Theories of Journalism in a Digital Age
Edited by Steen Steensen, Laura Ahva
Given the interdisciplinary nature of digital journalism studies and the increasingly blurred boundaries of journalism, there is a need within the field of journalism studies to widen the scope of theoretical perspectives and approaches. Theories of Journalism in a Digital Age discusses new avenues in theorising journalism, and reassesses established theories.
Contributors to this volume describe fresh conceptssuch as de-differentiation, circulation, news networks, and spatiality to explain journalism in a digital age, and provide concepts which further theorise technology as a fundamental part of journalism, such as actants and materiality. Several chapters discuss the latitude of user positionsin the digitalised domain of journalism, exploring maximal–minimal participation, routines–interpretation–agency, and mobility–cross-mediality–participation. Finally, the book provides theoretical tools with which to understand, in different social and cultural contexts, the evolving practices of journalism, including innovation, dispersed gatekeeping, and mediatized interdependency. The chapters in this book were originally published in special issues of Digital Journalism and Journalism Practice.
Theories of Journalism in a Digital Age: An exploration and introduction Steen Steensen and Laura Ahva
1. Actors, Actants, Audiences, and Activities in Cross-Media News Work: A matrix and a research agenda Seth C. Lewis and Oscar Westlund
2. Who and What do Journalism? An actor-network perspective Alex Primo and Gabriela Zago
3. Tracing Digital News Networks: Towards an integrated framework of the dynamics of news production, circulation and use David Domingo, Pere Masip and Irene Costera Meijer
4. The Notion of the "Blurring Boundaries": Journalism as a (de-)differentiated phenomenon Wiebke Loosen
5. The Material Traces of Journalism: A socio-historical approach to online journalism Juliette De Maeyer and Florence Le Cam
6. Journalism as Cultures of Circulation Henrik Bødker
7. Place-based Knowledge in the Twenty-first Century: The creation of spatial journalism Amy Schmitz Weiss
8. From Grand Narratives of Democracy to Small Expectations of Participation: Audiences, citizenship, and interactive tools in digital journalism Chris Peters and Tamara Witschge
9. When News is Everywhere: Understanding participation, cross-mediality and mobility in journalism from a radical user perspective Ike Picone, Cédric Courtois, and Steve Paulussen
10. The Relevance of Journalism: Studying news audiences in a digital era Heikki Heikkilä and Laura Ahva
11. Innovation through Practice: Journalism as a structure of public communication Christoph Raetzsch
12. Politicians as Media Producers: Current trajectories in the relation between journalists and politicians in the age of social media Mattias Ekman and Andreas Widholm
13. Gatekeeping in a Digial Era: Principles, practices and technological platforms Peter Bro and Filip Wallberg
14. Charting Theoretical Directions for Examining African Journalism in the "Digital Era" Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara
Steen Steensen is Professor of Journalism and Head of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences, Norway. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on digitalization and journalism.
Laura Ahva is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Communication, Media and Theatre at the University of Tampere, Finland. She has published articles in Journalism Studies, Journalism and Digital Journalism, and in various edited collections.
Journalism Studies
The journal Journalism Studies was established at the turn of the new millennium by Bob Franklin. It was launched in the context of a burgeoning interest in the scholarly study of journalism and an expansive global community of journalism scholars and researchers. The ambition was to provide a forum for the critical discussion and study of journalism as a subject of intellectual inquiry but also an arena of professional practice. Previously, the study of journalism in the UK and much of Europe was a fairly marginal branch of the larger disciplines of media, communication and cultural studies; only a handful of Universities offered degree programmes in the subject. Journalism Studies has flourished and succeeded in providing the intended public space for discussion of research on key issues within the field, to the point where in 2007 a sister journal, Journalism Practice, was launched to enable an enhanced focus on practice-based issues, as well as foregrounding studies of journalism education, training and professional concerns. Both journals are among the leading ranked journals within the field and publish six issues annually, in electronic and print formats. From the outset, the publication of themed issues has been a commitment for both journals. Their purpose is first, to focus on highly significant or neglected areas of the field; second, to facilitate discussion and analysis of important and topical policy issues; and third, to offer readers an especially high quality and closely focused set of essays, analyses and discussions; or all three.
The Journalism Studies: Theory and Practice book series draws on a wide range of these themed issues from both journals and thereby extends the critical and public forum provided by them. The Editor of the journals works closely with guest editors to ensure that the books achieve relevance for readers and the highest standards of research rigour and academic excellence. The series makes a significant contribution to the field of journalism studies by inviting distinguished scholars, academics and journalism practitioners to discuss and debate the central concerns within the field. It also reaches a wider readership of scholars, students and practitioners across the social sciences, humanities and communication arts, encouraging them to engage critically with, but also to interrogate, the specialist scholarly studies of journalism which this series provides.
Journalism & Professional Media