{"title":"Disrupting the News","authors":"Elizabeth Hansen","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11177","url":null,"abstract":"Disruption has become a popular shorthand explanation among news media executives and thought leaders for describing the massive business model and innovation challenges facing the incumbent producers of news. Yet the focus on digital disruption to the traditional business model of news obscures deeper changes in the values guiding journalistic practice. This essay unpacks disruptions to the landscape of news production and the practice of journalism with an attention to the institutional logic of digital media innovations. The digital values of openness and rationalization, visible in the adoption and use of metrics and analytics, crowds and engagement, and algorithmic distribution, have disrupted both the practices of journalism and the values guiding journalists’ work. This essay examines those disruptions in practice and values and outlines their consequences: new values and new identities that reconfigure the journalist/audience relationship and expand the complexity of the journalist role. The stakes of the digital disruption are issues of control and transparency in newswork. Overall, this essay claims, digital disruptions in journalism are issues of control and transparency in newswork. Overall, this essay claims, digital disruptions in journalistic values and practice are both discontinuous breaks from the past and evolutions of long-standing tensions in journalism as an institution.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"175-199"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46289567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Virality, Algorithms, and Illiberal Attacks on the Press: Legitimation Strategies for a New World","authors":"Ronald N. Jacobs","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11190","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11190","url":null,"abstract":"Historically, professional journalism has justified its importance through a series of binary oppositions that privileged objectivity over opinion, news over entertainment, impartiality over partisanship, and public interest over profit. Over the last half century these distinctions have become increasingly destabilized, and the press finds itself under attack from a number of different directions. This article examines the social forces that have combined to challenge press authority: (1) the changing ownership structure and revenue model for news organizations, (2) the shifting dynamics of media influence made possible by convergence culture and algorithmic culture, and (3) the attacks on expertise made possible by the spread of neoliberal and populist rhetorics in the public sphere. After describing this challenging new media climate, the article finishes by examining the different legitimation strategies journalists have used to defend themselves, considering the different challenges and constraints they confront when articulating these strategies as well as the different potential alliances that are available to them.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"217-233"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42628031","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Making Peace with Metrics: Relational Work in Online News Production","authors":"Angèle Christin, Caitlin Petre","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11178","url":null,"abstract":"How do workers make peace with performance metrics that threaten their professional values? Drawing on Viviana Zelizer’s concepts of relational work and “good matches,” we focus on the case of online news production and analyze efforts to align audience metrics with journalistic values. Whereas existing research on web metrics tends to frame editorial production and audience data as “hostile worlds” of professional and market forces that cannot be reconciled, we show that journalists rely on relational work to make metrics acceptable within organizations. Drawing on ethnographic material, we identify five key relational strategies: moral boundary-drawing between \"good\" and \"bad\" metrics, strategic invocation of \"best-case scenarios,\" domestication through bespoke metrics, reframing metrics as democratic feedback, and justifying metrics as organizational subsidies. We then turn to cases of failure and document a process that we call overspelling, which can coincide with organizational breakdown. We conclude by discussing the concept of “failed matches” and the indirect relationship between metrics and markets in online news production.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"133-156"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44086543","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Evolution of Blue-Collar Work in the Fiat Factories. On \"The Car Profession\" Research","authors":"G. Meardi","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11294","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11294","url":null,"abstract":"This comment reflects on \"The Car Profession\" research on the background of previous sociological investigations on Fiat factories and with references to parallel international debates. By looking at the historical, industrial relations and organizational aspects, it frames the question of why labour at Fiat appeared more successful in the \"domestication\" of Fordism than in that of post-Fordism, and outlines some avenues for further research on this question.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"293-298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43341366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Listening and Falling Silent: Towards Technics of Collectivity","authors":"J. Feldman","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11286","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11286","url":null,"abstract":"This piece reflects on the politics of listening practices and technologies during the 2020 COVID-19 confinement and the ensuing protests against racialized police violence. During this period, two ruptures have occurred in sonic environments and temporalities: first, one of isolation and confinement and, next, one of protest and refusal. I make two points. First, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s work connecting loneliness and totalitarianism, I argue that isolated silence is much more dangerous politically than collective silence. I then begin to show that corporate online communication tools are not designed to facilitate the forms of democratic listening and empathy required to overcome this isolation. I argue that this greater danger of isolated listening forces us to rethink remote listening and communication technologies, as we become ever more aware of the need to coordinate collective action, resource distribution, and democratic listening at a global scale.