Workstations as places for shaping journalistic identity

Abstract

This article examines how Brazilian journalists describe and evaluate their workstations amid the growing popularity of remote work. It also explores how practitioners arrange objects in their offices and how they interact with them, comparing traditional newsrooms, public offices, and home-office environments. The study is based on empirical research involving 35 news professionals, including photographs of their workstations, diary entries, and semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that journalists working from home have uniquely personalized and improvised desks, elements often absent in other settings. These differences highlight distinct strategies for utilizing physical spaces and various ways of engaging with one’s work. This study provides methodological contributions to journalism studies by combining visual sociology with textual data. It also integrates analytical frameworks from the pragmatic sociology of tastes with an analysis of the emotional connections practitioners develop with their careers. Lastly, it underscores the importance of exploring objects that have been largely overlooked in the sociology of journalism, such as office desks, as places that shape professional identities.