A manifesto of failure for media, communication and cultural studies

Plenary session: “Where are we going?”Karin Wahl-Jorgensen

Cardiff University(@KarinWahlJ)MeCCSA 2014

Bournemouth University

Introduction• Conference theme: “Media and

the margins”– Engagement of marginalised and

minority groups with the media• The margins of media practice:

Paying attention to the underdog• Journalism Studies: Focused on

elite media practices

Cultural studies • Media, communication and cultural studies: Disciplinary ideological

commitment to the underdog• Emphasis on questions of power, hegemony and the politics of

signification– Class, gender– Popular culture– Lived experience

The dominant paradigm and the political economy of academia

• Journalism studies: Tension between commitment to the margins and pressure to study privileged forms of practice

• The field of anthropology: “Studying down”• Journalism studies: “Studying up”

– Engaging in elite research (Conti and O’Neil 2007)

Consequences: Emphasis on elite practices

• Newsroom-centricity: Focus on material space of media production

• Emphasis on the routines, cultures, and production processes of elite newsrooms: Ignoring less glamorous, marginalised but numerically dominant forms

• Universalising the experience of elite sites of practice

Neglect of marginal practices outside the newsroom

• Westernised view of media practice.• Neglect of casualised and free-lance media work.

– E.g. 28% of journalists are now self-employed (Journalists at Work, NCTJ, 2012)

• Specialist work: E.g. arts, business, features• Focus on prestigious professional specialisations, e.g.

political journalists and foreign correspondents• BUT: Increasing work on alternative journalism

Consequences: Neglect of local journalism

• Only 10% of journalists work in national newspapers; 5% in national TV (Journalists at Work, NCTJ, 2012).

• Work on regional and local media often focused on regional production sites of national news organisations (cf. Aldridge 2006)

• Small body of research on local media (e.g. Franklin 2006; Williams et al. 2013)– Hyperlocal blogs

Emphasis on technological change and innovation

• Turn to questions of technological change and innovation (Cushion and Blumler 2013)

• Journalism and Journalism Studies: Most read and cited articles deal with convergence, technological change, social media and blogs.

• Broader trend across the field: Excitement over potential of new technologies to empower producers and audiences– E.g. MeCCSA presentations: How marginalised groups use new

technologies• Utopian tales in the face of depressing material circumstances

where “Survival is Success” (e.g. Bruno and Kleis Nielsen 2012; Ryfe 2012)

Neglect of failure• Less interest in failure and resistance to

change and innovation• Less interest in structural inequality/”digital

divide” among news organisations • Media studies: Focus on successful, “cult”

or “quality” media texts• Social movements: Focus on national and

transnational movements of high visibility (e.g. Occupy) as opposed to local/unsuccessful/marginal activisms

Sexing up scholarship? The political economy of the academy

• Researchers more likely to gain institutional approval and prestige, grant money, publications and promotions from a study of elite and innovative organisations and practices.

• Methodological and epistemological necessity for studying marginalised practices: It “no longer seems plausible to presume a generalised view of ‘journalism’ as an undifferentiated culture or shared professional canon” (Cottle 2000: 24).

• Pedagogical intervention: Training future media professionals.

Where are we going: De-centring research

• Overcoming newsroom-centricity: “Blowing up the newsroom” (Anderson 2011)

• Looking at systemic failure/breakdown: E.g. sociology of failure (Clarke and Perrow 1996)– Critical work on systemic failure of news organisations (e.g. Glasgow

Media Group)– Body of work on ethnography of journalism: failure of technological

change (e.g. Domingo and Paterson 2011; Ryfe 2012)– Ryfe, Can journalism survive: “A story of failures that anticipates the

slow demise of the model of journalism as mass communication” (Domingo 2013)