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"5-12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43777827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Moral Philosophy or The Sociology of Morals? Response to Cansu Canca","authors":"Gil Eyal","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11477","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11477","url":null,"abstract":"I make three points in my response. I begin by pointing out the differences between the sociological and philosophical approaches to moral questions. The sociologist is interested in the trolley problem as a frame, and in the rhetorical power it generates. Second, I reject the claim that I am forcing the debate into a binary choice. Instead, I show the similarity between the model of moral reasoning Canca advocates and risk assessment, noting the well-known limitations of risk assessment. Finally, I reject the claim that I make moral arguments without engaging in principled moral reasoning, and instead explain the sociological method of comparison and relativization upon which I draw.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"83-91"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43341913","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Reflexive History of Jews in Classical Sociological Theorizing of Modernity","authors":"D. Swartz","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11517","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11517","url":null,"abstract":"A reflexive history of sociological thought calls for uncovering the hidden intellectual assumptions that shape social theorizing often in unfruitful ways. According to Pierre Bourdieu, small number of binary oppositions haunt contemporary thinking by forcing unreflected perceptions into taken-for-granted alternatives that divide, simplify, and rank complex and interconnected social realities into rigid hierarchical classifications. Such is the case in much theorizing of the transition from traditional to modern societies --- the modernity problematic --- that is a unifying theme in classical social theory. Chad Goldberg, in Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought , deploys this kind of reflexive analysis by showing how the Jew/gentile binary has figured, sometimes positively mostly negatively, in the theoretical imagination of many of the classical sociologists in their views of modernization.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"321-327"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49339297","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Pandemic Doesn’t Run on Trolley Tracks: A Comment on Eyal's Essay \"Beware the Trolley Zealots\"","authors":"Cansu Canca","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11412","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11412","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic raises various ethical questions, one of which is the question of when and how countries should move from lockdown to reopening. In his paper “Beware the Trolley Zealots” (2020), Gil Eyal looks at this question, arguing against a trolley problem approach and utilitarian reasoning. In this commentary, I show that his position suffers from misunderstanding the proposed policies and the trolley problem and asserting moral conclusions without moral justifications.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"73-81"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44456403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Value and Values in the Interstices of Journalism and Journalism Studies: An Interview with Candis Callison and Mary Lynn Young","authors":"Richard L. Harp, C. Callison, M. Young","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11514","url":null,"abstract":"In this interview, Professor Candis Callison and Professor Mary Lynn Young, along with MEDIA INDIGENA podcast creator Rick Harp, provide a deep and sometimes personal set of insights as to why the field of journalism studies came to function the way it did and why that field so often falls short in its analysis of issues related to race, indigeneity, gender, and colonialism. Both Callison and Young highlight the arguments they make in their recent book, Reckoning: Journalism's Limits and Possibilities , about the role and practice of journalism as it relates to methods, ideals, aspirations, social order, and ethics. They conclude with a discussione of the theoretical and epistemological frameworks that undergird their analyses in the book, and address the tensions between value and values in the news.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"235-247"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49572875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“A Nose for News”: From (News) Values to Valuation","authors":"Juliette De Maeyer","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.1971-8853/11176","url":null,"abstract":"“News values” - that is, the set of criteria that journalists use to assess newsworthiness - are a central concern for journalism studies. Since Galtung and Ruge’s seminal piece (1965), scholarship about news values has repeatedly attempted to define and refine a list of qualities that facts and events should possess to become news stories. This article outlines the limitations of news values research: a proliferation of lists of news values complicates the matter instead of offering an explanation, researchers often have to rely on other factors or on an unsatisfactory gap between ideal and practice to explain what journalists actually do, and such research does not account for another way in which journalists and scholars explain news selection - through the “nose for news” metaphor. Consequently, the article discusses how John Dewey’s theory of valuation offers a good way to revisit the news-values conundrum. Through an exploration of metajournalistic discourse about the “nose for news” between 1863 and 2010, it shows that Dewey’s theory of valuation converges with how journalists think about newsmaking.","PeriodicalId":35251,"journal":{"name":"Sociologia, Problemas e Praticas","volume":"14 1","pages":"109-132"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49662459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}