How structural multi-platform newsroom features and innovative values alter journalistic cross-channel and cross-sectional working procedures

Abstract

This study explores the influence of multi-platform structural newsroom features and individual innovative values on journalistic cross-channel and cross-sectional working procedures. According to results of an online survey of print and online business journalists associated with multi-platform news outlets in the German-speaking area of Switzerland: (1) multi-platform reporting is strongly connected to innovative values of journalists, and (2) enhances output- and process-related cross-channel – (3) but not cross-sectional – working procedures. A multi-platform strategy is effective in overcoming procedural inertia, which is essential to maximising innovative capacities of a news organisation.

Keywords:

• inertia
• innovation
• media convergence
• business journalism
• newspaper
• online journalism

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Anika Bundi, Funda Güngör, Jannine Kamm, and Finn Sulzer for conducting the fieldwork for this study. The author is grateful to Bartosz Wilczek and an anonymous reviewer for their valuable comments on the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation [IZKOZ1_158219].

Notes on contributors

Juliane A. Lischka

Juliane A. Lischka, Ph.D., is a senior research and teaching assistant at the division of Media Economics & Management, Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, Switzerland.