The New Geography of Journalism Research

Abstract

In this essay, I consider the challenges of doing research in a shifting domain, where technology has made the concept of journalism itself problematic. For many years, I have used (in my own work with Shoemaker on media sociology) a levels-of-analysis hierarchy of influences perspective to sort out the factors impinging on the symbolic reality produced by journalism, but a “spatial turn” has made concepts of fields, spheres, and networks much more relevant. Understanding these spaces requires thinking in less media-centric terms as we identify the newly coupled assemblages put together in producing digital journalism, beyond its traditional institutional containers. These include algorithmically restructured atomic units of news in content and different configurations of global journalism. A new wave of ethnographies has begun to tackle these challenges, using the kind of thick description that characterized the field in the pre-digital era.

Keywords:

• assemblage
• ethnography
• global journalism
• levels-of-analysis
• hierarchy of influences
• media sociology

Notes

1. A related but more professionally oriented conference pulls some overlap of scholars, hosted annually at the University of Texas by my School of Journalism colleague, Rosental Alves: the International Symposium for Online Journalism. I have been privileged to work with many outstanding doctoral students at Texas, but in this area of research I would particularly acknowledge Seth Lewis (now at Minnesota) and Mark Coddington (Washington & Lee) for helping keep me current with emerging issues of digital journalism. In their publications they also have contributed to the Texas–Cardiff connection.

2. I was on the dissertation committee for this research with a particularly global amalgamation of Malaysian student, working with a German adviser (Ingrid Volkmer), at an Australian university (Melbourne), including UK (Brian McNair) and American (me) committee members.