STEENSEN - How journalists shape their role in the digital era

The shaping of an online feature journalist
Steen Steensen
Journalism 2009 10: 702
DOI: 10.1177/1464884909106540
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Abstract

This article explores the professional role and normative demands of online feature journalists. Through a longitudinal ethnographic case study of the work practices of feature journalists in the Norwegian online newspaper dagbladet.no, the article uncovers how the normative demands of a new professional role are negotiated within the online newsroom of a newspaper. It further reveals how the role of journalists is shaped by two axes: 

• a historical axis of factors that have shaped the role of journalists throughout history, and 
• a contemporary axis of the particulars of labour in modern society at large. 

The findings suggest that online feature journalists practise a more audience-driven and source-detached kind of journalism than their print counterparts. They further suggest that the remediation of feature journalism online yields increased status to the role of online journalists at large.

Conclusion

In this article I have outlined two axes that shape the role of journalists in a digital era and showed how these two axes worked to shape the role of an online feature journalist in the Norwegian online newspaper dagbladet.no. 

The role of the online feature journalist was shaped under the dual pressure from the normative demands of two already established and widely different roles of journalists - online journalists and feature journalists. 

Both pre-established and developing normative demands of the role of online journalists and the normative demands of print feature journalists contributed to the shaping of the role of the online feature journalists. 

However, the two role sectors that made the greatest impact were interaction with other online journalists and interaction with the audience. This must be perceived as a direct result of how the role performance was embedded within the already established work routine of the online newsroom. Had the online feature journalists been affiliated with the print Magasinet desk rather than the online newsroom, the role might have developed quite differently. 

As it now was, the result was a multi-skilled practice of feature journalism entailing a devaluation of reportage as genre and emphasizing audience participation. This marks a shift from source-driven to audience-driven feature journalism, where debate and sharing of information and knowledge replace intimacy and adventure as dominant discourses.

The implementation of feature journalism in dagbladet.no created a new professional role within the news site and it affected the role of the online journalists in dagbladet.no at large, increasing the perceived status of their role and providing them with an off-the-news-beat arena to explore their writing skills and storytelling proficiencies. The case study therefore shows how the development of new styles and genres influences the role of the online journalist. The importance of this factor should be taken into account in future studies on the developing role of journalists in new media.

Furthermore, the developing role of the online feature journalists of dagbladet.no clearly shows how contemporary work identity is constructed in opposition to rather than in cooperation with old knowledge and skills. Within the time frame of just three years, the aim, focus and actual practice of feature journalism in dagbladet.no changed considerably. 

Demarcation towards how the role of feature journalists traditionally has been perceived defined new skills, new knowledge and new practices of journalistic work. The fluctuating nature of the work practice pushed what in one moment was perceived as a core work activity (doing reportage) into a leisure activity to be conducted in private spaces. In short, the shaping of an online feature journalist in dagbladet.no reveals the unpredictable and liquid nature of labour in modern society.

NOTES (ed.GGA)
The role of the journalist today is undergoing substantial change.
 

New skills are added to the professional role of journalists while traditional skills might be altered or even discarded.
 

The traditional skills such as specialized, investigative beat reporting and deadline sensitivity have been downplayed and replaced by immediacy in reporting, multiskilling and multitasking, copy-paste mentality and 24/7 deadlines (see Paterson and Domingo, 2008, for an overview of the research on the practice of online journalism).
 

However, most of the research on online journalism is biased towards the exploration of online news journalism. …
Deuze argues for a more rigorous approach to the research on the practice of online journalism, which would entail an enhanced focus on the 'numerous new formats,  genres  and innovations in the production  of online news'  (2008: 209). 

An increasing number of online newspapers across the world now include sections like 'special reports', 'features', 'travel', etc., which implies a coming together of two apparently widely different practices of journalism: feature journalism and online journalism.
 

Feature journalism is often associated with glossy magazines and newspaper weekend sections where readers are invited to spend time, relax and take pleasure in their reading. The dominant discourses of feature journalism therefore seem to contrast with the discourse of online communication as it so far has been portrayed in research on the practice of online journalism and the evolving role of the online journalist.
 

This article investigates how the implementation of feature journalism in an online newsroom influences the role of online journalists and how the role of an online feature journalist is thus shaped. 

Two axes that shape the role of journalists
 

Media institutions and the role of journalists working there do not develop independently of general trends in work culture and changing perceptions of labour in modern society. Thus, contemporary changes in the role of journalists must be understood in line with two axes:

• - a vertical axis where the societal factors that shape the role of journalists throughout history are traced, and
• - a horizontal axis where the influence of contemporary trends in work culture and new perceptions of labour is taken into consideration.

Professional work identity and thus professional role are therefore becoming increasingly individualized and to a certain degree unbound by historical developments.

Online journalism is, for instance, often marked by an attempt to establish new normative demands for the practice of journalism rather than building on traditional journalistic skills and craftsmanship.

That being said, the role of journalists in a digital era does not develop in isolation from historical trends. As argued by Dahlgren (1996), Schudson (2003), Scott (2005) and others, journalism and the role of journalists were undergoing substantial change prior to the remediation of journalism in digital media.

Based on this body of research and on the findings of the case study presented in this article, I argue that the factors shaping the role of journalists in a digital era are:

• -Convergence on macro (clustering of media companies) and meso levels (multimedia newsrooms).
• -Competition from new markets and changing economic conditions.
• -Blurring demarcations towards other professions.
• -Weakening trade unions.
• -New conditions for freedom of expression and information.
• -Blurring boundaries between private and public spaces, mass media and private media.
• -Intellectual property rights under pressure.
• -Ethical norms and standards under pressure.
• -Assets of new technology.
• -Emergence of new styles and genres.

The last factor, concerning new styles and genres, is the novel offering of this article, as this factor has been neglected, at least to a certain degree, in research on the changing role of journalists in new media. The aim of this article is to show how these two axes - the vertical, historical and the horizontal, contemporary - influenced the shaping of an online feature journalist in an online newsroom.

Notes on methodology
The benefits of ethnography are that the method provides the researcher with a rich empirical material containing first-hand information on newsroom production. Ethnographic research therefore 'encourage [s] a more qualified stance to some of the circulating claims and generalizations made about the news media', according to Cottle (2007: 1).

The methodology, however, raises some questions concerning both the quality of how empirical material is gathered and the degree of generalization made possible by it. …

Puijk (2008) notes that in modern newsrooms much communication is withheld from the observer as it is withdrawn to the silence of the computer screen instead of displayed in face-to-face interaction. However, measures can be taken to avoid many of these methodological pitfalls. The most important is to ensure a triangulation of approaches that secure different perspectives on the material.

Observations should therefore be accompanied with interviews and document analysis.