Wilson Lowrey
Biographic Data
| ID | 4394047 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Wilson Lowrey |
| GIVEN NAMES | Wilson |
| FAMILY NAME | Lowrey |
| SIGNATURE | LOWREY W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alabama |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4985-7203 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 412 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
The spread of news standards: Examining an emerging means for control and legitimacy in local journalism
Disruption in local news has spurred development of varying journalism forms, including news collaborations and digital start-ups, and has increased the salience of social actors who are not news producers. With these changes have come new and different sets of standards on ethics, diversity, community engagement and news operations. Framed by an institutional “supply side” perspective, this study examines the adoption and adaptation of standards…
Public Affairs News and Local Relevance in Digital Journalism: Comparing Nonprofit versus Commercial Digital News Outlets Across Levels of Community Pluralism
Drawing from both critical political economy and community structure perspectives, this study compares local news quality in stories from nonprofit and commercial news sites in both high- and low- pluralism communities in the United States. Findings indicate that nonprofit business models offer benefits for news quality in local communities. Findings also show that these benefits from nonprofits are heightened in highly pluralistic communities (l…
The Clashing Roles and Logics of Marginalized Journalists: Comparing the Cases of Zimbabwean Journalists and Black U.S. Journalists
Logics and levels of ecology theory: Organizing Chicago School ecological approaches for journalism studies
Chicago School ecology, with its emphasis on diverse sets of interacting actors, unanticipated outcomes, and ongoing adaptation to shifting environments, offers a helpful lens for examining a disrupted, changing journalism and its existential challenges. Drawing from the Chicago School tradition, we generate a framework for conceptualizing the ecological study of local-level journalism and journalistic change in a more coherent, systematic way. T…
Must I follow the script? Professional objectivity, journalistic roles and the Black community journalist
This study examines how Black journalists in local legacy newspapers, digital startup media and historically Black newspapers have expressed journalistic objectivity and enacted journalistic roles. Findings showed more neutral coverage in historically white media, which was expected, while coverage in the historically Black newspaper and the digital startup reflected an advocacy role—one that did not fit within the four expected roles. Also, a “c…
‘Repackaging the emptiness’: How Russian regional journalism adapts to the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the role news organizations play in disseminating information and shaping public response to the crisis. This study adopts an ecological approach in examining Russian regional journalists’ adaptations to the pandemic. Based on in-depth interviews, the study found that a worsened economic situation has increased dependence on state subsidies. Journalists avoided questioning authorities’ response to COVID, with…
News Collaborations and Social Actors: The Translation of Fieldwide Ideas to Local Levels
This study takes a supply-side inhabited institutional perspective on journalism innovation by looking at the roles played by varied field-level actors, or meta-organizations, that inhabit the journalism field. Specifically, the study examines roles played by meta-organizations in the rise of local news collaborations at local sites. Meta-organizations—e.g., professional associations, foundations, training/research centers, and trade publications…
Agents of meta: Institutional actors in the journalism space and the innovation of local news
This study sheds light on the increasingly important roles that meta-level organizations, a type of institutional actor, play in the processes of local journalism innovation. Examples of meta-level organizations in journalism include journalism professional associations, training and research centers, nonprofits, and trade publications. Definitionally, metalevel organizations embrace the functions of coordination, regulation, agenda-setting, info…
Social capital and conflict avoidance in campus news
This study explores the roles student media advisers and editors perceive they serve within campus and municipal communities, focusing on the influence of social capital on tendencies toward an adversarial role and conflict reporting. Respondents identified least with the adversarial role, well below the interpretive role, which respondents identified with most strongly. Where social capital between newsroom and administration was stronger and wh…
News Organizations and Social Cohesion in Small, Large, and Global-Local Communities
This study assesses the influence of community “structural pluralism” on local news media reporting, in the context of global networks. Adopting and adapting the community structural pluralism approach, we compare news content across low pluralism (small communities), high pluralism (urban communities), and “global-local” pluralism (urban and globally connected communities). Specifically, we examine how local news media’s role in aiding community…
