Open journalism : dynamics of change and continuity in news work in the 21st century

• Main Author: Hermida, Alfred
• Published: City University London 2014
• Subjects: 070; PN Literature (General)
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.679019

This review of eight years of research into digital media addresses the methodological and epistemological issues and tensions arising out of the emergence of new communicative spaces that have expanded the range of actors involved in the construction of the news. Until recently, journalism has developed as a relatively closed professional culture for the production of knowledge, based on a system of editorial control. Yet digital media technologies have disrupted established concepts of communication, prevailing notions of space and time and the distinction between public and private spheres. The research in this portfolio highlights elements of change and continuity in the way journalists think about and engage in their work, through processes of adaptation shaped by cultural, social, economic and technological factors. The work reveals how far participatory media technologies are transforming how journalists and audiences relate to the news in a profession where norms and routines that have remained, until now, decidedly consistent. But it goes beyond a focus on journalists as a distinct group to advance ideas about how the media environment itself is being reconfigured, particularly due to the development of social media. The research presented here on Twitter reveals how news and information have become woven into social awareness streams that represent a constantly updated public account of the experiences, interests and opinions shared by the platform’s users. They are able to reframe or reinterpret messages through networked platforms that extend the dissemination of news through social interaction, infusing hybridity in news production, selection and dissemination.