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Abstract

In light of changes in the structure of how journalism works due to technological, economic, cultural, and political shifts, we examine the theoretical framework of communities of practice and explore how it can productively be applied to the study of journalists. In evaluating the feasibility of applying communities of practice to journalism, we also consider other theoretical frameworks that have been used for examining journalistic groups, including interpretive communities, professions and organizations, and boundary work. The article provides examples to illustrate how different groups of journalists may constitute communities of practice. Whereas community is often attached to the idea of discourse communities or interpretive communities, we find that focusing on the collaborative learning aspect and development of shared practice through the lens of communities of practice enables us to more fully understand the nature of skill- and practice-building among specific subgroups of journalistic practitioners.

Keywords

journalism journalism theory communities of practice interpretive communities journalistic community

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Journalists as Communities of Practice

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