Field and Ecology Approaches to Journalism Innovation: The Role of Ancillary Organizations
This study assesses the roles played by journalism support organizations or “ancillary” organizations – professional associations, training centers, foundations, labs – in the dynamics of journalism innovation, from the perspectives of field theory and ecology theory. Innovation in data and computational journalism serves as the study’s case example. The roles played by ancillary organizations within a changing, complex journalism space are incre…
Fields and Ecologies: Meso-Level Spatial Approaches and the Study of Journalistic Change
Recent writings in the sociology of news (Benson, 2014; Lowrey, 2017; Ryfe, 2017; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009) and in sociology more broadly (Bottero & Crossley, 2011; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Liu & Emirbayer, 2016; Martin, 2003; Mohr, 2005) have observed the emergence and spread of “spatial” theoretical approaches at the meso-level. These approaches assume the existence of bounded social spaces situated between the micro-level of individual agency an…
Journalism as Institution
Journalism has been theorized as an institution in multiple ways. Two prominent conceptualizations include journalism as an organizationally bound enterprise with routinized practices, subject to varying factors and forces in the environment; and journalism as a meso-level collective field, shaped by external forces but also capable of agency within a collective space that has negotiated boundaries, legitimacy, and an internal logic. Both represe…
Does Local News Side With Local Organizations? A Case Study of Boosterism and Dependence on Local and National Sources
This case study examines how local news tends to represent a crisis of a local organization differently from national news. Based on reviewing literature on local news boosterism, this study suggests a couple of reasons for differences between local and national news coverage: local source organizations’ boosting the city’s economy and symbolic values and variability in dependence on organizational sources by local news. When a local organization…
All forest, no trees? Data journalism and the construction of abstract categories
This study takes a sociology of quantification approach in exploring the impact of ‘commensurative’ processes in data journalism, in which distinct incidents and entities are rendered similar, aggregated, and shaped into elaborate abstract constructs. This literature emphasizes the political-economic contexts of data production and predicts a heavy reliance on government data, use of national over local data, and a tendency to take data categorie…
News Media Ecosystems and Population Dynamics: A Cross-Cultural Analysis
Much of the classic sociological research on news production was conducted at the level of the news organization (e.g. Epstein, 1973; Tuchman, 1978; Tunstall, 1971). However, for some time, scholars have also recognized that news organizations are porous, and news is influenced by the organization’s environment (e.g. Carroll and Hannan, 1995; Tichenor, Olien and Donohue, 1980). In the early to mid-1900s, Robert Park of the Chicago School of Socio…
Hyperlocal News Coverage: A Population Ecology Perspective
Adopting a population ecology perspective, this study tests the influence of population-level factors on news coverage in hyperlocal websites. Specifically, level of legitimacy of the hyperlocal website population is assessed as a predictor of frequency and favorability of coverage of local businesses and government organizations. Traditional “field-level” predictors from media sociology are also examined. Among the field-level factors tested, pr…
Russian Regional Media: Fragmented community, fragmented online practices
This study uses Bourdieu’s field theory to examine differences and similarities in digital practices among regional news organizations. Findings from interviews and field observations indicate that online journalism is fragmented in the region, with newsrooms operating on their own beliefs and interpretations. The variance can be explained by such factors as differences in managerial approaches, organizational culture, external factors, and histo…
Journalism’s fortune tellers: Constructing the future of news
How do future-of-news experts construct accounts of the future of journalism and on what do they base these accounts? What do their methods imply about manifest and latent reasons for constructing these accounts in the first place? This exploratory study adapts a model from the sociology of work, which provides a typology of strategies that guide decision-making in ‘future work’ – that is, work that involves collective and systematic efforts to p…
The Emergence and Development of News Fact-checking Sites: Institutional logics and population ecology
This study analyzes the emergence, development, and stasis of the news fact-checking website through the institutional perspectives of population ecology and institutional logics. The population ecology approach suggests that like other new media forms, fact-checking sites will mimic one another in pursuit of legitimacy, and this will encourage formation of media “populations,” and tendencies to buffer the external environment and stabilize. Over…
Shifting institutional orders and responses to technological disruption among local journalists in Russia and the U.S
