Digital Media and the Diversification of Professionalism: A U.S.-German Comparison of Journalism Cultures

• In Event: Journalistic Professionalism and Professional Roles

Abstract

Social media adoption reveals two dynamics in journalism: 1) diversification of professionalism, which is accompanied by a media environment that is increasingly hybrid and 2) corroboration of professionalism, which is connected to tendencies in journalism of normalizing new technologies. This paper is based on ethnographic research on social media adoption and engagement of two groups of political reporters in the US and Germany. Aside from a similar sense of accelerated news cycles, the two press corps had very different adoption experiences. For US reporters, hybridity of traditional and digital journalisms did not only have practical implications but changed their professional self-conception. Even though German reporters use the same digital media (except blogs), they did not nearly have the same impact. This is explained by media systemic factors, particularly different states of the crisis of news media, and distinctive cultural commitments of journalism in Germany and the United States.

Author

• Matthias Revers, Goethe-University Frankfurt