Deconstructing or Reinforcing Binaries? How Scholars Position Non-Journalists in Global Conflict Reporting

Abstract

This article interrogates the level of appreciation of the informational ecology that informs today’s news production. Through a scoping review of literature on media production in global conflict between 2000 and 2019, we assess how the study of non-journalistic actors evolved in scholarship across the human and social sciences. The article specifically examines if these non-journalistic actors are gauged as proximal to professional journalism and/or in their own terms as alternative content producers. The findings showed first, that there is a dearth in studies about non-traditional actors in global conflict reporting, with most publications focusing on traditional news producers as the only sources of information. Second, we identified a continuum across the sampled articles where traditional media and journalism act as the fulcrum in analysing the contributions of non-traditional actors. The logic of journalism provides the main frame of analysis to assess non-traditional actors, establishing firm binaries between journalists and non-journalists. Third, this study found only a very limited number of studies deconstructing these binaries through focusing on non-traditional actors as contributors to an ever-growing informational ecology. In light of these findings, this paper encourages research that problematises the positions between information producers in global conflict reporting.