This study compares U.S. and Russian news organizations’ responses to today’s disruptive environment intensified by the development of digital online technologies and global economic crisis. Findings show U.S. journalists attempt to maintain legitimacy within ‘professional’ and ‘digital network’ orders by either decoupling their digital network efforts from traditional, core operations or by assimilating digital practices within traditional journ…
Preventive journalism as a means of controlling regional media in Russia
This article utilizes new institutional theory and its principle – coercive isomorphism – to examine explicit and implicit pressures exerted on news organizations by a regional government in Russia in 2009 and 2010. The study found that while empowering regional reporters by the myth of helping underprivileged citizens, the authorities divert the media from scrutinizing the government. The political officials outsource media relations to media th…
One Profession, Multiple Identities: Russian Regional Reporters' Perceptions of the Professional Community
Drawing on perspectives on occupation and identity, this study examines Russian regional journalists' perceptions of their professional community. Different journalistic values derived from a fierce professional competition contributed to reporters' view of the community as disjointed and polarized. The study also found that type of ownership influenced journalists' identity and the way they conceptualize practice. Although journalists of private…
Managed Mediocrity: Experienced journalists’ perspectives on the “pampers generation” of Russian reporters
This paper adopts Bourdieu's field theory to examine a possible professional gap between young and experienced Russian regional journalists. In-depth interviews revealed that experienced journalists have a negative view of their young colleagues, seeing them as unskilled, poorly motivated, mediocre, and submissive to authority. In turn, beginners see the older generation as lacking dynamism and dedication to helping young reporters master profess…
Changing the news: The Forces Shaping Journalism in Uncertain Times
PART I: Introduction 1 Complexity, Uncertainty and Journalistic Change 2 Reshaping the Journalistic Culture PART II: Ideology, Culture and Institutions 3 Journalism and Democracy 4 Postmodernism, Uncertainty and Journalism 5 The Call and Challenge for Diversity 6 Communities, Cultural Identity and the News 7 Changes in Community Power Structures 8 News: Once and Future Institution? PART III: Markets, Organization and Profession 9 Market Journalis…
Mapping the journalism–blogging relationship
Using a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this article maps the journalism-blogging relationship, revealing areas of conflict between the two, vulnerabilities, and predictors of vulnerability. The systems framework suggests occupations exist within a network of other occupations and that they encroach into each other’s jurisdictional areas. A variety of factors shape these fluid processes. Factors that are external to the occup…
Institutionalism, News Organizations and Innovation
This study adopts new institutional theory from the sociology of organizations, as well as concepts from the study of social networks, to help explain news organizations' struggles to innovate in the face of uncertainty. This literature suggests organizations with institutional orientations tend to adopt fleeting change, following industry trends, or even buffering internal processes from innovation in the product. In contrast, organizations that…
The Journalist Behind the Curtain: Participatory Functions on the Internet and their Impact on Perceptions of the Work of Journalism
Through a framework from the sociology of occupations, this study examines the consequences of increasing audience participation in journalism processes. This framework suggests that increased transparency between readers and journalists may weaken the occupation's authority. A weakening of exclusive authority in the eyes of the public may leave the jurisdictional area of journalism vulnerable to rival occupations, such as bloggers. The challenge…
The Emergence and Development of News Fact-checking Sites: Institutional logics and population ecology
This study analyzes the emergence, development, and stasis of the news fact-checking website through the institutional perspectives of population ecology and institutional logics. The population ecology approach suggests that like other new media forms, fact-checking sites will mimic one another in pursuit of legitimacy, and this will encourage formation of media “populations,” and tendencies to buffer the external environment and stabilize. Over…
Field and Ecology Approaches to Journalism Innovation: The Role of Ancillary Organizations
This study assesses the roles played by journalism support organizations or “ancillary” organizations – professional associations, training centers, foundations, labs – in the dynamics of journalism innovation, from the perspectives of field theory and ecology theory. Innovation in data and computational journalism serves as the study’s case example. The roles played by ancillary organizations within a changing, complex journalism space are incre…
Media Dependency During a Large-Scale Social Disruption: The Case of September 11
