Remodeling the Hierarchy: An Organization-Centric Model of Influence for Media Sociology Research

ABSTRACT

Primarily due to an influx of market models, the journalism industry recently experienced a fragmentation of professional culture and, therefore, professionalism. This theoretical essay proposes a new focus for understanding influence on journalistic practice. Studying influence in the twenty-first century requires a model that does not include a hierarchy and therefore does not implicitly validate a universal journalism culture. The theoretical article first explains the hierarchy of influences model, argues for its alteration, and then resituates that model’s levels of analysis into a new model that more appropriately accounts for the growing agency of individual organizations. Finally, the paper envisions avenues for future research utilizing the new model.

KEYWORDS:

• Media sociology
• journalism studies
• hierarchy of influences
• organizational culture
• influence
• theoretical essay

Acknowledgements

The authors would like thank Michigan State University Professor Emeritus Steve Lacy for his generous and insightful feedback on an early version of this manuscript. The authors would also like to thank University of Colorado-Boulder Assistant Professor Erin Schauster for her muchneeded help visually designing the new model introduced in this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).