Between tradition and change

Abstract

Online news media have become a key part of social, economic, and cultural life in many societies. Research about these media has grown dramatically, especially in the past few years, but there have been few reviews of this research and none of the most recent scholarship. This article reviews scholarship on online news production published since 2000. It examines research on five key topics: historical context and market environment, the process of innovation, alterations in journalistic practices, challenges to established professional dynamics, and the role of user-generated content. A tension between tradition and change emerges from this discussion and is evident at two levels. First, the world of practice seems to straddle the re-enactment of established forms and tinkering with alternative pathways. Second, the modes of inquiry oscillate between using existing concepts to look at new phenomena and taking advantage of these phenomena to rethink these concepts and come up with new ones. The article concludes by identifying shortcomings in the existing scholarship and suggesting avenues for future studies to overcome them. It suggests how scholarship on online news production could contribute to rethinking some of the fundamental building blocks of understanding communication and society in the contemporary media environment.