Unpacking communication tensions in visual transmediation from print to digital papers

Abstract

AbstractThe interest in visual transmediation in newsrooms has emerged against a backdrop of multimodal change in design practice. Visualization in news websites can be described as having new requirements and considerations of transforming textural reportage. In this article I consider communication tensions evolved as the result of contemporary media convergence in the newsrooms, and combine them in discussion on how visual journalists make collective effects in practice. Empirical materials involving the fieldwork about in-house visual journalists’ routines, activities and practices are collected from two Finnish newsrooms, respectively Helsingin Sanomat (HS) and Lapin Kansa (LK). Considering media convergence in newsrooms, I focus on an elaboration on the visual transmediation in the two newsrooms with ethnographic research tools, particularly in corporate settings. In doing so I reveal some of the limitations and possibilities emerged in visual transmediation from print to digital papers in the newsr...