‘It’s OK to feel’: The emotionality norm and its evolution in U.S. print journalism

Abstract

Between the 1960s and the 1990s journalists in U.S. newspapers created, constructed, and advanced emotionality as a new occupational norm in American print journalism, challenging some aspects of the dominant objectivity norm while simultaneously affirming its overall relevance. This historical study delineates how the emotionality norm emerged as a constitutive element of narrative journalism during this time period. Drawing from archival research, in-depth interviews, and textual analysis of trade publications, this study analyzes how narrative journalists developed moral ideals, practices, and justifications for advancing narrative journalism as an acceptable and desirable mode of emotional storytelling. As the emotionality norm affected journalistic roles, expanded the repertoire of journalistic forms, and transformed the emotive posture of newspapers, it contributed in nuanced and deliberate ways to the interpretive turn in U.S. journalism.