This pilot study uses media systems dependency theory to examine dependencies on media after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Survey findings show degree of perceived threat and age are the key predictors of overall media dependency, and threat is a particularly important predictor of interpersonal communication about the event. Media use patterns prior to September 11 most strongly predict dependencies on individual media types. Degree of dep…
All forest, no trees? Data journalism and the construction of abstract categories
This study takes a sociology of quantification approach in exploring the impact of ‘commensurative’ processes in data journalism, in which distinct incidents and entities are rendered similar, aggregated, and shaped into elaborate abstract constructs. This literature emphasizes the political-economic contexts of data production and predicts a heavy reliance on government data, use of national over local data, and a tendency to take data categorie…
Institutional Legitimacy and Russian News: Case Studies of Four Regional Newspapers
This article explores institutional influences on Russian news media at the regional level and adopts a new institutional approach to help explain media's response to increased control by local elites. Media in the province operate partly in a clientelist system in which journalists and their organizations provide services to political and economic elites in the region in exchange for desperately needed resources. The poor economic condition of t…
Routine news: The power of the organization in visual journalism
Toward a Measure of Community Journalism
This article reports the first stage in the development of a multiple-item summated scale to measure the degree to which media outlets aid community. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of scholarship on community and news media, the article develops theoretical constructs of community and community journalism as well as general items for a summated measurement scale. Findings suggest (a) community is a process of negotiating …
Listening to News Audiences: The Impact of Community Structure and Economic Factors
This study examines influences on the degree to which news organizations attend to everyday readers through online feedback, or conversely via advertising and marketing data. Factors at the community level, the market level, and the organizational level are examined as predictors of editors’ exposure and attention to audiences. Results of a national survey indicate that most editors tend to pay attention to both online reader feedback and marketi…
Word People vs. Picture People: Normative Differences and Strategies for Control Over Work Among Newsroom Subgroups
Drawing on literature from the sociology of work, this study posits that subgroups such as design, reporting, and photography have an occupational dimension that does not necessarily serve organizational needs. These subgroups compete for control over work in an environment of normative conflict. This study explores the case of newspaper presentation work, and findings reveal several sets of norms at work in decision making about presentation. Fi…
Seeking Safe Ground: Russian regional journalists' withdrawal from civic service journalism
This paper adopts a system of professions perspective from the sociology of work to assess efforts by Russian regional journalists to redefine the purposes and standards of journalism in an increasingly constraining political and economic environment. Data from interviews and observations at four newspapers in a central Russian province reveal that journalists at these papers have responded to pressures in varied ways, suggesting fragmentation in…
Agents of meta: Institutional actors in the journalism space and the innovation of local news
This study sheds light on the increasingly important roles that meta-level organizations, a type of institutional actor, play in the processes of local journalism innovation. Examples of meta-level organizations in journalism include journalism professional associations, training and research centers, nonprofits, and trade publications. Definitionally, metalevel organizations embrace the functions of coordination, regulation, agenda-setting, info…
Russian Regional Media: Fragmented community, fragmented online practices
This study uses Bourdieu’s field theory to examine differences and similarities in digital practices among regional news organizations. Findings from interviews and field observations indicate that online journalism is fragmented in the region, with newsrooms operating on their own beliefs and interpretations. The variance can be explained by such factors as differences in managerial approaches, organizational culture, external factors, and histo…
Journalism’s fortune tellers: Constructing the future of news
How do future-of-news experts construct accounts of the future of journalism and on what do they base these accounts? What do their methods imply about manifest and latent reasons for constructing these accounts in the first place? This exploratory study adapts a model from the sociology of work, which provides a typology of strategies that guide decision-making in ‘future work’ – that is, work that involves collective and systematic efforts to p…
When blogs become organizations
This study first examines the degree to which public interest bloggers are adopting organizational forms and processes as they pursue heightened popularity, status, and advertising revenue. The study also examines the relationship between organizational form and formality of content; relationships between pursuit of revenue, organizational form and level of popularity are also assessed. Informed by classic organizational theory, the study involve…
