First published in the UK in 2016 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2016 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2016 Intellect Ltd
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ISBN 978-1-78320-718-3
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This anthology has received support from the Research Council of Norway, and is a result of the project Journalistic Reorientations Online Challenges to Journalistic Ontology (20102015). We thank Ida Andersen for editing and technical assistance.
Martin Eide & Helle Sjvaag
Introduction
This book provides analyses, case studies and empirical data within an institutional theoretical framework; analysing how the journalistic institution responds to profound changes in its social and professional practices, norms and values. This challenge can be fruitfully addressed not only through detailed and specific case studies, but also by mobilizing insights from recent thinking on institutions and institutionalism. By connecting established institutional perspectives to new institutionalism, this volume aims to illustrate how this theoretical framework can be mobilized in analysing how the journalistic institution responds to the challenges that economic, technological and professional structural changes entail for journalistic endeavours.
Starting from a mainly Scandinavian, and primarily hereunder Norwegian, vantage point with contributing perspectives from the Anglo-American setting this volume addresses the general questions facing journalism across the world regarding its framework conditions, its ideals and practices, its business models and its audience interactions. The relevance of the Nordic perspective not only adds to a field largely dominated by Anglo-American case studies, it also presents research on journalistic challenges from within a media system characterized by strong journalistic professionalism. Indirectly, we thereby enter the debate over media systems, locating journalistic changes mainly in the Democratic Corporatist Model (Hallin & Mancini 2004), while current developments within the Liberal Model serve to illustrate how structural challenges are common across systems.
When asking how journalism as an institution encounters the current destabilising factors facing the news industries, investigating reorientations inside a robust institutional framework such as the Scandinavian provides valuable insight into how the institutional features of journalism function in its encounter with the digital era. In this introduction, we summarize the theoretical basis for these investigations outlining how new institutionalism adds to the institutional perspective on news and journalism, illustrated by the various contributions to the volume.
Why New Institutionalism Now?
New institutionalism is a useful perspective for discussing journalism as an institution, as this theoretical position accounts for the agency perspective to a greater extent than the old or established institutional perspectives. As such, it has a better grasp of the negotiation between agency and structure within the institutional setting (March & Olsen 1984). According to Giddens, institutions are the enduring features of social life their durability described by how contexts condition action, and how this condition is reproduced by the motivations of individuals to engage in regularized social practices. As agents interact with the institution, they invoke the institutional order. Through this interaction they also make it meaningful, thereby contributing to reproducing it. Hence, institutions remain structurally stable, says Giddens, because agents accept them as such in their practical consciousness (Giddens 1984). Central questions in new institutionalism therefore concern the relationship between individuals and structure a central and recurring theme in this book. When we ask questions about the impact of ownership and regulation, when we investigate genres and their functions, look at the impact of digital technologies and analyse how audiences interact with the news institution, we essentially ask questions of a new institutional nature (see Jepperson 1991).
We are, of course, not alone in promoting this perspective within the field of journalism studies. Efforts have been made in recent years to properly introduce new institutionalism to the study of journalism, most notably through special issues of the journals Political Communication (2006, 23: 2) and Journalism Studies (2011, 12: 1). As editor of both editions, David M. Ryfe argues that new institutionalism can contribute vital insights to news research. According to him, part of [new institutionalisms] appeal lies in the way it builds a conception of meso-level organizational environments out of a micro-theory of rules (Ryfe 2006b: 204). From this perspective, Ryfe questions which is the stronger influence on news production the struggle for economic gain or the struggle for political legitimacy. This debate is a recurring theme among institutional approaches to journalism, as are questions concerning the macro-forces affecting journalism, the competition for financial means among news outlets and the role of journalism as a political institution (cf. Kaplan 2006: 176183). As such, new institutionalism can help media studies establish how the journalistic institution is sustained (Ryfe 2006a: 137). In our view, the new institutional perspective can also be fruitful with regard to how we may account for essential journalistic reorientations.
The theme of this book is digital challenges and professional reorientations. The inferred inquiry here is how the digitalization of journalism impacts the profession whether digitalization profoundly changes journalism. We argue that such profound changes to journalism cannot be inferred from the empirical findings presented in this volume essentially because of the institutional nature of the profession. Simultaneously, we argue, digital challenges and professional reorientations should not be underestimated. Responses to challenges can lead to institutional changes. Consequently, it is crucial to pay close attention to the challenges facing journalism, and to accompanying adjustments and reorientations within the profession.
Journalism is a largely norm-dependent institution, as it fails to adhere to standards of licensing in sociological definitions of professionalism. As such, the journalistic institution is in constant need of boundary maintenance (Gieryn 1983) by its members. Such border patrol behaviour works continuously, regardless of structural changes, and transforms the norms and myths of the profession to an orthodoxy that ensures stability within the field. Hence, while we see changes, they do not profoundly change the institutional nature of journalism. With this book, we aim to further the claim that new institutionalism, as a theoretical tool, helps direct our attention to the function that rules, myths and norms have for the maintenance of the (boundaries of the) institution.
