Towards an Institutional News Logic of Digital Native News Media? A Case Study of BuzzFeed’s Reporting During the 2015 and 2017 UK General Election Campaigns

Abstract

Informed by new institutional perspectives to debates about theorising media logic, this study asks whether a popular digital native media platform has, over time, conformed to a singular news logic associated with the norms and routines of legacy media. Drawing on a content analysis of 399 BuzzFeed news items and 1878 sources during the 2015 and 2017 UK general election campaigns, we established that coverage had shifted, reflecting an editorial agenda that is consistent with how legacy media have long reported politics. In the 2017 election campaign there was more substantive policy reported, new specialist reporters employed, a greater reliance on institutional sources, particularly from established legacy media, and a sharper focus on the two main political parties. Overall, we argue that, as digital native media have evolved, become more popular and interconnected with legacy media, the norms and routines of their news reporting are not necessarily that distinguishable from a singular, institutional news media logic.