The material turn in the study of journalism: Some hopeful and cautionary remarks from an early explorer

Abstract

This brief article presents some remarks about the material turn in journalism studies. It argues that this turn might push these studies in a more cosmopolitan theoretical direction by inviting analysts to engage with a wide array of fields of inquiry. It also contends that this turn might unsettle two major common methodological practices in studies of newswork: a focus on journalists and on newsrooms as the critical actors and locales. Looking at the objects of newsmaking might reveal the broad spectrum of actors implicated in this process—not just journalists—and the spatially distributed network of connections—that include the newsroom as one key locale, but not the only one—from which the news emerges.