This document discusses research into how digital tools are transforming newspaper newsrooms. It explores how reporters and editors are adjusting to new technologies and the changing nature of their work. The research examined how physical newsroom spaces are evolving and how culture and social patterns are changing as skills and roles adapt to the digital environment. It also identifies some strategies that were found to help with this transition, such as connecting technology to journalists' values, giving online editors more authority, and recognizing how the process and expectations of news work are being altered.
HARNESSING AI FOR ENHANCED MEDIA ANALYSIS A CASE STUDY ON CHATGPT AT DRONE EM...
Robinson. 2009.
1. News Work, News Space in
the Transforming Digital
Newsroom
Sue Robinson
The University of Wisconsin-Madison
April 2009
CONVERGENCE CRISES
2. Reporter 1: I guess we’re getting
laptops. I feel like I need one …
But I also feel like we’re being
co-opted into the 24-7 world,
man. It never ends.
Reporter 2: I am too old for this
shit. I can’t wait until I retire.
3. Research Questions
1) Values, considerations, assumptions
influencing physical virtual transition
2) How are digital tools affecting news
performance?
3) How has the newsroom’s culture changed?
4) What works? Are changes in ‘real world’
creating hoped-for digital transformations?
4. Newspaper Culture Lingers: Even among
staffs directed to go completely virtual
Mobile, cyber-newsroom: Inhospitable to
old-world reporters
Changed Social Patterns: According to
digital skills
Technology = Replacing journalism
“[The digital camera] makes you feel a
little more small time, like you’re writing
for some little weekly.”
Findings
6. Combining Staffs, Changing Physical Space
“What? It’s ‘let’s paint the walls and
move stuff around’? Please. How is that going
to help anyone?”
BUT
Being able to see online editors had “put them
in the front of my mind, whereas before I
never really thought about them because I
could not see them from where I was
sitting.”
7. Connecting Technology to Journalists’ Values
Better Stories (multiple drafts of a story)
More Sources and Scoops
Larger Audiences:
“As reporters began to realize that they
now had a national and international
audience, they warmed up to web.”
**** Hire trainer to guide them from physical
world to virtual one
8. Giving Authority to Online Editors
Visual Presence (as in meetings)
Organizational Leadership
Delegation Authority (assigning
stories)
“I’m not sure if [Online Editor] can tell me
I have to post. Can he? I already have one
boss.”
9. Building in Physical Reminders of Journalism
Prioritize Stories
Perpetuate Bylines/Photos/Emails
Archive, Aggregate News Work
Create Journalist Sub-Brands
It was so buried, I felt, what is the
point? Sometimes it seems that we lose
our soul.”
10. Recognizing Altered News Work
Journalism as a Process (An
Unfinished Story, but also:
Journalistic Opportunities)
Omnipresent Work, Cross Platform
Work
Management Expectations
Notas del editor
What values, considerations and assumptions influence the creation of physical/virtual newsroom spaces in transitioning organizations?
2) What works in this environment? Are the changes in the ‘real world’ creating the hoped-for digital changes in the newsroom’s culture
3) What is the connection between new digital tools, news work and news space that results in performance, and how do these concepts intersect in the newsroom?
the presence of the laptop changes
the relationship that a reporter has with his work activity (his labor ie the idea that he can work from home, that work is always present and his resulting efficiency and resentment),
the relationship he has with his company/brand (his product; ie a blog written from an event, a blog turning reporter himself into an extension of the brand, a brand within a brand),
the relationship a reporter has with his newsroom community (ie emails and ims and development of online cliques defying a former cubicle-based culture) and also
the relationship he has with his management (workplace organizational power).
the relationship that the reporter has with his audiences,
No more byline counts. Be aware of where your reporters are.