Konvergencija redakcija u Sloveniji: Okružja rada u medijskim organizacijama Delo i Žurnal media

Newsroom convergence is a gradual global process of increasing cooperation, collaboration and combination of technologies, staff and spaces between formerly distinct editorial teams of print, television and online media that has its evolutional origins in the United States and Great Britain. However, after theoretically reconsidering the notion of newsroom convergence, doing participant observation in two Slovenian media organizations for a month, and conducting 29 problem-centered interviews with their chairmen, editors and journalists, the author suggests that newsroom convergence is not a universal, linear and technology-driven process and concludes that models of newsroom convergence vary from country to country, from medium to medium, and derive from politically, economically and culturally specific social contexts. Delo and Žurnal media originate from different newsroom traditions, play different roles in the Slovenian media ecosystem, have varying shares of the media market and differ in demography of news staff and size of news production. As a result they have adopted specific newsroom convergence models with different spatial organization and hierarchal structures that reflect a diverse relationship between journalistic norms, market norms and technology.Konvergencija redakcija je postepeni globalni proces povećanja suradnje i kombiniranja različitih tehnologija, osoblja i prostora između prije toga međusobno odvojenih uredničkih timova tiskovina, televizije i Internet medija koje se razvilo u Sjedinjenim američkim državama i Velikoj Britaniji. Unatoč tome, nakon teoretskog razmatranja pojma konvergencija redakcija, nakon što je promatrao kao sudionik u dvije slovenske medijske organizacije mjesec dana i proveo 29 intervjua povezanih s problemom s predsjednikom, urednicima i novinarima, autor sugerira da konvergencija redakcija nije univerzalan, linearan i tehnološki vođen proces i zaključuje da se modeli konvergencije redakcija razlikuju od zemlje do zemlje, od medija do medija, i proizlaze iz politički, ekonomski i kulturalno specifičnog društvenog konteksta. Delo i Žurnal media potječu od različitih uređivačkih tradicija, imaju različite uloge u slovenskom medijskom ekosistemu, imaju različite udjele na medijskom tržištu i razlikuju se u demografiji osoblja koje radi vijesti i veličini produkcije. Kao rezultat toga oni su usvojili specifične modele konvergencije redakcija s različitim prostornim organizacijama i hijerarhijskim strukturama koje odražavaju različite odnose između novinarskih normi, tržišnih normi i tehnologija

Normalizacija bloga u novinarstvu: Elektroničke novine tradicionalnih slovenskih medija

On the basis of an analysis of online newspapers from Slovene traditional media, along with interviews with their editors, the author attempts to show that power mechanisms normalize the blog as a form of communication in both the specific discourse of online newspapers and in the broader journalistic discourse. This is based on a combining of a Foucauldian understanding of the power of the norm and modern discussions about the normalization of cyberspace and the normalizing of the blog. The blog, which has in its technical structure the possibility of a complete bringing into force of the right to communicate (of the right to report and the right to receive) and promotes the idea of a critical public, moves, through this prism, away from C. W. Mills’s concept of an ideal-typical model of the public and assumes the characteristics of the mass. The blog enters a space where discourses that are in a constant struggle for hegemony intertwine, and it is for this reason that the blog has assumed a broader meaning and wider use – it has moved beyond being characterized as a personal online journal. In the article the author also confirms that, by including blogs, Slovene online newspapers draw upon the discursive status of the blog as a promoter of public discussion. This leads us to the pervasion of the discursive status of journalism and of the blog, whereby journalistic responsibility and identity, as well as journalistic ethics, remain in crisis. However, in the discursive core of the blog as a form of communication, as a result of the coming into play of a wide range of interests, we lose the individual in the subject of the blogger par excellence.Analizom elektroničkih novina slovenskih klasičnih medija i intervjuima s njihovim urednicima, autor pokušava dokazai, da snaga norme postupno normalizira blog kao obik komuniciranja kako u diskursu elektroničkih novina tako i u novinarskom duskursu općenito. Na tragu Foucoultovog razumijevanja moći norme kao i suvremenih rasprava o normalizaciji kibernetskog prostora, prepliću se i pitanja o normaliziranju bloga. Blog u svojoj tehničkoj dimenziji sadržava sposobnost za cjelovito ostvarenje komunikacijskog prava (prava priopćavanja i prava prihvaćanja informacija) te podupire ideju kritičke javnosti. Promatran kroz tu prizmu, blog se udaljuje od Millsovog idealnotipskog modela javnosti i preuzima karakteristike mase. Blog ulazi u prostor u kojem se prepliću diskursi koji su u stalnom sukobu za hegemoniju. Zbog toga je pridobio šire značenje i upotrebu i prevladao oznaku osobnog elektonskog dnevnika. Autor u članku tvrdi da slovenske novine, uključivanjem blogova u elektronička izdanja, crpe smisao iz bloga kao podsticatelja javne rasprave. Pritom, takvim širenjem interesa i prožimanjem diskurzivnih statusa novinarstva i bloga, novinarska etika, odgovornost i profesionalni indentitet dolaze u krizu, a u diskurzivnoj jezgri bloga kao oblika komuniciranja gubimo individuum u komunicirajućem subjektu, odnosno blogera par excellence

