Journalists Doing Video: Evolving Professional Values in Response to Video Work

Much of the research examining how newspaper journalists respond to changing labor practices finds that journalists are terrible at change. Ryfe’s influential study of newsrooms undergoing change found that journalists tried to change but were unable to change in part because their profession’s values and habits constrained them: “The culture of journalism inhibits change” (Ryfe, 2012, p. 19). Ten years after Ryfe’s study, this dissertation uses the diffusion of innovations theoretical framework, semi-structured long interviews, a constructivist approach and grounded theory methods to examine how journalists’ responses to change in the newsroom have evolved over the past decade––a decade in which the industry’s fortunes have worsened dramatically, forcing mass layoffs, the closure of many newspapers and the spread of “news deserts” across the country. This study examines how newspaper journalists invoke their profession’s values when discussing a new form of labor they’ve been asked to do: produce social media video. Where much of the journalism innovation literature has focused on resistance to change, this study seeks to add to the literature that examines the attitudes of journalists who accept a new form of labor. Understanding what motivates journalists––and workers in all industries––to adopt and use an innovation is key to successful organization-wide adoption of innovations, and to organizations’ ability to evolve as new technologies transform their industries. Fifteen journalists at newspapers across the U.S. were interviewed to learn how journalists invoke their profession’s values when discussing social media video work, and to learn how those values are evolving. Journalists said they accept this new form of labor in part because it helps them fulfill their profession’s public service value by allowing them to reach large new audiences and to explain issues effectively. Participants repeatedly invoked journalism’s public service and truth values as motivators, as they have in past research. Interviews also found that journalists’ attitudes toward how “quality” is defined are evolving, as are attitudes toward “the wall” that in traditional journalistic culture separates journalists from the commercial side of a newspaper’s operations.2024-08-0