Mapping Moderation: Cultural Intermediation Work and the Field of Journalism in Online Newsrooms

This study investigates the work of moderating and managing audience comments in two Australian online news organisations to find how their staff conceive, practice, value, and develop these new intermediary duties. Using a Bourdieusian analytical framework, it examines whether these work roles operate as new forms of cultural intermediation in news production and how they are influenced by ‘the field of journalism’, which comprises journalism’s power relations, norms, logics and history. Using interviews and participant observation, this study comprehensively documents the distinct objectives, tasks and practices of comment moderators and community managers, as well as identifying the people, aspects of social and cultural capital, and organisational systems that have influenced their approaches to the work. The study demonstrates that comment moderation and management work culturally intermediate between the organisation, readers, and commenters as fringe producers, with a focus on communicating the organisation’s vision for comment sections. However, it finds a distinction between the tasks and workplace status of comment moderators and community managers and reveals prioritisation’s importance in shaping discussions’ flow and tenor. The field of journalism significantly influences this work, as workers with journalism experience evaluated comments based on their contribution or adherence to journalistic values. Participants’ field alignment also affected how they moderated comments or managed their community, with most comparing their comment sections and practices to those of other prominent journalistic organisations. These results show the need for more development of cultural intermediation strategies and techniques to enable online news organisations to build constructive commenting communities while communicating their editorial values