Two Discourses of Professionalism and Their Handling of Technological Affordances and Social Media During a Domestic Terror Event

• In Event: Digital Technologies in the Newsroom: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

July 22, 2011, saw the biggest domestic terror event in Norway since World War II. On this day, a rightwing terrorist placed a bomb in front of the Norwegian government building, where the prime minister had his office at the time. Later, the same perpetrator dressed up as a policeman and tricked his way into a political youth camp, where sixty-nine mostly young people were killed. The present case study involves the leading national online news provider, VG, whose website, VG Nett, was Norway’s most-read online news site at the time of the 22 July attack, and addresses the research gap of how news workers and managers take advantage of the potential of the affordances of digital media. Tis study asks how such a potential is handled during crises events..Furthermore the study looks at how two different discourses of professionalism, the occupational and the organizational, informed journalists’ use of technological affordances, and particularly affordances which come with social media, during this terror event, and at how online journalists and management reflect upon and continue to refine these approaches five years later. Time and again, studies have found that news workers have a deterministic view of technological affordances in general, and this study stresses the importance of a clear understanding of the decision-making processes that actually guide the handling of those affordances during a crisis event. Ultimately, this study questions not the perceived tension between the two discourses of professionalism but their relative impact upon domestic crisis journalism in the technological realm.

Author

• Maria Konow-Lund, Oslo and Akershus College U