Abstract
Every field needs its starting point, and journalism studies naturally choose to start with journalism as its point of entry. That may seem obvious enough but presents a challenge when the entry point is itself so problematic. Patrick Ferrucci and Scott Eldridge are the latest to engage this challenge in their edited volume, The institutions changing journalism: Barbarians inside the gate. These collections can be difficult to review in the absence of a strict argument enforced throughout the diverse chapters, but the contribution here lies in advocating a useful perspective (clearly outlined at beginning and conclusion) and offering a number of empirical examples.
In particular, the editors argue for problematizing the institution with a less journalism-centric approach, locating the “drivers of change” largely outside conventional journalistic boundaries, and foregrounding normative criteria for evaluating those changes. Invoking the Hierarchy of Influences model (with which my colleague Pamela Shoemaker and I are associated), the editors locate much of this volume at the socio-institutional level. In its original version, our model designated a number of influences on journalism, including at that level, conceived of as beyond the level of news organizations—as simply “extra-media,” which included an under-theorized mix of news sources, advertising, and public relations. And, of course, there was always the question of where to locate influences from the audience and technology (Reese and Shoemaker, 2016). Since then, that level has been much more fully developed (by us and now the contributors here) in trying to account for the ever-changing journalistic institution, a concept ironically predicated on stability. Understanding journalism requires taking other institutions into account while tracking their structured relationships and dependencies. These structures are not fixed but a site of interaction, mutually reinforcing, both constraining and enabling, and so deeply embedded and interpenetrating that the right analytical lens is needed to detect their consequences.
Having set up this macro-theoretical mandate, the contributors have responded with a range of chapters, some overviews of their subject (press law, advertising, etc.) and others more theoretically pointed in keeping with the framework laid out by the editors. The chapter on alternative journalism (Ihlebaek and Figenschou), for example, deals with intra-institutional boundary work, underscoring the fact that the field is increasingly not fixed. Audiences themselves have become more institutionally consequential in communicating their expectations (Banjac), which journalism must take on as an economic necessity, one that feeds a market orientation, even if in lieu of more authentic engagement. A critique of the influence of foundation funding for journalism (Konieczna) argues that, although much of these initiatives are relatively benign, there are no guarantees. Philanthropic donations are not a solution to journalistic sustainability, push priorities that are not contained by the same kind of firewall that used to intervene—even if imperfectly—between journalism and advertising, and are unlikely to challenge the corporate power structure. Other authors locate the drivers of change internal to the profession, with Hepp and Loosen, for example, identifying a classification for “pioneer journalists” who encourage “innovation” (another loaded concept). They argue that innovation pioneering helps drive journalism toward a neoliberal vision of news consumers rather than citizens. Foundations, alternative journalism, advertisers, and the courts are easier to visualize as external change agents—technology and platforms, less so, including the audiences they enable and the logics of their algorithms.
Nelson and Wenzel track the changes wrapped up in “engaged journalism,” the latest internal professional reform movement. In this version of the “audience turn” the change agents are the “interlopers,” insiders who came out of the profession, moving from core to periphery, to work with projects that are journalism adjacent. Are web analytics an institutional entity? Not conventionally, perhaps, but sociologically technologies have been considered institutions to the extent that rules are embedded within them, allowing them to be reproduced in the same way every time. In her chapter, Bélair-Gagnon argues that analytics, as a ubiquitous, baked-in set of practices, have changed journalism, eroding its public ethos while encouraging a greater market logic.
The editors and contributors have provided a variety of theoretical perspectives, and I appreciate being brought up to date on some of the relevant future-of-news case studies, even if they do not all fit into a neat framework. The predominant perspective is clear enough, at least to people like me struggling to better conceptualize the nature of the institution—at a time when it is at greater risk (e.g., Reese, 2021). For this volume, change comes from the outside in, as indicated by the title: “Barbarians inside the gate.” But that change has a number of agents behind it, including from within the profession, and not to mention the more impersonal effects of technology. But, contrary to this view of the prevailing current, the influence can also be conceived as going the other direction, as Baack, Cheruiyot, and Ferrer-Conill note in their chapter outlining “multi-directional dynamics,” showing how initiatives like fact-checking import their logic from journalism. So, the interinstitutional terrain is interpenetrating and complex, bringing me to overall agreement with the editors’ approach. We need to know what elements constitute the “hybrid institution,” how it is changing, and what normative outcomes are the consequences of those changes.