“Journalism as Process”: The Organizational Implications of Participatory Online News

Abstract

This Monograph will explore the empirical and theoretical ramifications of journalism as social media, specifically “journalism as process.” The piece calls for an end to thinking about news as a discrete product and the beginning of considering news production as a shared, distributed action with multiple authors, shifting institution-audience relationships and altered labor dynamics for everyone involved. Using the exemplar of one Midwestern city - Madison, WI - and its information-production/consumption community, this research stems from a newsroom ethnography and 100 interviews with journalists, bloggers, and members of the socially mediating public. It puts forward the idea that news has become a transportive, transactional object of professional, social and civic work for both journalists and audience members.