Why Does the Beat Go on
An examination of the role of beat structure in the newsroom This article challenges the idea-common in the classic research on the construction of news-that beat structure is constant across all newspaper situations
Fields and Ecologies: Meso-Level Spatial Approaches and the Study of Journalistic Change
Recent writings in the sociology of news (Benson, 2014; Lowrey, 2017; Ryfe, 2017; Shoemaker & Vos, 2009) and in sociology more broadly (Bottero & Crossley, 2011; Fligstein & McAdam, 2012; Liu & Emirbayer, 2016; Martin, 2003; Mohr, 2005) have observed the emergence and spread of “spatial” theoretical approaches at the meso-level. These approaches assume the existence of bounded social spaces situated between the micro-level of individual agency an…
Does Local News Side With Local Organizations? A Case Study of Boosterism and Dependence on Local and National Sources
This case study examines how local news tends to represent a crisis of a local organization differently from national news. Based on reviewing literature on local news boosterism, this study suggests a couple of reasons for differences between local and national news coverage: local source organizations’ boosting the city’s economy and symbolic values and variability in dependence on organizational sources by local news. When a local organization…
Managed Mediocrity: Experienced journalists’ perspectives on the “pampers generation” of Russian reporters
This paper adopts Bourdieu's field theory to examine a possible professional gap between young and experienced Russian regional journalists. In-depth interviews revealed that experienced journalists have a negative view of their young colleagues, seeing them as unskilled, poorly motivated, mediocre, and submissive to authority. In turn, beginners see the older generation as lacking dynamism and dedication to helping young reporters master profess…
Journalism and Blogging: A test of a model of occupational competition
Adopting a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this study proposes a model to explain the vulnerabilities of journalism in the face of challenges from blogging, and the conditions under which journalists are likely to change their practices to address these vulnerabilities. A test of this model shows that editors’ awareness of local blogging activity corresponds to increased use of blogs as sources, discussion of blogs in plannin…
One Profession, Multiple Identities: Russian Regional Reporters' Perceptions of the Professional Community
Drawing on perspectives on occupation and identity, this study examines Russian regional journalists' perceptions of their professional community. Different journalistic values derived from a fierce professional competition contributed to reporters' view of the community as disjointed and polarized. The study also found that type of ownership influenced journalists' identity and the way they conceptualize practice. Although journalists of private…
What Factors Influence Control Over Work in the Journalism/Public Relations Dynamic? An Application of Theory From the Sociology of Occupations
This study applies theory from the sociology of professional control to the question, "What factors influence the power, or shifts in power, in the journalist/public relations practitioner dynamic?" A number of predictors of relative control over news coverage are assessed, including resources and proximity of source institutions, pluralism of power in communities, media competition, public ownership, organizational size, and the complexity of co…
Determinants of Newsroom Use of Staff Expertise: The Case of International News
This article examines the role of the community in determining why some news organizations invest in staff expertise in the area of international news and provide extensive international news content, while others do not. Data from daily newspapers in the US show organizational size rather than community factors to be the dominant influence on the news organization's commitment to specialization. Community factors did matter, however, and general…
Routine news: The power of the organization in visual journalism
Why Does the Beat Go on
An examination of the role of beat structure in the newsroom This article challenges the idea-common in the classic research on the construction of news-that beat structure is constant across all newspaper situations
Word People vs. Picture People: Normative Differences and Strategies for Control Over Work Among Newsroom Subgroups
Drawing on literature from the sociology of work, this study posits that subgroups such as design, reporting, and photography have an occupational dimension that does not necessarily serve organizational needs. These subgroups compete for control over work in an environment of normative conflict. This study explores the case of newspaper presentation work, and findings reveal several sets of norms at work in decision making about presentation. Fi…
Determinants of Newsroom Use of Staff Expertise: The Case of International News
This article examines the role of the community in determining why some news organizations invest in staff expertise in the area of international news and provide extensive international news content, while others do not. Data from daily newspapers in the US show organizational size rather than community factors to be the dominant influence on the news organization's commitment to specialization. Community factors did matter, however, and general…
