What is it about?
We analyze to what extent Public Service Media (PSM) organizations in six European countries have reorganized their newsrooms and restructured their workflows in order to adapt to an increasingly digital media environment. Our interviews with senior editors and managers at those organizations have shown that digitization has put them under pressure to move away from a production and distribution model focused only on TV and radio and to adopt multi-platform approaches. However, the extent to which this has been accomplished differs hugely and full integration is not even always seen as desirable. Our findings suggest that centralizing online news under a single operational roof — only recently undertaken and still incomplete at several PSM — is a necessary first step to more thorough editorial reorganization across platforms. In addition, our analysis makes clear that PSM approaches to convergence are path-dependent and deeply rooted in historical, political, and institutional factors.
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Why is it important?
Based on 67 interviews over two years with senior editors and managers at eight European Public Service Media, this study constitutes the largest comparative analysis of newsroom change among PSM organizations conducted to date.
Perspectives
With this article, we hope to take a major step towards a more systematic study of PSM, especially from a comparative perspective, and to add a vital missing perspective to existing research on how newsrooms are adapting to a digital media environment.
Annika Sehl
Bundeswehr University Munich
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Newsroom Integration As An Organizational Challenge, Journalism Studies, August 2018, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/1461670x.2018.1507684.
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