DOMINGO- Interactivity in the newsroom

Interactivity in the daily routines of online newsrooms: dealing with an uncomfortable myth
David Domingo
Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13 (2008) 680-704
doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2008.00415.x

PDF

Abstract

This article analyzes interactivity in online journalism as a powerful myth with which journalists have to deal in their daily work. A constructivist approach to media innovation is used to explore the historical origins of the myth that predicted interactivity would change journalism and to confront it with the actual practices of online media projects through published empirical research and four case studies selected from an average European regional market. The analysis of the cases is based on ethnography of online newsrooms working routines and in-depth interviews with reporters, editors and web developers. The actual role of the myth of interactivity in shaping the development f these four online news projects is discussed taking into account the material and organizational context of the newsrooms. Findings suggest that the professional culture of traditional journalism has a strong inertia in the online newsrooms that prevents them from developing most of the ideals of interactivity, as they do not fit in the standardized news production routines.

Conclusion: implications and further research

Understanding interactivity as a myth opens up the black box of the very pervasive discourses about the future of online journalism. It lets the researchers detach the ideals from the daily routines and explain the mechanisms that mediate the influence of the myth and shape the actual uses of interactivity in online news. Journalists in

the cases analyzed embraced interactivity as a crucial feature of their work, but in practice the professional culture and the priority given to immediacy -which fitted better the values and routines of traditional journalism– made them perceive audience participation as a problem to manage rather than a benefit for the news product,

except for the case of the online-only portal. The fact that interactivity is counterintuitive with the principles of traditional journalistic culture tended to diminish the willingness to explore audience participation.

A comparison of the factors found by Boczkowski (2004b) for the development of interactivity in three US online newspapers with the ones having a role in the European regional media of this study suggests that, regardless of the different cultural context, the prevalence of traditional journalism culture and the representation of the users as passive consumers or active producers had a strong influence in shaping the strategies of the different online newsrooms. In the study presented here,journalists embedded in print or broadcast media companies were more inclined to stress immediacy over interactivity and define their users as consumers. Even though the online-only portal was more eager to explore interactivity and understand their users as active netizens, the references to traditional journalistic norms were still very present. This demonstrates that the professional culture of journalism is very prevalent and actually overshadows the strength and pervasiveness of the interactivity

myth. Nonetheless, besides the factors proposed by Boczkowski there are other material and organizational decisions that also worked as brakes for the development of interactivity: the small size of online teams made it impractical to deal with extensive participation opportunities as the priority in three of the four cases was publishing news stories as fast as possible; the separation of news production routines and interactivity management routines in most of the cases minimized the radical potential of audience participation. These decisions may be easily overlooked without observing online journalists at work, but on a day to day basis they are the actual constraints put in place by the somehow abstract inertia of professional culture. While the factors identified by Boczkowski seem to be central to understand the developments in the cases analyzed here, the data gathered suggests that there is a wider web of decisions the researcher needs to trace in order to understand how professional culture and online journalism ideals interplay and materialize in everyday routines. This materiality of the work of online journalists is a key aspect to consider when researching the evolution of innovations in the newsrooms. The professional culture and the Internet myths do not exist in a vacuum, but rather are recreated and renegotiated in every production task, in the design of the content management software or in the staffing decisions.

Even though the results of case studies cannot be directly generalized, the data gathered in the ethnography clearly resonates with trends also detected in the literature review. An ethnographic approach is useful to reveal contextual factors and the historical evolution of online news features (Boczkowski, 2004b). However, the research strategy in this study has also limitations: 1) taking the newsroom as the focus of the study may overlook external factors, that are only considered through the eyes of the online journalists analyzed; 2) as the intensive on-site observation was constrained to six months, some changes in the projects during the study period (2003-2006) may have been unnoticed, even thought the follow-up visits and interviews suggested a high degree of stability in the journalists’ routines and attitudes. A comparative cross-country study would be needed to further explore international differences, taking into account meso- and macro-context factors surrounding online newsrooms: the market context (size of the companies, ownership, competitors’ strategies –both professional and citizen media–) and the social context (public sphere history, information society policies, media laws) (Paulussen et al., 2007). It would be especially relevant to consider whether the ongoing development outside journalism of a digital culture that is based on the active production by the former audience of all sorts of content –from fan replicas of movie narratives to consumer reviews– (Deuze, 2006; Jenkins, 2006) and the multiplication of citizen journalism initiatives besides institutional media (Bruns, 2005; Schaffer, 2007) do change the perceptions regarding interactivity in online newsrooms and the power balance between the myth and professional culture.

Sharing this data with journalists can help them realize taken-for-granted values and empower them in deciding the future of their projects7. Providing them with critical reflections on the current material and social constraints that define online journalism and working routines in online newsrooms, online journalists can understand the role of myths in their daily lives and be able to revisit them or even reinvent them having the realistic starting point of a deep knowledge of the circumstances of their company and newsroom. There are many ways of doing online journalism, and the constraints of any given media company must be reinterpreted as a framework within which there are different options to provide outstanding online news products Exploring these options successfully will be easier with a deep knowledge of the context and the factors that shaped the current situation. And understanding these factors will also help to channel the attempts to change the very framework of the media company, to shape it so that it can produce better online news. This is never simple to do, but taking informed decisions is a big step towards this ideal scenario. Whether interactivity or active participation of the users will be central to the future of journalism or not will be the result of decisions taken in every single online project.