Disrupting the News

Disruption has become a popular shorthand explanation among news media executives and thought leaders for describing the massive business model and innovation challenges facing the incumbent producers of news. Yet the focus on digital disruption to the traditional business model of news obscures dee...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Elizabeth Hansen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Bologna 2020-09-01
Series:Sociologica
Subjects:
Online Access:https://sociologica.unibo.it/article/view/11177
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author Elizabeth Hansen
author_facet Elizabeth Hansen
author_sort Elizabeth Hansen
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description Disruption has become a popular shorthand explanation among news media executives and thought leaders for describing the massive business model and innovation challenges facing the incumbent producers of news. Yet the focus on digital disruption to the traditional business model of news obscures deeper changes in the values guiding journalistic practice. This essay unpacks disruptions to the landscape of news production and the practice of journalism with an attention to the institutional logic of digital media innovations. The digital values of openness and rationalization, visible in the adoption and use of metrics and analytics, crowds and engagement, and algorithmic distribution, have disrupted both the practices of journalism and the values guiding journalists’ work. This essay examines those disruptions in practice and values and outlines their consequences: new values and new identities that reconfigure the journalist/audience relationship and expand the complexity of the journalist role. The stakes of the digital disruption are issues of control and transparency in newswork. Overall, this essay claims, digital disruptions in journalism are issues of control and transparency in newswork. Overall, this essay claims, digital disruptions in journalistic values and practice are both discontinuous breaks from the past and evolutions of long-standing tensions in journalism as an institution.
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spelling doaj.art-6fa37ba73997461790da1a66d285c1462022-12-22T01:31:19ZengUniversity of BolognaSociologica1971-88532020-09-0114217519910.6092/issn.1971-8853/111779501Disrupting the NewsElizabeth Hansen0Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy SchoolDisruption has become a popular shorthand explanation among news media executives and thought leaders for describing the massive business model and innovation challenges facing the incumbent producers of news. Yet the focus on digital disruption to the traditional business model of news obscures deeper changes in the values guiding journalistic practice. This essay unpacks disruptions to the landscape of news production and the practice of journalism with an attention to the institutional logic of digital media innovations. The digital values of openness and rationalization, visible in the adoption and use of metrics and analytics, crowds and engagement, and algorithmic distribution, have disrupted both the practices of journalism and the values guiding journalists’ work. This essay examines those disruptions in practice and values and outlines their consequences: new values and new identities that reconfigure the journalist/audience relationship and expand the complexity of the journalist role. The stakes of the digital disruption are issues of control and transparency in newswork. Overall, this essay claims, digital disruptions in journalism are issues of control and transparency in newswork. Overall, this essay claims, digital disruptions in journalistic values and practice are both discontinuous breaks from the past and evolutions of long-standing tensions in journalism as an institution.https://sociologica.unibo.it/article/view/11177journalisminstitutional logicsdigital technologyprofessional identityinstitutional change
spellingShingle Elizabeth Hansen
Disrupting the News
Sociologica
journalism
institutional logics
digital technology
professional identity
institutional change
title Disrupting the News
title_full Disrupting the News
title_fullStr Disrupting the News
title_full_unstemmed Disrupting the News
title_short Disrupting the News
title_sort disrupting the news
topic journalism
institutional logics
digital technology
professional identity
institutional change
url https://sociologica.unibo.it/article/view/11177
work_keys_str_mv AT elizabethhansen disruptingthenews