The mediatization of journalism

Abstract

Proposing an explanation of current macro-sociological changes and institutional transformations in journalism, this article argues that journalism is currently undergoing a process of mediatization. Drawing upon the international research literature as well as statements from interviews with news workers working on Danish news websites, the article examines four current trends in journalism that are closely connected to the rise of news on the web, namely the use of the affordances of news websites, radical commercialization, increased audience participation in news production, and the increased multi-skilling and simultaneous de-skilling of journalists. Taken together, these trends reflect a process through which journalism increasingly subsumes itself to the logic of the media, suggesting mediatization as an adequate explanatory framework. One implication of such a process is that journalism seems to be transforming from an occupational profession into an organizational one.