Abstract
This article presents a case study of a news organization examined when it was introducing a proprietary content management system (CMS) for social journalism. The CMS enables users to publish, form groups, and follow one another to create personalized local health news feeds. Applying the mutual shaping of technology (MST) construct in analysis organized according to the hierarchy of influences model, this article examines how the CMS influenced the news organization and vice versa. Even in an organization with a great deal of control over a small innovation, the predominant perception was that the CMS was a technological incursion rather than a tool to be molded. Instead of asserting professional norms over the technology as social shapers, journalists focused on managing changes in routines and organizational structures and on managing perceptions about the “experiment.” The project has stagnated. This article discusses why, and it addresses the usefulness of the MST construct for examining innovation iterations in news organizations.
Highlights
Mass communication scholars interested in evolving information and communication technologies and their impact on the field of journalism have argued convincingly that the news media of the future will be liquid, in a constant state of flux (Deuze, 2006, 2008, 2011; Karlsson & Strömbäck, 2010; Singer, 2011)
What can happen when a news website attempts to ride the wave of technological change and create its own form of ambient journalism? In this case study, an organization developing a socially networked news content management system (CMS) was examined in depth to see how the development of the CMS influenced journalists and how they in turn shaped its features and functions
The findings are broken down according to the levels of the hierarchy of influences model
Summary
Mass communication scholars interested in evolving information and communication technologies and their impact on the field of journalism have argued convincingly that the news media of the future will be liquid, in a constant state of flux (Deuze, 2006, 2008, 2011; Karlsson & Strömbäck, 2010; Singer, 2011). News media of the future, they argue, will be more and more participatory in structure and conversational in tone (Bardoel, 1996; Bardoel & Deuze, 2001; Boczkowski, 2004b; Karlsson & Strömbäck, 2010; Lewis, 2012; Nip, 2009; Singer et al, 2011). What can happen when a news website attempts to ride the wave of technological change and create its own form of ambient journalism? In this case study, an organization developing a socially networked news content management system (CMS) was examined in depth to see how the development of the CMS influenced journalists and how they in turn shaped its features and functions
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