What is Digital Journalism Studies? delves into the technologies, platforms, and audience relations that constitute digital journalism studies’ central objects of study, outlining its principal theories, the research methods being developed, its normative underpinnings, and possible futures for the academic field.
The book argues that digital journalism studies is much more than the study of journalism produced, distributed, and consumed with the aid of digital technologies. Rather, the scholarly field of digital journalism studies is built on questions that disrupt much of what previously was taken for granted concerning media, journalism, and public spheres, asking questions like: What is a news organisation? To what degree has news become separated from journalism? What roles do platform companies and emerging technologies play in the production, distribution, and consumption of news and journalism? The book reviews the research into these questions and argues that digital journalism studies constitutes a cross-disciplinary field that does not focus on journalism solely from the traditions of journalism studies, but is open to research from and conversations with related fields.
This is a timely overview of an increasingly prominent field of media studies that will be of particular interest to academics, researchers, and students of journalism and communication.
List of Figures
List of Tables
Foreword
1 The Introduction: The Premises and Principles of Digital Journalism Studies
2 The Definitions: Current Debates and a Framework for Assessing Digital Journalism Studies
3 The Technologies: Unpacking the Dominant Object of Study in Digital Journalism Studies
4 The Platforms: Distributions and Devices in Digital Journalism
5 The Theories: How Digital Journalism is Understood
6 The Assumptions: The Underlying Normativity of Digital Journalism Studies
7 The Methodologies: How Digital Journalism is Researched
8 The Futures: Deconstructions of and Directions for Digital Journalism Studies
Selected references
Biography
Steen Steensen is Professor of Journalism and former (2016–2020) Head of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University. He currently leads the international research project Source Criticism and Mediated Disinformation (2020–2024). He is associate editor of Journalism Practice and has a background as a journalist.
Oscar Westlund (PhD) is Professor at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, where he leads the OsloMet Digital Journalism Research Group. He holds secondary appointments at Volda University College and the University of Gothenburg. He is the editor-in-chief of Digital Journalism. He leads The Epistemologies of Digital News Production research project funded by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.
