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The article describes the discursive evolution of digital journalism in Italy since 2008 by drawing on a database consisting of extracts taken from 227 semi-structured interviews with Italian journalists over 15 years (from 2008 to 2021). The study identifies three fundamental phases in the development of Italian digital journalism: the birth of the first online newsrooms; the spread of social media; and the data/platform turn. The article applies a new institutionalism discursive approach to investigate the impact of macro-level forces on micro-level journalists' accounts. For this purpose, it considers excerpts from interviews in which journalists talk about change and professional jurisdiction. The following three main results emerge. 1. Political parallelism and resistance to technology have ceased to be the most prevalent features of Italian journalism; 2. In the first two periods identified, the clash of discourses is more oriented to identifying practices that may be identified as 'journalism' (e.g. the newcomer is a journalist who does the job differently). (C) Much of what is regarded as an uncertainty has been incorporated over time and no longer appears to be a threat, but awareness of the power of online platforms is growing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crisis, journalism's own history needs to be reflected upon, both from within and from outside the newsroom. This paper attempts both. From a scientific perspective, we examined the process of the digitalization of journalism and then asked journalists from different generations to reflect on this process. Based on data gathered from these semi-structured interviews with German journalists, our paper presents their evaluation on the evolution from analog to digital journalism—from retired male reporters who wrote most of their articles on typewriters to young female data journalists. The interviews with journalists—including local newspaper reporters, public broadcasting services and news magazines' editors, freelancers and former German Democratic Republic (GDR) journalists—are part of a larger funded research project on German journalism. Their analysis reveals a common problematization of the growing pace of news production and the hybridization of media formats. The qualitative data confirm data from quantitative surveys on journalism and can help international journalism research to get an in-depth understanding on how journalists perceive the changes over the last decades in their trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative online political media (AOPM) have become increasingly prominent elements of the media system in many countries. In response, numerous academic studies have examined the nature of these newer forms of alternative media. In line with this recent scholarship, in this study we carry out a longitudinal and systematic content analysis of nine AOPM websites in the United Kingdom (UK) (N = 3452) between 2015 and 2018. Overall, we found a diversity of content, contrasting values and degrees of partisanship, which we develop into a typology of outlets. This includes four overlapping areas: electoral hyperpartisans, cultural partisans, political cycle specialists and vernacular macro-blogs. We conclude by recommending that scholars need to develop more detailed content analyses in order to better understand online alternative media, their interactions with the wider media system, and the system itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers and practitioners increasingly believe that journalism must improve its relationship with audiences to increase the likelihood that people will consume and support news. In this paper, we argue that this assumption overlooks the importance of structural- and individual-level factors in shaping news audience behavior. Drawing on Giddens' theory of structuration, we suggest that, when it comes to the amount of time that people devote to news, consumers' choices are guided more by life circumstances than by news preferences. To illustrate this point, we draw on a combination of interview and audience analytics data collected when so many people's life circumstances changed: the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that people consumed more news during the early months of the pandemic than normal because (1) they had more time on their hands due to things like shelter-in-place orders, layoffs, and shifts to working from home and (2) they were more interested in understanding the coronavirus' spread and risks as well as the preventative measures being pursued. We conclude that journalists should embrace "journalistic humility," thereby acknowledging and accepting that they have much less control over the reception of their work than they would like to believe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journalism of the 21st Century has gone through a serious transformation consistent with the digital ecosystem. With the aim of shedding some light onto the current journalistic panorama, this article tackles questions relating to digital slow journalism in Spanish, mainly centred on the need of these media to reinvent itself and look for new formulas such as innovation and content quality. Our research is based on an international study – Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Spain – using a triangulation and mixed method with exploratory, descriptive and quantitative techniques: consultation of documentary sources, case studies, in-depth interviews, Delphi study (two rounds with 29 international experts) and surveys (a total of 2000 surveys, 500 surveys per country). These techniques were applied to 10 representative digital Media entities within the slow journalism context in four Ibero-American countries: Revista Anfibia (Argentina), La silla vacía (Colombia), Revista Arcadia (Colombia), Jot Down (Spain), Revista 5W (Spain), CTXT (Spain), Yorokobu (Spain), Panenka (Spain), Letras Libres (Mexico), Gatopardo (Mexico). This essay reflects on the content and elaboration of these publications, journalistic genres, the professionals who work on them and the future challenges facing these projects. The reader profiles of these outlets, their knowledge of slow journalism and their consumer habits are also explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the roles of the hierarchy of influences and the imagined audience on reporting. This article uses five interviews with foreign journalists to examine how both the hierarchy of influences and the imagined audience affect foreign journalists' reportage of Turkey. Both freelance workers and fulltime employees of newspapers were interviewed to gather data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subscription fees are an increasingly prominent revenue source for news organizations, challenging advertising as the primary business model for news. But when most online news remains available for free, how do publishers convince readers to pay? We examined how the 55 most-read US newspapers frame their value proposition when they ask readers to subscribe. Using the Meyer-Allen organizational commitment framework, we analyzed the informational, social, and normative elements mentioned in 'subscribe now' webpages. Every subscription offer referred to the informational value in a regular relationship with the newspaper, yet 62 percent also mentioned affective and community-based benefits in subscription, and 33 percent evoked normative and value-based benefits. Our data show that newspaper subscriptions are often promoted as a relationship with social and normative dimensions, rather than merely an information-based transaction – with some differences in the language used by newspapers of different sizes, ownership types, US regions, and local political orientations ('red'/'blue' state). This work demonstrates the merit in analyzing promotional materials produced by news organizations to better understand both their strategies and their relationships with the communities they serve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media editors were initially appointed by media organizations which aimed to extend their reach and to establish their presence in social media. These editors were hired to create content on behalf of mass media organizations, but with social media in mind. As such, they need constantly to reconcile mass media logic and social media logic. Relying on the frameworks of 'social media logic' and 'network media logic', this study focuses on the role of social media editors as the arena in which both logics fuse to create a hybrid media system. Twenty in-depth interviews with social media editors, representing a large proportion of the Israeli media, were carried out. Our findings underscore how editors' every day routines are a result of negotiation between logics, creating hybrid media organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have questioned the extent to which journalism's public-service values can be reconciled with the financial responsibilities of running an online, entrepreneurial news site. This study explores that debate using content analysis and secondary survey data to examine the links between financial sustainability, technological innovation, and community-centric content at online local news sites in the United States. Results suggest that ownership, revenue, financing mechanisms, and mission relate to the extent to which online, local news sites fulfill the civic engagement criterion of community news. High-revenue and advertising-supported sites published less public-spirited content than lower-earning sites with alternative funding mechanisms. Non-profit and foundation/university/grant-financed sites incorporated more interactive features than the other sites. Ultimately, this study suggests that the sustainability of online community news sites, in terms of finances and community engagement mission, seems to be tied to new, alternative ways of thinking about funding and ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the emerging genre of 'social news' – characterised by a 'born-digital' form of journalism which is both symptomatic of and a pragmatic response to the logics of social media. The article outlines the genre's key formal characteristics, illustrating them through discussions of three key Australia-based publications – BuzzFeed Oz News, Junkee, and Pedestrian.tv. The analysis of these examples indicates that social news departs from traditional journalistic norms around objectivity, instead exhibiting a strong and explicit positionality, and actively critiquing ideas like 'balance'. The article argues that social news demonstrates the progressive potential of new forms of journalism that have emerged from the same technological and economic developments that have caused the crisis in the news business. It concludes with a more elaborated description of the social news genre, with suggestions for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

News decisions of social media editors shape the news supply on social media channels such as Facebook. This study assesses based on qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey of social media editors in two social-media-savvy European countries, Finland and Switzerland, how Facebook's News Feed algorithm, Facebook users, journalistic standards, and the news brand determine social media news making. Results show that social media editors evaluate the news factors emotions and surprise as more important for Facebook news than for online news. Social media editors accentuate emotional and surprising story elements in a post to comply with user preferences and the logic of the News Feed algorithm. Thus, news values and news editing have become more user engagement driven. Yet traditional journalistic standards and the news brand characteristics set boundaries to a heavy user engagement orientation. Social media editors estimate that their outlet's news supply on Facebook is higher for entertaining news and lower for foreign politics and economic news stories. But they strive for a 'good mix' of news adhering to both the Facebook logic and professional journalistic standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between online commenters and journalists has been challenged as frustrated journalists pull back on commenting and introduce rules to make it more difficult to participate. As new rules and policies emerge, journalists engage in a public campaign to change how commenting and journalism are perceived. This study seeks to understand how journalists attempt to frame commenting and its role alongside journalism. Boundary work was used to consider how journalists use public statements about commenting to establish appropriate roles for both the journalist and the commenter. But these statements also represent philosophies about strategies, policies, and practices related to commenting. Journalists take three philosophical approaches to online comments based on whether they willingly welcome commenters, see the commenter as a threat, but recognize their role, or take action to keep the audience at a distance. Along with these three roles, strategies and professional responses to commenting are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Press credentialing practices are a vital, yet understudied site of scholarly research on journalistic norms and practices. Press credentialing not only structures internal professional hierarchies, but they also signify the boundaries of the journalistic field itself. This paper explores the legal and theoretical implications of press credentialing to cover the United States Congress, drawing on the concepts of boundary work and journalistic authority to demonstrate the material impact of the space between fields on professional legitimation in journalism. Using WorldNetDaily (WND) as a case study, I argue that the Standing Committee of Correspondents (SCC) occupies a hybrid boundary zone between the journalistic and political fields, generating a unique tension in First Amendment jurisprudence that places journalists in a paradoxical role as both the professional embodiments of free speech and its constitutional steward. The resulting jurisdictional conflict between the SCC and WND extends the relational model of journalistic authority by articulating how journalist-state relations can fundamentally augment the process of legitimation at its fuzzy boundaries. The relevance and implications for press credentialing practices in the digital age are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study relies on 22 expert interviews and a survey among 40 financial journalists in the United States to reassess the role of financial journalists for financial markets in today's high-frequency information and news era. Findings point to a discrepancy between the ideal active watchdog role journalists picture for themselves and their actual role enactment. Furthermore, the process of constructing and distributing financial news has been found to be self-referential within the financial system, leaving little room for alternative voices. In this sense, the influence of regular financial reporting in driving stock market prices has been found to be limited but contingent on various factors such as unexpected news, repeatedly negative reporting, or news about a merger. Eventually, facing the proliferation of online news, journalists have raised a general concern regarding the loss of journalistic values, but they also see potentials for their discipline in light of automated reporting and online news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]