“We're very isolated professionally”: Learning and doing visual journalism in uncertain communities of practice

Abstract

The news is highly visual yet this aspect of journalism, particularly in non-urban areas, is often neglected or attempted through a piecemeal approach that is based on intuition and trial-and-error rather than supported through formal training or professional development. Drawing on the community of practice literature, this interview- and observation-based study explores how visual journalism is made at six news outlets in non-urban areas and the factors that influence its production. By interviewing and observing people making visual news—sometimes in specialised visual roles and sometimes as generalists who make visuals in addition to their other reporting duties—as well as editors and management who can set the overall tone for an outlet’s approach to visuals, this study explores how staff education, training, visual literacy, organisational resources, and equipment affect routines and typical approaches related to visual news production, editing, and presentation at these outlets. In doing so, this study identifies the degree to which news workers at regional, rural, or remote news outlets are participating in communities of practice related to visual journalism and muses about the implications of uncertain or uneven access to such communities.