Online journalism, especially in the form of convergence, creates many tensions for practitioners. There is a wariness of the new medium. This wariness possibly stems from loss of control over the message and unfamiliar technology. In my experience at various broadcast stations, the website is usually an added duty for journalists. There are not any dedicated staff for the website, at least in the beginning. Usually the only staff dedicated to the website would be a web editor or producer. The website is just an extra duty for everyone else. To me this discourages experimentation on the web. The goal of the journalist is merely to “dump” their story onto the website and get on with the rest of their duties. However, experimentation is a crucial component for creating innovative online content (Steensen, 2009). Time to experiment is crucial if the media organization wants the audience to feel like there is valuable content on the website. Raw video, external links, and interview transcripts take time that is not afforded to the modern day converged journalist. Steensen (2009) goes on further to say that autonomy is crucial to the development of online journalism. This is severely lacking in the newsrooms I have encountered. The broadcast minded mentality is overwhelming and the website is seen as an inferior product. This is despite all of the lip-service that management and corporate give to the website. Those in control are unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to make the new product succeed.
Newsroom cultures are the lifeblood of a successful newsroom. That culture can also kill innovation, especially in attempts to converge broadcast, print, and online journalism (Filak, 2009). In my experience, there is a certain superiority complex in the minds of television journalists. According to Filak (2009), the same intergroup bias occurs in print newsrooms. The question to answer is how do you get these staffs to work together? It depends on the end result you desire. If the goal is separate set of converged journalists then the decategorized contact model (DCM) is the best approach. In this model the journalists end up on the same playing field and all contribute to the final product. The other option is to have a newsroom where specialization is preferred. In this case the mutual intergroup differentiation model (MIDM) is best. The MIDM involves highlighting everyone’s differences and making them a useful part of the product (Filak, 2009). Differences and turned into strengths. There is a chance that the MIDM would be very efficient because it allows workers to specialize much like previous journalism models.
Another journalism or newsroom cultural barrier to overcome is the acceptance that news is becoming a conversation (Briggs, 2010). This is another topic that gets a lot of lip-service in newsrooms. Unfortunately, the lip-service doesn’t necessarily translate into action. One website that is flourishing on this model of community commentary is Fark.com. Fark.com is solely devoted to unfettered conversation and flame-wars. Fark.com basically began because most news websites lacked a commenting function or there was too much censorship of the comments. What could have been a great audience driver for many websites was basically taken away.
References
Briggs, M. (2010). JournalismNext. Washington: CQPress.
Filak, V. F. (2009). Culture, conflict, and convergence: A theoretical discussion of group-based identity and bias reduction in a converged newsroom. In A. E. Grant & J. Wilkinson (Eds.), Understanding media convergence : the state of the field (pp. 117-134). New York: Oxford University Press.
Steensen, S. (2009). What’s stopping them? Towards a grounded theory of innovation in online journalism. Journalism Studies, 10(6), 821-836. doi: 10.1080/14616700902975087
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It is unfortunate in many newsrooms that the web is seen as a nuisance. In a technologically driven age, it is becoming more and more important for journalists to share not only breaking news, but all news on the web. When the web is such a vital tool, why do yo think most news rooms treat it as the red-headed stepchild?
‘The question to answer is how do you get these staffs to work together?’
Could the presence and attitude of a leader to manage and organize efforts within an organization also help, and possibly be a vital part in getting staff members to work together?
I often find myself agreeing with the saying ‘membership reflects leadership.’ From personal experience, I have found that if there is incompetent management, the organization as a whole suffers. What I liked most about the Steensen article is that it explains while there is a need to have writers working in an autonomous environment, having a leader helps to rally everyone together and resist the urge to form cliques or informal hierarchies to form. Its difficult to get get those working individually to contribute to the greater cause without having some motivator/mediator to handle dynamics within an organization.
BTW I posted a few videos and articles to my blog a few days ago for the project if you want to check them out before Wednesday.
Well, Derik, broadcast journalists may have a superiority complex, but it’s PRINT journalists who ARE superior! Just ask one.
Your remarks about how media managements say their websites are important but don’t act like they are is so true. Updating and maintaining the website is just more work. And where’s the payoff? I don’t think that’s clear yet. But with media companies having less and less money to spend all the time, it’s hard to see how they are going to dedicate funds to the website when their core business is suffering.
Your comments about news as a conversation got my attention. I hadn’t thought about it exactly that way. Again, people SAY they want feedback from their readers/listeners/viewers, but much of the time they really don’t, possibly because they fear it will be mostly negative.
Everything in the news business seems so ephemeral at the moment. The media are all tiptoeing through quicksand, hoping to find solid ground before they get sucked under, never to be seen again. But the morass stretches for miles, and solid ground is elusive.
I think that the loss of control definitely plays a major role in how one chooses to adapt to convergence. When something has been handled a certain way for so long, and power has been in the hands of a certain group for so long, the changing of such is sure to face opposition.