Reconsidering Participatory Journalism in the Internet Age

Participatory journalism is embedded in larger dilemmas of access, interaction, and participation, where it is used as a general rubric to refer to all forms of non-professional activities of journalistic conduct that capture the ideas of collaborative and collective action. The article suggests that the relations between journalists and the audience have changed significantly in the last decade or so: where the members of the audience have started to operate as co-producers of the news. Simultaneously, journalists are beginning to develop a sense of how to reinvent themselves as the co-creators of the content. In this regard, thinking about, and exploring, participatory journalism demands some conceptual precision; we will not be helped if it becomes a signifier for any- and everything that is not mainstream journalism. The article discusses the contexts, practices, and dilemmas of participatory journalism in three sections. In doing so, it looks at the key conceptual difficulties regarding the complexities of citizen access to public life, where various interactive possibilities of online platforms are evolving. These are set against the manifold difficulties of contemporary democracy and traditional journalism. In the concluding section, the article sets possible future paths for participatory journalism research

Societal Roles of Journalism in the Age of the Internet and Digital Television: Slovenian Online Journalists and their Self-Perceptions

This paper builds on previous international media and journalism scholarly work on societal roles of journalism, presents analysis of Slovenian online journalists’ self-perceptions and, unlike previous studies in this area, offers insights into how online journalists understand themselves through the prism of journalism’s roles in society and how they negotiate them in specific social, national and institutional contexts. In-depth interviews with online journalists of two Slovenian print media organizations, Delo and Dnevnik, are used in order to understand how they see their position in people’s ensemble of information and in their decision making. To explain the answers and to explore negotiations of normative principles of journalism in the context of specific cases, newsroom participant observation is employed. The study reveals that Delo and Dnevnik online journalists perceive their roles in society in accordance with a high-modern or classical paradigm of journalism, which emerged as a normative grounding of Slovenian journalism after the fall of socialism two decades ago. Additionally, ethnographic study indicates that online journalists under investigation have common difficulties in performing those roles in contingent institutional environments and self-deprecate themselves as news providers. Namely, online journalists cannot perform the desired critical watchdog role that they perceive as important, institutionally enforced online newswork – computer-bound shoveling of print content to the web, reassembling press agency news and translating news of foreign media – and is not regarded as journalistic byonline journalists, and their print counterparts and online staffers work in flexible labor relations, which negatively affect their motivation to make “better” journalism

Reconsidering Participatory Journalism in the Internet Age

Participatory journalism is embedded in larger dilemmas of access, interaction, and participation, where it is used as a general rubric to refer to all forms of non-professional activities of journalistic conduct that capture the ideas of collaborative and collective action. The article suggests that the relations between journalists and the audience have changed significantly in the last decade or so: where the members of the audience have started to operate as co-producers of the news. Simultaneously, journalists are beginning to develop a sense of how to reinvent themselves as the co-creators of the content. In this regard, thinking about, and exploring, participatory journalism demands some conceptual precision; we will not be helped if it becomes a signifier for any- and everything that is not mainstream journalism. The article discusses the contexts, practices, and dilemmas of participatory journalism in three sections. In doing so, it looks at the key conceptual difficulties regarding the complexities of citizen access to public life, where various interactive possibilities of online platforms are evolving. These are set against the manifold difficulties of contemporary democracy and traditional journalism. In the concluding section, the article sets possible future paths for participatory journalism research

A case study of newspaper delivery labour as a blind spot in the political economy of communication

The paper analyses newspaper delivery labour by focusing on two Slovenian companies: the media company Dnevnik and the distribution company Izberi. In response to the enduring trend of declining readership, Dnevnik attempted to cut its delivery costs by transferring that activity to a rival company Izberi, a move met with resistance from deliverers adversely affected by the transfer. Using the methods of in-depth interviews and document analysis, the paper aims to identify the economic rationalisation techniques used to reduce the costs of delivery labour, discipline the workforce and respond to the newspaper deliverers’ resistance to these techniques

Konvergencija u praksi

Tekst nudi pregled savremenih teorijskih rasprava o konvergenciji, te analizira njenu konkretnu praksu u internetskim izdanjima ljubljanskog Dela, zagrebačkog Vjesnika i beogradske Politik

Human still in the loop

The study investigates how automation novelties in the newsroom both challenge and maintain the core values of journalism\u27s professional ideology. Building on semi-structured interviews with editors of legacy news institutions in the United Kingdom and Germany, the study reveals the rationales behind the changing journalism-technology relationship and the dynamics of the re-articulation of the core ideals of journalism. In discussing automation with respect to strategic newsroom development, the interviewees see journalism\u27s professional ideology as being in a state of flux. They identify contradictions between automation and some of journalism\u27s core ideals (public service, autonomy, and objectivity) and acknowledge both the potential and limits of technology with regard to others (timeliness and ethics). Despite the growing relevance of automation for news production, human journalists are still regarded as the dominant agents in news production and its continuous reinvention. This human-still-in-the-loop perspective highlights the idea that journalism is undergoing a profound yet long transformation where new technologies are not simply appearing and changing everything, but are innovations developed and embedded in established relations of the news production process. This perspective both reiterates and challenges the prevailing meanings of journalism

"Our task is to demystify fears"

The study explores uses of algorithmic techniques in journalists\u27 working environments and investigates newsroom managers\u27 negotiations of automation as innovation process aimed at ensuring partial or full replacement of human labour with technology. Drawing from 15 qualitative interviews with representatives of newsroom management from legacy news institutions in the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, the study analyses their (cl)aims to maintain the newsroom as a stable, but dynamic working environment and reveals three dualist propositions when negotiating automation novelties - human journalistic agency stands in contrast to technology, skills are separated from newsworkers, and the creation of news contrasts with its presentation. The results show the interviewees re-articulate the dominance of human agency over technology, re-establish technological innovations as liberating newsworkers rather than subordinating them, and standardise news by re-evaluating the concept as both a civic bond and a commodity. Such considerations are detached from recent concerns about automation of human labour and closer to what we call algorithmic sublime, maintaining the newsroom management\u27s loyalty to both the professional values of journalism and the corporate goals of management