• Journalism and the Digital Challenge

    Journalism and the Digital Challenge


Traditional journalism has faced major challenges in recent years as many aspects of digital media have been hailed as its ‘future’ whether presented in a positive or negative light. User-generated content and participatory journalism were highlighted by Steve Paulsssen and Pieter Ugille’s focus on newsroom structures and professional practices whereas the citizen journalism of blogs for a while appeared to offer hope of countering oppressive press control during the Arab Spring as Nalia Hamdy’s research indicated. One stage further in technology’s presence in frontline reporting, Bolette Blaagaard discusses how the use of drones have become part of the reporting mix, even altering age-old notions of what constitutes journalistic ‘presence’ in specific contexts.


Ethnography’s rich methodological tradition was applied to the practice of journalism in Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara’s consideration of Zimbabwean journalists’ use of the internet. However it was the threat posed by the erosion of traditional business models to one of Europe’s most resilient newspaper industries in Germany that came under scrutiny in Castulus Kolo’s quantitative modelling of its future. The prognosis did not look promising; although transition to new digitally-driven business appears to be proceeding with less haste in Russia with traditional advertising revenues holding firmer than in many western countries WPCC contributors from Lomonosov Moscow State University conclude in a wide-ranging assessment of media industry professionals’ expectations for ‘The Russian Media Industry In Ten Years’. A recent survey of the contemporary news environment and political reporting in the face of digital challenges by veteran journalist John Lloyd was considered in a book review by Dani Madrid-Morales. Earlier in 2007 Mattius Hessérus reviewed Neil Henry’s American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media,which lamented declining journalistic standards and ignorance of the ‘where’ in Press copy. This concern also featured in Monika Metykova's analysis of technological changes and soco-political developments which in 2008 seemed to be key factors in an increasing disconnection between European journalists and their audiences observed in her research. Mark Deuze, alternatively considers how professionals view disruptive new media developments and the appropriation of technologies and what it could mean for the organisation of news work.


WPPC has also had a long tradition of reflecting on news media in China but Twitter’s emergence suggests ways in which social media becomes the story or certainly has a formidable hand in shaping it not only in domestic media but in foreign policy too as Joyce Nip and Chao Sun’s work on ‘China’s News Media Tweeting, Competing With US Sources’ suggests. Tiziano Bonini also considers Twitter in the context of reporting of the Gezi Protests of 2013 in Turkey where ‘old and new, mainstream and underground media’ co-existed and amplified each other with radio also playing a key role in an environment where events moved at a pace faster than the ability of newspapers to react to them. This question of how to incorporate the immediacy of 'breaking news' and online news flows in US reporting is the focus of Robert Kautsky and Andreas Widholm's article 'Online Methodology: Analysing News Flows of Online Journalism'.


Lastly as local journalism faces particularly strong challenges from digital media’s domination of advertising, in a recent WPCC issue on Geography and Communications Amy Schmitz Weiss suggests how geospatial data might indicate how journalistic structures might better align with consumers’ perceptions of proximity and offer fresh ways of connecting with local news audiences.




Research Articles


Journalism Conundrum: Perceiving Location and Geographic Space Norms and Values

Journalism Conundrum: Perceiving Location and Geographic Space Norms and Values

Amy Schmitz Weiss

2018-10-31 Volume 13 • Issue 2 • 2018 • 46-60

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

China’s News Media Tweeting, Competing With US Sources

China’s News Media Tweeting, Competing With US Sources

Joyce Y. M. Nip and Chao Sun

2018-06-20 Volume 13 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 98-122

Also a part of:

Collection: Media and Communication in China

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

Collection: Censorship and Propaganda

Twitter or Radio Revolutions? The Central Role of Açık Radyo in the Gezi Protests of 2013

Twitter or Radio Revolutions? The Central Role of Açık Radyo in the Gezi Protests of 2013

Tiziano Bonini

2017-06-16 Volume 12 • Issue 2 • 2017 • 1-17

Also a part of:

Collection: Radio Studies

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

The Russian Media Industry in Ten Years: Industrial Forecasts

The Russian Media Industry in Ten Years: Industrial Forecasts

Elena Vartanova, Andrei Vyrkovsky, Mikhail Makeenko and Sergey Smirnov

2016-12-05 Volume 11 • Issue 1 • 2016 • 65-84

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

A Long-term View on the Business Model of Newspaper Publishing: International Comparison and Quantitative Modelling for Germany as Case in point

A Long-term View on the Business Model of Newspaper Publishing: International Comparison and Quantitative Modelling for Germany as Case in point

Castulus Kolo

2016-09-22 Volume 11 • Issue 1 • 2016 • 1-20

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

The Aesthetics of Posthuman Experience: The Presence of Journalistic, Citizen-generated and Drone Imagery

The Aesthetics of Posthuman Experience: The Presence of Journalistic, Citizen-generated and Drone Imagery

Bolette Blaagaard

2015-09-15 Volume 10 • Issue 1 • 2015 • 51-65

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

‘Ethnography as Negotiated Lived Experience’: Researching the Fluid and Multi-sited Uses of Digital Technologies in Journalism Practice

‘Ethnography as Negotiated Lived Experience’: Researching the Fluid and Multi-sited Uses of Digital Technologies in Journalism Practice

Hayes Mabweazara

2017-06-13 Volume 9 • Issue 3 • 2013 • 97-120

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

Arab Citizen Journalism in Action: Challenging Mainstream Media, Authorities and Media Laws

Arab Citizen Journalism in Action: Challenging Mainstream Media, Authorities and Media Laws

Naila Hamdy

2017-06-13 Volume 6 • Issue 1 • 2009 • 92-112

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

Online Methodology: Analysing News Flows of Online Journalism

Online Methodology: Analysing News Flows of Online Journalism

Andreas Widholm

2017-06-13 Volume 5 • Issue 2 • 2008 • 81-97

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

Drifting Apart? European Journalists and their Audiences

Drifting Apart? European Journalists and their Audiences

Monika Metykova

2017-06-13 Volume 5 • Issue 2 • 2008 • 42-60

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

User Generated Content in the Newsroom: Professional and Organisational Constraints on Participatory Journalism

User Generated Content in the Newsroom: Professional and Organisational Constraints on Participatory Journalism

Pieter Ugille

2017-06-13 Volume 5 • Issue 2 • 2008 • 24-41

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

Understanding Journalism as Newswork: How It Changes, and How It Remains the Same

Understanding Journalism as Newswork: How It Changes, and How It Remains the Same

Mark Deuze

2017-06-13 Volume 5 • Issue 2 • 2008 • 4-24

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

Book Reviews


The Power and the Story: The Global Battle for News and Information by John Lloyd, (2017) London: Atlantic Books

The Power and the Story: The Global Battle for News and Information by John Lloyd, (2017) London: Atlantic Books

Dani Madrid-Morales

2018-06-01 Volume 13 • Issue 1 • 2018 • 48-53

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge

Book Review: Henry, Neil, American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media, 2007, Berkley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0- 520-24342-2

Book Review: Henry, Neil, American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media, 2007, Berkley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, ISBN 978-0- 520-24342-2

Mattias Hessérus

2017-06-13 Volume 5 • Issue 2 • 2008 • 98-99

Also a part of:

Collection: Journalism and the Digital Challenge