A Contemporary History of Digital Journalism

Abstract

This article documents the history of online journalism, charting its rise with the internet boom of the mid-1990s and its subsequent decline and stabilization within the present news media market. This history is situated within the larger trajectories of contemporary journalism, paying particular attention to changes in the existing political economic structure of the industry as it assumes digital form, the resultant variations in content and presentation, and the implications for the health of the free press. In the final analysis, this article argues that the move to an online format has exacerbated negative trends that have dogged print journalism for decades. It also extends an existing critique of hyper-commercial journalism by developing the arguments to treat the new institutions and conventions of the digital marketplace.

What's Stopping Them?

“…From a methodological perspective, this would imply utilization of ethnographic approaches that entail close observations of workplaces and the actions of individuals involved in processes of innovation. This corresponds well with the call for ethnographic approaches to the institutional production of online journalism that has come from several researchers in recent years (Boczkowski 2004, Brannon 1999, Cottle 2007, Domingo 2006, Fortunati et al 2005, Paterson 2008, Scott 2005. This call comes as both a response to the neglect of ethnographic research in newsrooms at large since the pioneers of this methodology (Gans 1979, Tuchman 1978 dominated journalism studies in the 1970s and as recognition of the limitations of other methodological approaches as these have failed to provide an accurate insight into why online journalism evolves as it does.…”

Perfiles profesionales en las agencias de noticias. Estudio comparativo de <i>ACN, EFE</i> y <i>Europa Press</i>

“…La cuestión esencial, sin embargo, no consiste en que el redactor asimile más funciones, algo que históricamente se ha dado en la prensa comarcal Micó-Sanz, 2009b), sino en pedirle a un solo profesional que sea capaz de simultanearlas. Si esto sucede, la sobrecarga de trabajo (Fortunati et al, 2009) puede obstruir su capacidad de análisis (Manning, 2011;Martín-Bernal, 2012), obligarle a ceder terreno ante la inmediatez e incrementar su nivel de estrés (Saltzis, 2007) y, en definitiva, colapsar su capacidad para informar adecuadamente (Scott, 2005;Scolari et al, 2007;Aragonés-Vidal, 2011). Los efectos secundarios se agudizan cuando entra en juego el formato de vídeo, que descompensa apuestas multidisciplinares que descansan sobre un solo informador (Hammersley, 2008).…”

Digital Witnessing in War Journalism: The Case of Post-Arab Spring Conflicts

“…Instead, it links citizen testimony with the expansion of corporate media and their need to re-legitimize journalism in the face of a declining consumption of news (Scott, 2005). The rise of citizen voice constitutes, in this context, a "demotic," rather than a "democratic," turn in that, by trading professional validity for personal authenticity, prioritises the immediacy of experience over fact-checking and expert analysis (Turner, 2010).…”