Media Dependency During a Large-Scale Social Disruption: The Case of September 11
This pilot study uses media systems dependency theory to examine dependencies on media after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Survey findings show degree of perceived threat and age are the key predictors of overall media dependency, and threat is a particularly important predictor of interpersonal communication about the event. Media use patterns prior to September 11 most strongly predict dependencies on individual media types. Degree of dep…
The Journalist Behind the Curtain: Participatory Functions on the Internet and their Impact on Perceptions of the Work of Journalism
Through a framework from the sociology of occupations, this study examines the consequences of increasing audience participation in journalism processes. This framework suggests that increased transparency between readers and journalists may weaken the occupation's authority. A weakening of exclusive authority in the eyes of the public may leave the jurisdictional area of journalism vulnerable to rival occupations, such as bloggers. The challenge…
Mapping the journalism–blogging relationship
Using a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this article maps the journalism-blogging relationship, revealing areas of conflict between the two, vulnerabilities, and predictors of vulnerability. The systems framework suggests occupations exist within a network of other occupations and that they encroach into each other’s jurisdictional areas. A variety of factors shape these fluid processes. Factors that are external to the occup…
Effective media communication of disasters: Pressing problems and recommendations
It is clear that PIO's and journalists play crucial roles in shaping public response to terrorism and other disasters. The findings from this formative research suggest that perspectives and organizational processes often limit effective communication between these groups; though practical solutions such as participation of journalists in drills, scenario exercises, sharing of informational resources, and raising awareness at professional trade m…
What Factors Influence Control Over Work in the Journalism/Public Relations Dynamic? An Application of Theory From the Sociology of Occupations
This study applies theory from the sociology of professional control to the question, "What factors influence the power, or shifts in power, in the journalist/public relations practitioner dynamic?" A number of predictors of relative control over news coverage are assessed, including resources and proximity of source institutions, pluralism of power in communities, media competition, public ownership, organizational size, and the complexity of co…
Book Notes
Journalism and Blogging: A test of a model of occupational competition
Adopting a systems framework from the sociology of occupations, this study proposes a model to explain the vulnerabilities of journalism in the face of challenges from blogging, and the conditions under which journalists are likely to change their practices to address these vulnerabilities. A test of this model shows that editors’ awareness of local blogging activity corresponds to increased use of blogs as sources, discussion of blogs in plannin…
Toward a Measure of Community Journalism
This article reports the first stage in the development of a multiple-item summated scale to measure the degree to which media outlets aid community. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of scholarship on community and news media, the article develops theoretical constructs of community and community journalism as well as general items for a summated measurement scale. Findings suggest (a) community is a process of negotiating …
Seeking Safe Ground: Russian regional journalists' withdrawal from civic service journalism
This paper adopts a system of professions perspective from the sociology of work to assess efforts by Russian regional journalists to redefine the purposes and standards of journalism in an increasingly constraining political and economic environment. Data from interviews and observations at four newspapers in a central Russian province reveal that journalists at these papers have responded to pressures in varied ways, suggesting fragmentation in…
Institutionalism, News Organizations and Innovation
This study adopts new institutional theory from the sociology of organizations, as well as concepts from the study of social networks, to help explain news organizations' struggles to innovate in the face of uncertainty. This literature suggests organizations with institutional orientations tend to adopt fleeting change, following industry trends, or even buffering internal processes from innovation in the product. In contrast, organizations that…
Institutional Legitimacy and Russian News: Case Studies of Four Regional Newspapers
This article explores institutional influences on Russian news media at the regional level and adopts a new institutional approach to help explain media's response to increased control by local elites. Media in the province operate partly in a clientelist system in which journalists and their organizations provide services to political and economic elites in the region in exchange for desperately needed resources. The poor economic condition of t…
Managed Mediocrity: Experienced journalists’ perspectives on the “pampers generation” of Russian reporters
