Media crisis and its effects on digital journalism careers in Canada

Abstract

This article discusses how the evolution of media industry in Canada affects the construction of identities and careers in digital journalism. It is based on 17 in-depth interviews with professionals working in Canadian Anglophone and Francophone media. Based on an interactionist theoretical approach, this article underlines how journalists negotiate their career project in a scenario of precariousness and deterioration of the job market in Canadian journalism. In this regard it highlights the strategies of resistance and resilience adopted by some interviewees in contrast to the international discourses that aim to restructure their practices and identities. This results in a conservative approach to adapting to the professional identity in digital journalism – which in fact translates into segmentation and diversification of the status that comes with this profession.