Conceiving Computer-Assisted Reporting: Optimism, materialism, and technological determinism in United States-focused textbooks

Abstract

This study examines how US-focused instructional textbooks presented newsgathering approaches associated with the Computer-Assisted Reporting (CAR) movement from the late 20th to the early 21st centuries. As newsrooms began a decades-long shift toward digitalization and data-driven, social-scientific reporting, industry thought leaders used educational texts to introduce and enculturate rank-and-file journalists into increasingly technologized practices. Analysis of 15 textbooks from before the launch of the commercial Internet through the “digital turn” of the late 2000s finds many texts focused on persuading reluctant newsworkers to get on board with CAR — suggesting a pollyannaish technological determinism regarding the potential of computer technology to save newspapers and transform society.