The Paradox of Connection: How Digital Media Is Transforming Journalistic Labor

by Diana Bossio, Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, Avery E. Holton, Logan Molyneux

Overview

Using a framework of online connection and disconnection, The Paradox of Connection examines how journalists’ practices are formed, negotiated, and maintained in dynamic social media environments. The interactions of journalists with the technological, social, and cultural features of online and social media environments have shaped new values and competencies—and the combination of these factors influence online work practices. Merging case studies with analysis, the authors show how the tactics of online connection and disconnection interact with the complex realities of working in today’s media environments. The result is an insightful portrait of fast-changing journalistic practices and their implications for both audiences and professional identities and norms.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252087738
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	02/27/2024
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	184
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Diana Bossio is a senior lecturer in Media and Communication at Swinburne University and the author of Journalism and Social Media: Practitioners, Organisations, and Institutions. Valérie Bélair-Gagnon is an associate professor and Cowles fellow in media management at the University of Minnesota and the author of Social Media at BBC News Reporting and coauthor of Journalism Research that Matters and Happiness in Journalism . Avery E. Holton is an associate professor and department chair in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah. Logan Molyneux is an associate professor of journalism at Temple University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Defining Connection and Disconnection in Journalism

1    Journalism and the Paradox of Connection

2    Burning Out, Turning Off, and Disconnection

Part II: Connection and Disconnection in Organizational Contexts

3    Maintaining Professional Connections through Branding

4    Dis/connecting from Policy and Practice

Part III: Connection and Disconnection for Changing Journalistic Practice

5    Connecting with Journalism in an Era of Misinformation

6    Harassment and Disconnection in Journalism’s Digital Labor

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

 

Editorial Reviews

The Paradox of Connection shows strikingly how professional journalists negotiate with the promises and perils of the connected world and walk the line between personal branding, organizational pressures, and private life. The book provides a compelling snapshot of how journalists fine-tune their connectivity and offers tools for us all to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of living online. Social media tools have revolutionized journalism. Yet professional pressure to live online, online abuse and harassment, and increasingly precarious and unpaid labor have gone hand in hand with people in the trade mediating ever more complex forms of online communication.”—Tero Karppi, author of Disconnect: Facebook’s Affective Bonds

From the Publisher