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A conceptual and theoretical framework is needed for the literature on newswork and to do this the relationship between skill and control which has been raised as an issue in the Marxist theory of industrial organization needs to be examined. A theoretical reinterpretation might help to understand how the notion of skill on the individual, technical, and subjective levels is related to the broader issues, such as the control of the labor process and the reproduction of social relations. The labor process perspective provides a theoretical connection between the microscopic level of individual workers, such as subjectivity and skill, and the more macroscopic level of social relations. Using a synthesis of Harry Braverman's notion of the labor process and concept of skill and Michael Burowoy's notions of game and subjectivity is illuminating for several aspects of newswork, i.e.: (1) the social world which a newsworker encounters is not a transparently visible field of capital-labor antagonism, but an "imaginary" world where diverse ideological mechanisms, such as the ideology of "making out," or doing a "good job," matter; and (2) the labor process is reproduced through the operation of the job "skill." The philosophical and ethical debates concerning media practices can be informed by this conceptualization of newswork and how it is done. (Thirty-seven references are appended.) (MS)

The failure to indigenize imported social theories in Korea affords precious theoretical insights for the future of critical communication studies. Since Korean society has evolved out of a mixture of the pre-modern, postcolonial, modern and postmodern elements, attempts to rigidly graft modern and postmodern theories onto Korean society have ensured that both theories remain unfinished projects in Korea. This paper argues that contributions from both camps are still feasible and imperative modes of indigenizing social inquiry in Korea. Theorizing the social still requires comprehensive structural analyses and constructive ideals of progress, as well as insights into subject formation that grant social agency to individuals. As the Korean example illustrates well, critical communication studies must transcend the false dichotomies of modern vs. postmodern to answer specific concerns and problems facing a given society today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to re-examine the main ideas of traditional diffusion study in the context of the Internet. Two news stories, one initiated by an established news organization and one by an individual Internet user, were selected for our analysis of how a news story spreads through various media organizations and individuals on the Internet, and also how the original stories undergo transformation in terms of content and form over time in the process. Based on a critique of previous diffusion studies, the authors propose a notion of seed news for adequately grasping the emerging diffusion phenomenon on the Internet. This alternative concept of news may subsume the manifold and dynamic process of diffusion, addition, displacement, evolution, and decline of the news story. It also comes to terms with the multifarious dimensions of transmission and the active interplay between the media and users, or among the users themselves. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]