Disruption And Digital Journalism

This book offers a timely insight into how the news media have adapted to the digital transformation of public communication infrastructure. Providing a conceptual roadmap to understanding the disruptive, innovative impact of digital networked journalism in the 21st century, the author critically examines how and to what extent news media around the world have engaged in digital adaptation. Making use of data from news media content production and distribution both off- and online, as well as user and financial data from the U.S. and internationally, the book traces how the news media embraced and reacted to key developments such as the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 and the launch of Google in 1998, Facebook in 2004, and the Apple iPhone in 2009. The author also highlights innovative organizations that have sought to reimagine news media that are optimized for digital, online, and mobile media of the 21st century, demonstrating how these groups have been able to stay better engaged with the public. Disruption and Digital Journalism is recommended reading for all academics and scholars with an interest in media, digital journalism studies, and technological innovation.

This book provides a critical account of the impact of Twitter on journalism, exploring how the news media has adapted to and normalised the use of the platform in the industry. Offering a comprehensive understanding of Twitter uses for journalistic purposes, this book explores the platform’s use as a ‘global village’, as an ambient news environment, and as a global marketplace. Drawing on two empirical case studies (United Kingdom and Greece), Dagoula examines academic conceptualisations of Twitter, journalists’ self-perceptions, and uses of the platform by a variety of media outlets and journalists. Adopting an evolutionary approach known as punctuated equilibrium, which consists of three stages of disruption, adaption, and normalisation, the author reveals the costs and benefits of Twitter’s impact on both the institutional values and practices of news journalism today. News Journalism and Twitter is an invaluable resource for researchers and students of digital journalism and media studies.

At a time when digital technologies are impacting on the success and sustainability of traditional models of journalism, hyperlocal journalism seeks to restore journalistic integrity, build community, incite change and engage audiences. This book argues for the increased importance of these new forms of localized reporting in the digital age. Hyperlocal Journalism and Digital Disruptions begins with the fundamental question of what hyperlocal journalism is, then focuses on three case studies which illustrate its potential to thrive when the right balance is struck between audience engagement, investment and respect. Each case study examines a different start-up in Australia and New Zealand. Although the notion of hyperlocal journalism is not new, the ways in which these regionalized stories are now being told has evolved. This book demonstrates the increased necessity for tailored approaches to creating and providing hyperlocal journalism in order to engage targeted audiences, meet their needs for news and reclaim authenticity and credibility for journalism. This is a valuable resource for researchers, academics, students and practitioners in the areas of Digital Journalism and Media Studies generally.

Social Media Livestreaming: Design for Disruption? addresses a host of emerging issues concerning social media livestreaming, exploring this technology as a disruption and its potential to shape journalism practice and influence society. Live visual images increasingly inundate our digital screens. While once restricted to broadcast news organizations, "going live" is becoming ubiquitous, fueled by smartphones and social networks. As livestreams and eyewitness video permeate our social media feeds, a wide range of possibilities for journalism and society are unfolding. Using international case studies, interviews with journalists, and survey research with citizens, this book explores major themes including livestreaming’s implications for journalism practice and news content production; citizen activism and participation in democracy; ethical, legal, safety and privacy considerations; and the role of livestreaming in shaping public perception. Social Media Livestreaming: Design for Disruption? is ideal for multiple audiences, from academic researchers to professional journalists and social media practitioners as well as policy-makers and organizations.

This book is an authoritative discussion of user comments and moderation in digital journalism, examining how user comments have disrupted the field of journalism and how a growing number of news organizations have abandoned commenting features altogether. Making a broad argument concerning user commentary as a manifestation of user engagement and public deliberation, User Comments and Moderation in Digital Journalism: Disruptive Engagement conceptualizes the act of commenting as interactive engagement and participation in a virtual public sphere. The book also explores the organizational policies that have the potential to disrupt – as well as improve – the quality of user discussions. Ultimately, strategies are proposed for managing and improving user comments and encouraging more productive public deliberation in digital journalism. This engaging discussion of a key development in digital journalism is a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the areas of journalism, media and communication studies.

Newsrooms and the Disruption of the Internet is an insightful account of what happened when the internet first arrived in the 1990s and early 2000s in the recently computerized, but still largely unchanged, newspaper industry. Providing a focused narrative of how the internet disrupted news collection, editing, presentation and dissemination, the book examines the role of the internet from helpful adjunct to extension to, eventually, successor to the traditional print product. Experiments by large national newspaper “brands” and other first-adopters in the 1990s are described, tracing the slow adoption of the internet by chains and large metro papers, followed by the smaller daily and weekly newspapers by the early 2000s. The book describes the changes that arrived as more “Web 2.0” technologies become prevalent and as social media shifted the news-media landscape in the mid-to-late 2000s, ultimately changing how most people in the West consumed and thought of “the news.” This book is intended for academics and researchers in the fields of journalism studies, history of technology, and media studies, especially those interested in transitions from analog to digital technology, and the initial adoption of the commercial internet.

This edited collection brings together journalism scholars from mainland China, Hong Kong, the UK and Australia to address a variety of pressing issues and challenges facing digital journalism in China today. While China shares certain affinities with the digital disruption of media in other settings, its experience and articulation of change is ultimately unique. This volume explores the implications of digital media technologies for journalists’ professional practice, news users’ consumption and engagement with news, as well as the shifting institutional, organizational and financial structures of news media. Drawing on case studies and quantitative and qualitative approaches, contributors address questions concerning: whether China is witnessing ‘disruptive’ or ‘sustainable’ journalism; if, and in what ways, digital technologies may disrupt journalism; and whether Chinese digital journalism converges with or diverges from Western experiences of digital journalism. Digital Journalism in China is an important addition to the literature on digital journalism, comparative media analysis, the Chinese Communist Party’s social media strategies, tabloidization trends, and the conflict between newsroom and classroom in journalism education, and will be of interest to advanced students, scholars, and practitioners alike.

How the internet disrupted the recorded music, newspaper, film, and television industries and what this tells us about surviving technological disruption. Much of what we think we know about how the internet "disrupted" media industries is wrong. Piracy did not wreck the recording industry, Netflix isn't killing Hollywood movies, and information does not want to be free. In Media Disrupted, Amanda Lotz looks at what really happened when the recorded music, newspaper, film, and television industries were the ground zero of digital disruption. It's not that digital technologies introduced "new media," Lotz explains; rather, they offered existing media new tools for reaching people. For example, the MP3 unbundled recorded music; as the internet enabled new ways for people to experience and pay for music, the primary source of revenue for the recorded music industry shifted from selling music to licensing it. Cable television providers, written off as predigital dinosaurs, became the dominant internet service providers. News organizations struggled to remake businesses in the face of steep declines in advertiser spending, while the film industry split its business among movies that compelled people to go to theaters and others that are better suited for streaming. Lotz looks in detail at how and why internet distribution disrupted each industry. The stories of business transformation she tells offer lessons for surviving and even thriving in the face of epoch-making technological change.