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By analyzing the daily work of online journalists, this book investigates the production of online news: how it differs from traditional media production, and its consequences for the character and quality of online news. It advocates revitalization of the ethnographic methodologies of sociologists who entered newsrooms in the 1970s and 1980s, while simultaneously exploring new theoretical frameworks to better understand the evolution of online journalism and how newsrooms deal with innovation and change. This collection fills a gap in the field by offering ethnographic descriptions from sites of online news production in many countries, and provides insider perspectives on the real practices and values of new media production, documenting how these often differ from the claims of both producers and theorists.
List of contents
Contents: Nora Paul: Foreword - Chris Paterson: Introduction: Why Ethnography? - David Domingo: Inventing Online Journalism: A Constructivist Approach to the Development of Online News - Roel Puijk: Ethnographic Media Production Research in a Digital Environment - Anthony Cawley: News Production in an Irish Online Newsroom: Practice, Process, and Culture - Edgardo Pablo García: Print and Online Newsrooms in Argentinean Media: Autonomy and Professional Identity - Thorsten Quandt: News Tuning and Content Management: An Observation Study of Old and New Routines in German Online Newsrooms - Jody Brannon: Maximize the Medium: Assessing Obstacles to Performing Multimedia Journalism in Three U.S. Newsrooms - David Domingo: When Immediacy Rules: Online Journalism Models in Four Catalan Online Newsrooms - Johan Lagerkvist: Online Journalism in China: Constrained by Politics, Spirited by Public Nationalism - Vinciane Colson/François Heinderyckx: Do Online Journalists Belong in the Newsroom? A Belgian Case of Convergence - Jane B. Singer: Ethnography of Newsroom Convergence - Axel Bruns: The Active Audience: Transforming Journalism from Gatekeeping to Gatewatching - Wilson Lowrey/John Latta: The Routines of Blogging - Mark Deuze: Epilogue: Toward a Sociology of Online News.
About the author
The Editors: Chris Paterson (c.paterson@leeds.ac.uk) is a Senior Lecturer with the Institute for Communication Studies at the University of Leeds (UK). In 2004 he coedited International News in the 21st Century. Paterson is an adviser to Newsdesk.org, and is co-founder of the Working Group on Media Production Analysis of the IAMCR.
David Domingo (david@dutopia.net) is Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa (USA) and Assistant Professor in the Communication Department at Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona (Catalonia, Spain). His research focuses on the development of online journalists working routines and values, and their adoption of convergence and audience participation. He was president of the Catalan Online Journalism association (www.gpd.cat) from 2004 to 2006. His blog is www.dutopia.net.
Report
«Offering a fascinating wealth of rich observation and careful analysis of the rapid changes in news production and distribution, 'Making Online News' is to be welcomed as an addition to media sociology, journalism studies, and political communication. It is methodologically innovative in its emphasis on newsroom ethnography, critically insightful in challenging popular assumptions about the impact of new technologies and - most welcome - internationally inclusive in its scope.» (Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology, Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics, and President, International Communication Association (2007-2008))
«'Making Online News' is a welcome, timely, and useful addition to the research on newsmaking and the production of media content in this new digital environment of the twenty-first century. It features chapters from a wide range of countries and scholars, including some well-known veterans...and it clearly illustrates the benefits of observational research in studying journalists in their natural habitat of the newsroom. [This] concise and readable volume...nicely fills a distinct gap in our knowledge of the daily work routines and values of online journalists.» (David H. Weaver, Roy W. Howard Research Professor, School of Journalism, Indiana University)
