INTRODUCTION

Abstract

We introduce a special journal issue on new institutionalism and the news. This tradition began with the publication of Cook (1998) and Sparrow's (1999) analyses of American news media. At the time, Cook and Sparrow turned to new institutionalist concepts to explain the relative homogeneity of the American media system. In subsequent essays, the authors articulate research agendas that allow for more variation across media systems and more change over time. The essays collected in this issue take up this theme in analyses of change and variation across several news systems around the globe. Among other things, the authors show that new institutionalist concepts are useful for addressing the following research questions: has the Brazilian media system become “Americanized” in the past half century? Why have American newspapers failed to innovate in response to new technological and economic pressures? What has been the impact of YouTube on broadcast journalism practices? Why do some American news organizations produce higher quality content than other news organizations? What explains the rise of objectivity in turn-of-the-twentieth-century American news media? What has been the impact of commercialization on Scandinavian media systems? And, over the past few decades, have Chinese news media become a more autonomous watchdog of the Chinese government? Overall, the articles show new institutionalism to be a vital center linking research projects across the sub-fields of journalism studies to a common theoretical tradition.