On this page you can find some of the Author Manuscripts (accepted versions) of articles I have published. For each of these I have included the ‘Version of Record’ (DOI) link, which should be referred to for pagination and publication details in all citations.
2018
- “Thank god for Deadspin”: Interlopers, metajournalistic commentary, and fake news through the lens of “journalistic realization”
Published in the journal New Media & Society [Online-first (11 • 11 • 2018)]. This article is open-access, so the full version is available here. The published version (the Version of Record) is located at: DOI: 10.1177/1461444818809461
Abstract:
Interlopers are a class of digital-peripheral journalists and outlets who position their work as journalism, but who have struggled to be recognized as such. While we have long acknowledged journalism’s place online, as digital-peripheral journalists interlopers face challenges when it comes to appreciating their work as news and their contributions as journalism. This article argues their contributions warrant further evaluation as the journalistic field continues to confront change and engage new approaches to journalism, and as interlopers continue to produce news. Using Deadspin’s coverage of the Sinclair Broadcast Group as an exemplar of such contributions, this article details an approach which accounts for interlopers’ unique approaches to news, locating in broader news discourse measures of “journalistic realization” as a legitimating discourse. Its findings tentatively suggest a weakening of historically hardened boundaries between journalism’s core and its periphery, and argue for continued, nuanced exploration of the nature of the journalistic field.
- Repairing a fractured field: Dynamics of collaboration, normalization, and appropriation at intersections of newswork [PDF]
Published in the journal Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, Volume 7, Issue 3, pp. 541-559. [published 1 • 10 • 2018]. The published version (Version of Record) is located at: DOI: 10.1386/ajms.7.3.541_1
Abstract:
New patterns of journalistic endeavour have altered the ways in which news and information reach the public, with new technologies enabling new types of journalistic actors to produce news both on their own and in collaborative arrangements with traditional journalists. From these intersections, new questions for understanding journalism amid change ask whether we are facing a fractured or more consolidated journalistic field. This article explores intersections of traditional and emergent news actors as disruptions to the dominant vision of the field. It shows the treatment of autonomous work of digital interlopers in news texts as reinforcing prevailing views of journalism by invoking traditional information authority and paradigmatic news-source relationships. Using field theory and analysis of narratives of journalistic roles in news texts to support its thesis, this article looks at reactions to the emergence of two independent news actors – WikiLeaks and ProPublica – representing distinct approaches to newswork born of a digital age. In its conclusion, this article outlines the initial framework for an ‘appropriation thesis’ that extends paradigm repair in instances when new journalistic actors’ newswork is subsumed under traditional routines, thereby muting narratives of a heterogeneous field that would contradict the field’s dominant vision and authority.
- (co-authored with Marcel Broersma) Encountering disruption: Adaptation, resistance and change [PDF]
Published in the journal Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies, Volume 7, Issue 3, pp. 469-479. [published 1 • 10 • 2018]. The published version (Version of Record) is located at: DOI: 10.1386/ajms.7.3.469_1
Introduction:
If you choose to look at news and journalism at any particular moment in time, these always appear to be in a state of transition. Traditional news media have been disrupted by new modes of communication, whether it is the radio, television or the Internet, as new actors have continuously entered the playing field. Ranging from the founding fathers of the Penny Press to the muckrakers and New Journalists, they found unique ways of communicating with audiences that disrupted traditional jour- nalism’s previous hold on this public conversation. However, while disruption is thus by no means a new phenomenon and every generation might experience its era as one of massive change, the term seems to have gained increased prominence in journalism and journalism studies.
- (co-authored with Henrik Bødker) Negotiating Uncertain Claims: Journalism as an inferential community [PDF]
Published in the journal Journalism Studies, Volume 19, Issue 13, pp. 1912-1922. This article is open-access, so the full version is available here. The published version (the Version of Record) is located at: DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2018.1494514
Abstract:
Recent developments in the relations between politicians and journalists in the US have (among other things) created a situation where journalists often have to deal with information that is very difficult, even impossible, to verify, yet which has potential societal significance that cannot be ignored. This has, we argue, affected how journalists and journalistic outlets relate to each other within what we tentatively term an inferential community. To argue this, we analyze journalistic demonstrations of authority in attempts to establish and connect “facts” related to uncertain claims in two cases of the coverage of the nascent Trump administration. This is, however, not a fully elaborated case study through which we can conclude something broader about contemporary journalism. The paper should rather be seen as a preliminary empirical probe allowing us to focus on a specific issue while proposing a tentative conceptual and analytical frame through which this may be studied in a more sustained and detailed way.
2017
- Hero or Anti-hero?: Narratives of newswork and journalistic identity construction in complex digital megastories
Published in the journal Digital Journalism [Online-first (29 • 03 • 2016)]. The published version (the Version of Record) is located at: DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2016.1162105. Note: This article is now Open Access’, so you can read the full version at this link.
Abstract:
Exploring constructions of journalistic identity in a digital age has been a lively area of scholarship as the field of digital journalism studies has grown. Yet despite many approaches to understanding digital change, key avenues for understanding changing constructions of identity remain underexplored. This paper addresses a conceptual void in research literature by employing semiotic and semantic approaches to analyse performances of journalistic identity in narratives of newswork facilitated by and focused on digital megaleaks. It seeks to aid understanding of the way narratives describe changing practices of newsgathering, and how journalists position themselves within these hybrid traditional/digital stories. Findings show news narratives reinforce the primacy of journalists within traditional boundaries of a journalistic field, and articulate a preferred imagination of journalistic identity. Methodologically, this paper shows how semantic and semiotic approaches lend themselves to studying narratives of newswork within journalistic metadiscourses to understand journalistic identity at the nexus of traditional and digital dynamics. The resultant portrait of journalistic identity channels a socio-historic, romantic notion of the journalist as “the shadowy figure always to be found on the edges of the century’s great events”, updated to accommodate modern, digital dynamics.
Dr Scott A. Eldridge II 