Live publishing: the onstage redeployment of journalistic authority

Abstract

In the past 5 years, live, in-person events have become significant revenue sources for industries ranging from high-tech to music. This article explores the rise of live events within one such industry – journalism – linking the rise of ‘live publishing’ to post-industrial career norms and digital economy business models. Drawing on interviews with 10 media companies and participant observation at two conferences produced by The Wall Street Journal, this article shows how media companies position themselves as the legitimate conveners of conferences and forums by redeploying traditional discourses of cultural authority; this enables them to bring together their existing networks of sources, audience members, and sponsors. By convening these groups in a physical space, live publishing takes isolated nodes within media organizations’ networks and renders them visible and accessible to each other, allowing media firms to extract value from these previously immaterial relationships. More broadly, live publishing demonstrates how the interaction of virtual and physical networks allows organizations to transform and redeploy cultural authority into new systems of networked power.