Professional identity in a participatory media culture

Abstract

In today’s digital culture, media work can be seen as a stomping ground for the forces of differentiated production and innovation processes and the complex interaction and integration between work, life, and play, all of which get expressed in, and are facilitated by, the rapid development of new information and communication technologies. The new human condition, when seen through the lens of those in the forefront of changes in the way work and life are implicated in a participatory media culture, is convergent. This convergence is not just a technological process. Media convergence must also be seen as having a cultural logic of its own, blurring the lines between different channels, forms and formats, between different parts of the media enterprise, between the acts of production and consumption, between making media and using media, and between active or passive spectatorship of mediated culture. In this chapter I explore the context and consequences of media convergence for a professional identity of journalists. My understanding of convergence is based on the assumption that it contains two interdependent trends at the same time: the convergence of media industries, which in journalism means the establishment of multimedia newsrooms and integrated news companies; the convergence of media production and consumption, which in journalism refers to the increased use of the citizen-consumer as a source or co-creator of news reports, opinion and analysis. Together, these trends are part of what Jenkins as coined as the emergence of a “convergence culture” (2006), increasingly determining the business policies and managerial processes within the creative industries (Deuze, 2007).