This paper adopts Bourdieu's field theory to examine a possible professional gap between young and experienced Russian regional journalists. In-depth interviews revealed that experienced journalists have a negative view of their young colleagues, seeing them as unskilled, poorly motivated, mediocre, and submissive to authority. In turn, beginners see the older generation as lacking dynamism and dedication to helping young reporters master profess…
Changing the news: The Forces Shaping Journalism in Uncertain Times
PART I: Introduction 1 Complexity, Uncertainty and Journalistic Change 2 Reshaping the Journalistic Culture PART II: Ideology, Culture and Institutions 3 Journalism and Democracy 4 Postmodernism, Uncertainty and Journalism 5 The Call and Challenge for Diversity 6 Communities, Cultural Identity and the News 7 Changes in Community Power Structures 8 News: Once and Future Institution? PART III: Markets, Organization and Profession 9 Market Journalis…
Listening to News Audiences: The Impact of Community Structure and Economic Factors
This study examines influences on the degree to which news organizations attend to everyday readers through online feedback, or conversely via advertising and marketing data. Factors at the community level, the market level, and the organizational level are examined as predictors of editors’ exposure and attention to audiences. Results of a national survey indicate that most editors tend to pay attention to both online reader feedback and marketi…
When blogs become organizations
This study first examines the degree to which public interest bloggers are adopting organizational forms and processes as they pursue heightened popularity, status, and advertising revenue. The study also examines the relationship between organizational form and formality of content; relationships between pursuit of revenue, organizational form and level of popularity are also assessed. Informed by classic organizational theory, the study involve…
One Profession, Multiple Identities: Russian Regional Reporters' Perceptions of the Professional Community
Drawing on perspectives on occupation and identity, this study examines Russian regional journalists' perceptions of their professional community. Different journalistic values derived from a fierce professional competition contributed to reporters' view of the community as disjointed and polarized. The study also found that type of ownership influenced journalists' identity and the way they conceptualize practice. Although journalists of private…
Shifting institutional orders and responses to technological disruption among local journalists in Russia and the U.S
This study compares U.S. and Russian news organizations’ responses to today’s disruptive environment intensified by the development of digital online technologies and global economic crisis. Findings show U.S. journalists attempt to maintain legitimacy within ‘professional’ and ‘digital network’ orders by either decoupling their digital network efforts from traditional, core operations or by assimilating digital practices within traditional journ…
Preventive journalism as a means of controlling regional media in Russia
This article utilizes new institutional theory and its principle – coercive isomorphism – to examine explicit and implicit pressures exerted on news organizations by a regional government in Russia in 2009 and 2010. The study found that while empowering regional reporters by the myth of helping underprivileged citizens, the authorities divert the media from scrutinizing the government. The political officials outsource media relations to media th…
The Emergence and Development of News Fact-checking Sites: Institutional logics and population ecology
This study analyzes the emergence, development, and stasis of the news fact-checking website through the institutional perspectives of population ecology and institutional logics. The population ecology approach suggests that like other new media forms, fact-checking sites will mimic one another in pursuit of legitimacy, and this will encourage formation of media “populations,” and tendencies to buffer the external environment and stabilize. Over…
News Media Ecosystems and Population Dynamics: A Cross-Cultural Analysis
Much of the classic sociological research on news production was conducted at the level of the news organization (e.g. Epstein, 1973; Tuchman, 1978; Tunstall, 1971). However, for some time, scholars have also recognized that news organizations are porous, and news is influenced by the organization’s environment (e.g. Carroll and Hannan, 1995; Tichenor, Olien and Donohue, 1980). In the early to mid-1900s, Robert Park of the Chicago School of Socio…
Hyperlocal News Coverage: A Population Ecology Perspective
Adopting a population ecology perspective, this study tests the influence of population-level factors on news coverage in hyperlocal websites. Specifically, level of legitimacy of the hyperlocal website population is assessed as a predictor of frequency and favorability of coverage of local businesses and government organizations. Traditional “field-level” predictors from media sociology are also examined. Among the field-level factors tested, pr…
Media Studies and Communication (37 works) · Political science (37 works) · Sociology (31 works) · Public relations (30 works) · Media studies (24 works) · Social Media and Politics (24 works) · Journalism (23 works) · Law (20 works) · Computer Science (14 works) · Politics (13 works)