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Media content producers, from professional journalists to social media influencers, may work vastly different circumstances, though they are linked by the processes by which they manufacture or produce content for audiences. The stories and images we see, whether based on fact or fiction, are never presented simply or “naturally,” but are instead highly constructed through careful decision-making and editing. The choices about what stories to tell and how to tell them come into play both when content producers are trying to portray reality as accurately as possible and when they are trying to emphasize a particular point of view or style of presentation. This chapter suggests that journalism is a particular practice of content production, operating within a specific environment, with a set of ideals, storytelling conventions, and audience expectations that distinguish traditional “networked” journalism from other kinds of content production, including “citizen journalism” and “alternative journalism”.
Journalism, as a form of storytelling, is based on real people and real events. But rather than mirroring reality, as is often suggested, the news media frame reality, selecting particular events, particular people, and particular aspects of a story as newsworthy, while excluding many others. The gatekeeping and editorial processes that a news organization employs help establish brand identity, particularly important in today’s “attention economy.”
Journalism shares some characteristics with other forms of storytelling, it is distinguished by the guiding ideals of truth-seeking, serving democracy, independence, and objectivity. It is also very much a textual practice, from the decision of whether or not to cover an event, to how the story is covered or framed through visual or textual symbols. Moreover, journalism is a sociocultural institution that both informs and is informed by the society and culture in which it is practiced, with both political and economic implications.
While freedom of the press is one of the most fundamental rights of a democratic society, the ethical and legal rights and obligations shape the practice in a free-press environment like Canada. Freedom of the press, one of the linchpins of news reporting, does not mean that journalists are free to report whatever they choose or that news organizations can publish and broadcast with impunity. Such constraints as privacy and libel keep news producers in line with accepted notions of integrity.
While the field has a long and interesting history, the traditional economic models of journalism that sell audiences to advertisers appear to be collapsing. Ownership in the news industry has become increasingly concentrated, and most of our primary news providers are now part of converged conglomerates that treat journalism as a product like any other, resulting in qualitative changes to the content that journalists produce.
The chapter concludes by addressing how the field will continue to evolve. Alternative media seek to democratize communication, which simultaneously creates new openings in the mediascape and forces traditional media organizations to adapt by investing in new platforms and new ways of presenting stories to audiences. New forms of digital media, such as podcasting, open the field to “citizen journalists” who play an increasingly significant role in the dissemination of news. Professional journalists must similarly evolve, in terms of the nature of the content they produce as well as how their work intertwines with these newer forms of content production.