Navigating the Scholarly Terrain: Introducing the Digital Journalism Studies Compass

Scott A Eldridge,Kristy Hess,Edson C Tandoc,Oscar Westlund

doi:10.1080/21670811.2019.1599724

Abstract

This article by the Digital Journalism Editorial Team surfaces with the explicit ambition to reassess the field of Digital Journalism Studies and map a future editorial agenda for Digital Journalism. The article dissects two important and closely interrelated questions: “What is ‘digital journalism’?”, and “What is ‘digital journalism studies’?” Building on the commissioned conceptual articles and the review article also published in this issue, we define Digital Journalism Studies as a field which should strive to critically explore, document, and explain the interplay of digital and journalism, continuity and change, and further focus, conceptualize, and theorize tensions, configurations, power imbalances, and the debates these continue to raise for digital journalism and its futures. We also present a useful heuristic device—the Digital Journalism Studies Compass—anchored around digital and journalism, and continuity and change, as a guide for discussing the direction of the growing field and this journal.

Highlights

In this article we grapple with core questions at the heart of this journal: what is digital journalism, and what is digital journalism studies? Building on the foundation outlined by founding editor-in-chief Bob Franklin in launching this journal, we begin by dissecting these two important and closely interrelated questions through discussions of debates and definitions in previous literature (Part I)
There is an inherent tension in Digital Journalism Studies between the priorities placed on either “digital” or “journalism”, as well as between “change” and “continuity”
We recognize that the quick transformations taking place in digital journalism as an object of inquiry may result in challenges with regards to what theoretical frameworks can be sensible to employ, and sometimes may be absent altogether

Summary

Introduction

In this article we grapple with core questions at the heart of this journal: what is digital journalism, and what is digital journalism studies? Building on the foundation outlined by founding editor-in-chief Bob Franklin in launching this journal, we begin by dissecting these two important and closely interrelated questions through discussions of debates and definitions in previous literature (Part I). These early studies on journalism’s transitions to the Web, and the integration of new technologies into familiar routines, identified a set of debates and discussions which have served as rocks on a cairn, incrementally building towards establishing a body of research into digital journalism; or, put differently, looking back from our current vantage point, scholars have amassed a notable body of work in the first two decades of research into the shifting nature of journalism following the emergence of the Web, which better allows us to understand the path this field has taken in its development.

Results

Conclusion