Hybridity and the news: Blending genres and interaction patterns in new forms of journalism

Abstract

This paper introduces the Special Issue’s central theme of ‘hybridity and the news’, defining the scope and setting the scene for the multiple issues and debates covered by the individual contributions in this collection. Opposing both relativist positions that discard hybridity as an analytically useless concept, and preconceived notions that construe hybridity as intrinsically negative or positive, it is argued to move beyond binary thinking and to approach hybridity as a particularly rich site for the analysis of forms and processes of experimentation, innovation, deviation and transition in contemporary journalism. In order to profoundly understand these developments, which come in many forms, manifest themselves on different levels, and serve multiple purposes, a comprehensive, multi- and interdisciplinary perspective is needed. The Special Issue aims to contribute to this research agenda by looking closely into blending categories and interaction patterns in journalistic forms, genres, and practices, encompassing theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches from various disciplinary backgrounds including political and communication sciences, sociology, linguistics, cultural studies, and history. While taking different angles on the subject and being variously located on the macro and micro levels of analysis, the articles assembled here all engage in a careful assessment of ‘hybridity and the news’ through profound conceptualizations and empirical analyses, connecting with and shedding new light on long-standing debates about the nature and meaning of journalism.

Deciding What’s News: News-ness As an Audience Concept for the Hybrid Media Environment

“…No longer can instances of news and entertainment mixing be dealt with by devaluing stories or sections that focus on entertainment (Barnhurst & Wartella, 1991; Baum, 2003), if they ever were as walled off as these normative perspectives imply (Putnam, 2000). In its place is “an emergent paradigm of hybrid media that blends news and entertainment in unprecedented ways” (Baym, 2010, p. 5), where “traditional journalistic values of impartiality and objectivity, and fixed notions that confine journalism to ‘news’ and ‘information’, have lost much of their credence and authority” (Mast et al, 2017, p. 5).…”

A future of journalism beyond the objectivity–dialogue divide? Hybridity in the news of entrepreneurial journalists

“…Platforms bring forth a diverse set of producers with increasingly pluralised voices (Bødker, 2017;Ottovordemgentschenfelde, 2017). The variation that accompanies hybridity can help journalism adapt to the new platforms and the new practices, values and forms of interaction related to them (Mast et al, 2017).…”

Comunicación pública de la ciencia y ética periodística. La representación del bosón de Higgs

“…Pero los vertiginosos cambios que se están produciendo en la profesión (Mast;Coesemans;Temmerman, 2016), imponen estrategias diferentes que pasan por situar la profesión en el paradigma cultural contemporáneo que, conviene recordar, Bruno Latour definía magistralmente en la letanía que recogíamos al inicio de este trabajo: "Numbers, numbers, numbers…" Si se acaba de confirmar el Higgs hay respuestas para explicar el 5% de la materia del Universo. Para ver como es el 95% restante ya hay nuevos proyectos de colisionador en marcha (Dominguez, 2016b).…”