
their work is having an impact and to stay relevant in a digital world. Locating and exploring these
encounters in practice is at the heart of this study.
Organisational Culture and Its Influence on Strategy in Local Media in the Digital Age. Sarah O’Hara,
Canterbury Christ Church University
ABSTRACT
This paper is concerned with understanding organisational culture within local news media
organisations. It explores the conflict faced by local news organisations between journalistic values and
commercial imperatives. The paper considers how cultural beliefs within organisations shape strategic
decisions and is based on the theoretical approach that the cultural paradigm of an organisation shapes
its future strategies in the digital age.
The analysis is based on an empirical study carried out in the county of Kent in the south east of England.
The research involves case study analysis of media organisations; comprising data gathered from
interviews with stakeholders working for the media organisations, company data and observational
data such as office location. Interviews participants were recruited from across both organisations in
commercial, journalistic and support roles to develop insight into cultural differences within an
organisation. The theoretical approach is not to compare and contrast the organisations but to give
insight into how different legacy elements, management and ownership models have shaped the
organisations digital transformation and strategies today.
A key emerging finding from the analysis is that organisational culture is a useful concept to understand
changes and strategies of local news media organisations during the last decade as it reveals the conflict
between the need to serve the local community from within the locale versus the commercial
imperative to reduce costs through the centralisation of resources. It considers how local media
organisations have adopted digital news production practices which have resulted in the relocation and
centralisation of both physical offices and the journalists employed within them. The paper is
concerned with how stakeholders have adopted digital elements alongside legacy practices to offer a
new way of delivering local news content across numerous platforms whilst still serving the local
community and maintaining traditional paid copy sales.
The interactions between journalists, digital technologies, the audience and the political field. Florin
C. Serban, Hong Kong Baptist University
ABSTRACT
This paper contributes to the research literature by filling in a gap in examining the interactions
between journalists, digital technologies, the audience and the political field. Addressing the
transformations of journalism in the digital age, most of the studies have focused on the transition from
print to online newspapers and the subsequently production practices (Boczkowski, 2004; Domingo
and Paterson, 2008; Singer et al., 2011; Ryfe, 2012; Anderson, 2013; Usher, 2014). Instead, with few
exceptions (e.g. Bivens, 2014) little attention is paid to a legacy media organization that, apart from its
different medium specificity, deals with different production practices than newspapers do: the 24hour news channels.
This longitudinal study investigates the transformations of the production practices and of professional
values for the most important 24-hour news-channel in Hong Kong. Relying on in-depth interviews with
journalists ranging from junior reporters to senior staff and on participant observations collected in
2012 and 2015, this study takes into account not only organizational issues, but also financial and
political pressures shaping everyday production practices. The theoretical framework of this
longitudinal study is anchored in Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory. This theoretical approach was preferred
given its ability to draw between micro and macro-levels. However, in order to accommodate the roles
of public participation and of technological convergence, elements from Lewis and Westlund’s Actors,
Actants, Audiences, and Activities (2015) were borrowed and integrated. Thus, the theoretical
framework has a holistic approach, navigating between newsroom practices, on one hand, and
structural financial and political pressures, on the other hand.
Although Hong Kong maintains its status as the world’s freest economy (Heritage, 2015), Hong Kong’s
journalistic freedom has declined in recent years to alarming levels (Reporters without Borders, 2015;
Freedom House, 2015). However, the news television consumption rates remain high and the
journalists and the managerial departments are able to create a synergy between the news production
and news distribution. Media consumption in Hong Kong is facilitated by the smartphone (87%),
Internet (83), and tablet (57%) penetration rates.
Although in 2012 the journalists were able to reinforce their values and norms by excluding most of the
user-generated content from their daily work, three years later the journalists show a greater deal of
inclusion. Facing greater political pressures, the journalists are engaging the public in order to maintain
high ratings, and, subsequently, such high consumption rates are helping the journalists to maintain
their journalistic relevance and subsequently to continue challenging the Beijing political pressures.
