Digital technologies and a changing profession

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate what role particular new management devices play in the development of the news profession in an organizational setting shifting to new technologies. Design/methodology/approach This is studied through of observations of work practices in the newsroom and through documentary research and qualitative interviews with managers, editors, and other professionals. Findings It is shown that management devices such as the news table and the news concept are central to the reorganization of news work, as they realize managers’ strategies, just like they produce new practices and power relationships. It is shown that the devices produce increased collaboration among journalists and interaction between managers and output journalists, that mundane work and power is delegated to technological devices and that news products are increasingly standardized. Practical implications The wider implications of these findings seem to be a change in the journalistic profession: TV news journalism is becoming less individualistic and more collective and professionalism becomes a matter of understanding and realizing the news organization’s strategy, rather than following a more individual agenda. Originality/value The paper’s originality lies in showing that profession and management are not opposed to each other, but can be seen as a continuum on which journalistic and managerial tasks become intertwined. This is in contrast to previous research on news work. Furthermore, the paper’s focus on devices opens up for conceptualizing power in the newsroom as distributed across a network of people and things, rather executed by managers alone.

The Oxymoron of Digitalization

“…Digital revolution has resulted in changes brought about by improved communication technology and digital computing in the latter half of the 20 th century (Plesner & Raviola, 2016). Despite the fact that the digital revolution has significantly modernized the way things are done, the respondents raised concerns about the emergence of the digital world.…”

The Risky-Opportunity Analysis Method (ROAM) to Support Risk-Based Decisions in a Case-Study of Critical Infrastructure Digitization

“…A recent study on the PSP supply chain (Aghazadeh showed that the elimination of thermal paper from the supply chain ancillary service could bring about environmental, social and economic opportunities. Specifically, the following opportunities can be mentioned: eliminating the production of toxic waste during the service supply chain, reducing the traffic caused by maintenance shuttles of the POS devices, reducing the burden of maintenance activities through digitization of the system (Plesner and Raviola 2016;Plesner et al 2018), and finally eliminating the delivery of the thermal paper to the end-users of PSP service to avoid its dangerous consequences on social health.…”

Progettazione organizzativa 4.0: verso una rivisitazione dei principi sociotecnici

“…Studies adopting a sociomaterial perspective (Barad, 2003;Orlikowski, 2007;Orlikowski and Scott, 2008), for example, have emphasized the interplay between digital technologies and human agency as a driver for change in power distribution within several fields, such as journalism (e.g. Plesner and Raviola, 2016) or healthcare (e.g. Introna, Hajies, and Al-Hejin, 2019).…”

“…Stein et al, 2019). As proposed by Plesner and Raviola (2016), technology and humans (along with other elements) co-create the processes of reorganization of professions. For example, Plesner and Raviola (2016) studying the journalist profession, observe that increasing digitalization of news work does not seem to make a particular group or individual more powerful, but rather reallocate the power across a constellation of people, objects and relationships, stabilized around certain technical devices.…”

“…As proposed by Plesner and Raviola (2016), technology and humans (along with other elements) co-create the processes of reorganization of professions. For example, Plesner and Raviola (2016) studying the journalist profession, observe that increasing digitalization of news work does not seem to make a particular group or individual more powerful, but rather reallocate the power across a constellation of people, objects and relationships, stabilized around certain technical devices. On the other hand, Beane (2019), observing the surgical practice, conclude that, due to the diffusion of robots and intelligent machines, experts are increasingly distanced from their work, and the opportunities of training on the job and the related apprenticeship relationships that are typical of many professions are changing or disappearing.…”