Caught Between Innovation and Tradition: Young Journalists as Normative Change Agents in the Journalistic Field

Abstract

The necessity of innovation within the newsroom, and the rise of entrepreneurial initiatives outside it, have become increasingly apparent. A common thread in this discourse is the desire for young journalists to be "change agents" who foster innovation and thus stretch existing boundaries in the profession. Employers hope new hires, seen as attuned to their generation's news use and as offering fresh knowledge and insights, will be able to drive new journalism initiatives that can attract a younger audience and so improve the enterprise's odds for economic sustainability. Using a longitudinal three-wave survey among students enrolled in two leading journalism programs in Britain and the Netherlands, we explore whether students' perceptions of innovation and entrepreneurialism are in line with this industry discourse. Do students perceive themselves as change agents who will be challenging and potentially shifting the boundaries of journalism? Or do they adhere to traditional ideas about norms and behaviors that have been ingrained in the doxa and habitus of the journalistic field over previous decades? We find that although journalism students favor the idea of "innovation" and see the value of engaging audiences, they define change predominantly in terms of technology rather than more substantive cultural transformation.

Journalism’s Change Agents: Black Lives Matter, #BlackoutTuesday, and a Shift Toward Activist Doxa

“…By posting on social media and holding discussions with editors and fellow journalists about their social media expressions, they participated in their own form of media activism, working to change the field from within by replacing objectivity with stance-taking for racial justice. While previous research considering change agents within the journalism field has found changes coming mostly from outside forces (e.g., Broersma & Singer, 2021), this study indicates that crisis—in the form of systemic racism and the largest protest movement in U.S. history—and technological shifts (Bourdieu, 1988, 1998) collided in just the way needed to create an opening for a vanguard of Black, Latinx, AAPI, and young journalists to disrupt the field. This finding has important practical implications for journalists covering racial justice protests, as reporting practices could shift in response to changing doxa.…”

“…In contrast, in their study of Dutch and U.K. journalism students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship and digital tools, Broersma and Singer (2021) found students didn’t really see themselves as change agents, but rather they valued traditional norms and practices, suggesting they “have been ingrained in the journalistic doxa” (p. 13). They saw changes to the field as coming from outside pressures (like technology), rather than from within or as a result of their own disruptive behaviors (Broersma & Singer, 2021).…”

“…In contrast, in their study of Dutch and U.K. journalism students’ perceptions of entrepreneurship and digital tools, Broersma and Singer (2021) found students didn’t really see themselves as change agents, but rather they valued traditional norms and practices, suggesting they “have been ingrained in the journalistic doxa” (p. 13). They saw changes to the field as coming from outside pressures (like technology), rather than from within or as a result of their own disruptive behaviors (Broersma & Singer, 2021). Usher’s (2017) study of digital entrepreneurial news startups similarly found traditional journalism doxa were upheld, even as the field itself expanded as journalists, in part reacting to the potential of new technologies, challenged assumptions about what was news, who produced it, and how.…”

“…Scholars have studied journalism as its own autonomous field shaped by political, economic, and technological forces (Broersma & Singer, 2021; Usher, 2017). Bourdieu (1993) posited the concept of “fields,” where a field is a “social universe with its own laws of functioning” (p. 14).…”

Organizational Structure Change and Hybridity: Enhancing Uncertainty as a Response to Competing and Changing Institutional Logics

“…Most relevant studies explored the impact of a specific institutional framework on organizational behaviors. These included the intervention of political power ( Dickinson and Memon, 2012 ; Usher et al, 2021 ), performance legitimacy in the era of economic crisis ( Simon and Graves, 2019 ), social expectation of professional news production ( Carlson, 2017 ; Broersma and Singer, 2020 ), and upgrade of media technology ( Tandoc and Maitra, 2018 ; Liu and Berkowitz, 2020 ). However, different institutional elements could not function on its own in China’s social context.…”