Campaign culture 2015: embracing intermediality to “tell the story” in ITV news’ election 2015. Amy
P. Smith, Royal Holloway, University of London
ABSTRACT
Television election night programmes occupy a niche marketplace. With their own established cultural
norms and practices, they are likely to appeal to a specific – and limited – audience. For the 2015
General Election, ITV News’ Election 2015 combined traditional news and digital media logics in its bid
to attract viewers and be the first to tell the story.
ITV News’ Election 2015 reflected the demands and opportunities associated with the hybrid media
system. The programme was an intermedia broadcast which sought to involve members of its audience
in a controlled manner, and bring them into the story through the use of social media. Although the
programme’s producers relied heavily on traditional practices and media logics to gather news, they
also made digital media a major part of their election coverage. Facebook and Twitter analysts reported
findings from social media websites in the Opinion Room, while viewers were encouraged to use the
hashtag ‘#opinionroom’ and participate in Facebook QandAs with political commentators. StromerGalley’s notion of controlled interactivity can be applied here as audience members were directed to
interact with the programme in specific ways: the broadcaster tightly controlled any social media
output and the use of content produced by the audience.
The paper draws on a wide range of evidence, including interviews with the programme editor and
digital director, direct observations of the Election 2015 team at work over several months between
January 2015 and election night, and a content analysis of the programme and related social media
output and input. Observations of the production and editorial teams give context to the findings of
the content analysis and allow the study to present a discussion of the behaviours and decisions made
regarding the different journalistic and media cultures.
This paper shows how ITV News producers and journalists embraced intermediality to meet their two
principal election night goals: to be the first to tell the story; and to tell it as it unfolded in an engaging
way. The paper further shows that established cultural norms and practices were retained and that
traditional newsgathering logics remained in place; but that these were augmented by selected digital
logics. Furthermore, the controlled way in which the audience members was involved suggests that the
programme maker’s gatekeeper role remained intact, albeit exercised through new practices.
Next steps and Wrap ups 17.45-18.00
Participants
Rasmus
Kleis Nielsen
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Lucy
Küng
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Robert
G. Picard
Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Abdulsamad
Zangana
University of Liverpool
Alecia
Swasy
University of Illinois
Alfred
Hermida
University of British Columbia
Aljosha Karim
Schapals
City Universiy London
Amy
Ross
Northwestern University
Amy
Smith
Royal Holloway, University of London
Aske
Kammer
Centre for Journalism, University of Southern Denmark
Bartosz
Wilczek
USI, Institute for Media and Journalism
Brian
Ekdale
University of Iowa
Brigitte
Hofstetter
University of Fribourg/Switzerland
Carl-Gustav
Linden
University of Helsinki
David
Conrad
University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication
Diana
Bossio
Swinburne University
Diógenes
Luna
University of Beira Interior
Eugenia
Siapera
Future Journalism Institute, Dublin City University
Florin
Serban
Hong Kong Baptist University
Francois
Nel
University of Central Lancashire
Grégoire
Minisini
Henk Jan
Karsten
Windesheim University
Ivan
Satuf
University of Beira Interior
Jane
Singer
City University London
John
Oliver
Bournemouth University
Joschka
Mütterlein
University of Bayreuth
Katja
Lehtisaari
University of Helsinki
Lea
Püchel
University of Bayreuth
Leif
Kramp
University of Bremen
Lisette
Johnston
City University London
Mary Lynn
Young
University of British Columbia
Melissa
Tully
University of Iowa
Miao
Mi
China Media Centre
Natacha
Yazbeck
Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
Ornella
Porcu
Windesheim University
Philomen
Schoenhagen
Department of Communication and Media Research DCM, University of Fribourg (Switzerland)
Sara
Ekberg
Jönköping International Business School
Sarah
O'Hara
Canterbury Christ Church University
Steen
Steensen
Oslo and Akershus University College
Stephan
Weichert
Macromedia University
Stephan
Suzanne
Russ-Mohl
Franks
Università della Svizzera italiana
City University, London
Vilde
Schanke Sundet
Lillehammer University College
Vittoria
Sacco
University of Neuchâtel