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Abstract
The title of this article is a pun referencing Howard Becker’s classic 1967 essay “Whose side are we are on?” – a call to sociologists to question their allegiances and acknowledge their involvement in bolstering the institutional processes they research. By bringing existing perspectives from within digital journalism studies into conversation with Becker’s central argument, this article aims to identify tools both inside and outside of the field that encourage greater engagement and conceptual refinement with what is labeled here as a “politics of digital journalism studies.” Two such analytical tools that encourage a politics of digital journalism studies are the accentuation of complexity within media systems and a recognition of the positionality of research. After engaging with barriers to a politics of digital journalism studies, two broad pathways are suggested around digital journalism studies as a space of critique and a space of possibilities. Our impact as scholars may be limited, as some scholars have argued, but the conclusion warns of our irrelevance as a field if we ignore our potential to contribute to the broader meaning making taking place around the topics we study.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).