Socializing mechanisms in the routinized practice in the newsroom

Abstract

Based on ethnographic observations in newsrooms and interviews conducted with 12 Danish journalist trainees, this paper will analyze and categorize socializing mechanisms in the newsroom – that is social actions performed by the experienced journalists and the editors – the socialising agents – in order to encourage the interns to act, think and feel in ways desirable for the organisation. In these socialising processes we see both the very visible and explicit ways of socializing clearly demonstrating that an intern has displayed culturally desirable or undesirable behaviour. And we see the more invisible and implicit ways of socializing consisting of everyday actions in the routinised practice aimed at making interns behave in a certain way. The study presented is part of a recent linguistic turn within newsroom studies where the detailed analyses of the micro-level of discourse and interaction is combined with the analyses of social structure, institutional roles, identities, and cultural practice.