Beyond Journalism. Mark Deuze

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roughly coincides with the rise of new technologies (notably internet, smartphones, and various forms of automation), the shift of nation-based politics toward more complex supranational relations (as well as its return under the guise of populism), and a rapid glocalization of social, cultural, and economic affairs. The news industry, in response to such changes and challenges, has generally sought answers in consolidating its core business and streamlining existing operations. This meant laying off employees (including many journalists) and cutting budgets. The budgets for exploratory innovation projects, specialized beats (such as science reporting), and a range of correspondents were all trimmed. Journalism was once mostly organized in formal institutions where contracted laborers would produce content under informal yet highly structured working conditions generally arranged within the physical environment of a newsroom. Today the lived experience of professional journalists is much more precarious, fragmented, and networked.

      This is not to say there is no diversity in journalism studies. In fact, quite the opposite could be argued: the field has proliferated, opening up plentiful ways to investigate, theorize, and rethink journalism. Interestingly, the response to this diversification has largely been to test the merits of any novel or innovative approach against the dominant model and mode of journalism, which in effect colonized the intervention, making it subject to the rules established at the center.

      Our aim is to tell new stories, and expand our storytelling format (what we choose to tell our stories about) as well as what we understand journalism to be. Much like William Gartner’s ambition for organization studies, we are not interested in providing a “one best way” model for journalism, as we are much more interested in highlighting the “need for mid-range theories that reflect contingent relationships” (1993: 236). Like Gartner, we are interested in specificities rather than generalities in the field at this stage. The field tends to understand journalism through a framework that suggests a homogenous entity as the object of study (or as an internally consistent reference point). We would like to consider the differences that truly make a difference, and recognize new or emerging voices as legitimate participants in setting the discourse about what journalism is, can, and should be.

      Scholars and educators tend to respond to this shift in two ways. One is to rally the troops, close ranks, and put significant effort in bringing coherence and stability (back) to the field. This gets established by producing impressive handbooks, canonical anthologies, readers, and companion volumes (and corresponding special issues of scholarly journals and conferences). Empirical approaches in this tradition center on comprehensive surveys and content analyses of journalists and journalism based on narrow definitions of the news industry offering conclusions about what journalism is and who journalists are (see Willnat, Weaver, and Choi 2013; Hanitzsch et al. 2011; Hellmueller and Mellado 2015).

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