David Domingo, UniversitatRoviraiVirgili (Tarragona, Catalonia) (OBS*) International Seminar: Broadband Media Lisboa, September 23, 2009

 Reflections based on:  Making Online News: The Ethnography of New Media Production (2008, Peter Lang). Edited with Chris Paterson.  Audience Participation in Online Newspapers: Guarding Open Gates (Forthcoming, Routledge). With Jane Singer, Thorsten Quandt, Alfred Hermida, Ari Heinonen, Steve Paulussen, Marina Vujnovic, Zvi Reich.

 Technology is adopted in specific contexts  Adoption is historically embedded  Decision-making is an open, dynamic process  => Newsrooms have agency  => No room for technological determinism

 Network of actors  Mapping power relationships  Defining positions, conflicting definitions  Process of translations  Obligatory points of passage  Black boxes

 Strong mythical discourses  Buzzwords change, myths stay  Technological innovations push  Media follow the trail  Mimicry effect  Decisions still made locally  Ethnography to assess how myths are translated into real practices

 Immediacy as the key Internet myth for journalism  Consequences:  Focus on breaking news  Dependency on news wire copy  Lack of resources for other activities

 External factors:  Broadband development  Boom of user-generated video  Internal processes:  Different solutions in different contexts  Cases: 3 Catalan newsrooms ▪ Public broadcaster ▪ Newspaper ▪ Online-only news site

 International comparative study of journalist attitudes towards audience participation  Motivations:  Inevitable: audience wants to participate  Economic: fostering audience loyalty  Journalistic: new sources  Democratic: public debate

ObservationSelectionProductionDistributionInterpretation

 Separate team to manage audience participation  Protecting journalists role and routines  Different solutions possible:

 Journalism seems to be conservative regarding innovation  Professional culture and identity strongly shape technologies  Materiality matters: decisions taken affect the work of journalists  Economic context matters: resources, revenue strategies

 Innovation is possible: nothing is pre-determined  Knowing factors involved in the process empowers newsrooms  There are few explicit structures for innovation management

Feedback welcomed!