Change in Journalism
Journalism, industrial relations, technology and the workplace: Analyzing change
Introduction At present, new technologies are always regarded as the key driving force behind the change of both organization and practices of news production. But is it true that all changes are technologically determined? As far as I am concerned, technology is actually reshaped in correspondence with the already existing values, inclusive of cultural, social and economic. Thus, journalistic changes are supposed to be put into its historical institutional context for analysis. Journalism-as-Labor and Multimedia News Production From the perspective of history, journalism was view as a profession of both news gathering and presentation of said information. Hence, labor may be a more suitable and available term for analyzing journalistic work. In the early history of press, news gathering and disseminating was still connected with printing. However, with the gradual division of conception and execution of journalistic labor, the actual news ① gathering and presentation is distinct from printing little by little. The market demands and technological improvement in distribution fulfilled the industrial transformation from printshop to conglomerate. Moreover, demands on technological development of journalistic work also commercialized gathered news, resulting in the separation between news gathering and presentation. The corporate change at the BBC in the 1990s exemplify the huge impact of multimedia technology on both journalistic practices and news output. The digital technology not only reshaped the way of program making and encouraged staff to explore brand-new directions in program making, but saved spare administration during the business processes through machine control. However, journalists can’t help complaining about pressurized workload, less control over the news process and deskilling of news-gathering and collating. Being bound to their computers and tasked with
Introduction At present, new technologies are always regarded as the key driving force behind the change of both organization and practices of news production. But is it true that all changes are technologically determined? As far as I am concerned, technology is actually reshaped in correspondence with the already existing values, inclusive of cultural, social and economic. Thus, journalistic changes are supposed to be put into its historical institutional context for analysis. Journalism-as-Labor and Multimedia News Production From the perspective of history, journalism was view as a profession of both news gathering and presentation of said information. Hence, labor may be a more suitable and available term for analyzing journalistic work. In the early history of press, news gathering and disseminating was still connected with printing. However, with the gradual division of conception and execution of journalistic labor, the actual news ① gathering and presentation is distinct from printing little by little. The market demands and technological improvement in distribution fulfilled the industrial transformation from printshop to conglomerate. Moreover, demands on technological development of journalistic work also commercialized gathered news, resulting in the separation between news gathering and presentation. The corporate change at the BBC in the 1990s exemplify the huge impact of multimedia technology on both journalistic practices and news output. The digital technology not only reshaped the way of program making and encouraged staff to explore brand-new directions in program making, but saved spare administration during the business processes through machine control. However, journalists can’t help complaining about pressurized workload, less control over the news process and deskilling of news-gathering and collating. Being bound to their computers and tasked with
References: [1] Marjoribanks, Tim (2000) ‘The ‘Anti-Wapping’? Technological innovation and workplace re-organisation at the Financial Times’, Media, Culture and Society 22(5): 575-93 [2] Ornebring, H. (2010) ‘Technology and journalism-as-labour: Historical perspectives’ Journalism 11(1): 57-74 [3] Cottle, S. (2003) ‘Multimedia News Production: A Creature of Our Own Making’ Unpublished Manuscript 4