Stabilizing Movements: How Television Professionals Use Other People's Voices to Cope with New Professional Practices During Times of Change

Abstract

Based on an extensive qualitative study, this article explores how professional workers in an organization, in this case television programme makers at a public broadcaster, cope with the complex changes that occur when their professional practices as well as their organization are in the midst of turbulent times. Departing from a process perspective to organizational change and insights from Bakhtin's notion of ‘double-voicing’, which means that people borrow other people's words in their own talk, two main contributions are offered. First, we show how stability cannot be taken for granted but rather takes continuous work. This work is conceptualized through the notion of ‘stabilizing movements’ in which other people's voices can be used to legitimate one's own practices and thereby create a space for one's own actions. In this way, stabilizing movements can create a feeling of stability, and a sense of a stabilized platform for action. Second, the research shows the need for inquiring into the contextualizing work carried out by professional workers during change. Thus, we find that there is no context ‘out there’ as a given. Rather, this study points at the importance of studying the contextualizing work people continuously do in various ways where different contexts are created and re-worked in the professionals' practices.

Key Words:

• Stabilizing
• forces of stability and change
• contextualizing
• Bakhtin
• double voice
• professional workers
• television
• process

Notes

1 Whereas the names of the television programmes studied are authentic, the names of people interviewed have been changed due to reasons of confidentiality.

2 In fact, Mark Thompson was the Director-General at the BBC at that time.