The Networked Newsroom: Navigating New Boundaries of Work

ABSTRACT

As newsrooms build new audiences and revenue streams, there are considerations around the impact of digitalization on journalistic labour. This paper explores journalists’ perceptions of how digital technologies influence their work, and the role of technology in furthering managerial control and extracting labour power. Building on an earlier study of freelance workers in the Republic of Ireland this exploratory paper examines if the concept of digital labour, can be expanded to include the work of salaried journalists. Specifically, the article considers how digital technologies are shifting the boundaries and the nature of work in journalism. The research is informed by a theoretical framework, drawn from labour process theory. Using this theory, the linkages between digital labour and work processes are considered to explore the perceived effects of digitalization on how journalists work. The main findings suggest organizations are increasingly extracting more labour power, requiring journalists to produce more over longer hours. Salaried journalists also report an implicit rather than a contractual obligation to participate in additional and unpaid digital labour to meet employer expectations. These developments, it is argued, have not only shifted the boundaries of news work but also further tilted the balance of power in favour of news organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Digitalization
• digital labour
• journalism
• labour process theory
• social media

Introduction

As digital technologies and social media networks become increasingly integrated into newsrooms, there are implications for journalistic labour and challenges for journalists seeking to navigate new boundaries of work. There is growing literature on how journalists use online platforms (Lariscy et al. 2009); on the role of social media policies in newsrooms (Duffy and Knight 2019); and how audiences, through social networks, influence journalists during the news production processes (Ferrucci 2018).

However, as argued by Örnebring (2010), scholarship has not been successful in placing changes in journalism within the wider context of changes in work, employment and occupations. More recently Cohen (2019) has emphasized the need for greater focus in journalism studies on the labour experiences of journalists working in digital newsrooms and digital first start-ups, and the structural conditions shaping their work. This paper explores the experiences of journalists working in print media and broadcast newsrooms to ascertain the perceived effects of digitalization on how they work and their levels of autonomy and control over their labour processes. Specifically, the article seeks to address the following research question: how are digital technologies shifting the boundaries and the nature of work in journalism? In doing so it seeks to contribute to the demand for a more labour focused agenda in journalism studies (Cohen 2019; Örnebring 2010).

The research approach is informed by a theoretical framework drawn from labour process theory, an important Marxist approach in the study of relations of production in industrial capitalism. Of specific interest, and following Cohen (2015) and Örnebring (2010), is the relationship between technology and labour. Digital technologies do not act on their own to shape journalist’s experiences but are also deployed by news organizations in the production process, to increase profits and lower labour costs. A growing body of research has examined digital labour, in particular, the activities of unpaid consumers and their exploitation in digital capitalism (Fuchs and Sevignani 2013; Fuchs 2015; Jarrett 2015; Casilli 2017). This article explores if concepts of digital labour can be expanded to include the work of paid producers, in this instance salaried journalists and editors.

The findings of this paper are based on exploratory interviews with salaried journalists and editors working for legacy regional and national news organizations in the Republic of Ireland. These respondents, it is posited, represent an important unit of analysis, given the lack of scholarly focus on the effects of digitalization on journalists still working for legacy media organizations or in transitional newsrooms (O'Donnell, Zion, and Sherwood 2016). Staff journalists and editors were the appropriate research sample to examine if and where perceptions might diverge given their varied professional roles and occupational differences as employees and management, respectively. The article focuses on the temporal and spatial boundaries of work given that they can be manipulated to increase productivity (Rubery et al. 2005). It is argued that the “networked newsroom” is not a fixed place but has steadily become an omnipresent factor in the life of a contemporary journalist who is constantly “plugged in” to the production, distribution, and consumption spheres. In other words, the “networked newsroom” is not simply the fixed point of the traditional newsroom; it is everywhere the journalist is. This acts not only to blur boundaries of work and leisure time, but increases labour time, and adds additional layers to the work process via monitoring and audience engagement tasks.

The paper is structured as follows: the first two sections situate the study using labour process theory as the theoretical lens. Using this theory, the linkages between digital labour and work process are considered to explore the perceived effects of digitalization on how journalists work and the implications for labour capital relations. After the methodology the main findings are discussed under two main themes: pressure to engage and breaking the news. The context of Ireland is of interest as it is considered to have one of the most concentrated media markets of any democracy (Jonathan et al. 2016, 4). The two major media companies, (both represented in the data) are the state broadcaster, Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTE), and International News and Media (INM), the second largest news source in Ireland. The latter publishes national daily newspapers, Sunday newspapers, 13 regional titles and also operates multiple websites. In 2019, INM was acquired by the Belgian group Mediahuis for €146 million (Burke-Kennedy 2019). Soon after the acquisition Mediahuis flagged staff reductions to facilitate what it termed “necessary digital acceleration” (Slattery 2019). The Irish broadcasting sector has also undergone considerable change in the last decade. TV3, the second largest Irish TV network, was bought by Virgin Media for €80 m in 2015 while the continued “unsustainable” losses (Suiter 2018) at the State broadcaster RTE in recent years, has led to plans for 200 job cuts and a 15% pay cut for the organizations top earners (Kelly 2019). In February 2021, Irish Businessman Denis O’Brien agreed the sale of his Communicorp media empire—which consists of Ireland’s two only national commercial radio stations as well as number of local stations—to European media business Bauer Media, for in excess, of €100 m (Curran 2021).

Journalism, Technology, and New Boundaries of Work

Fundamental elements of labour process theory are that management has a “control imperative” to minimize the indeterminacy of labour and maximize labour productivity and profitability (Jaros 2005). The forms of managerial control can be complex and varied (Thompson and Van den Broek 2010) and a labour process lens has been an important vehicle for illuminating the “degradation of work under the impact of new forms of capitalist production and management” (Thompson and Smith 2009, 916). Its emphasis on management control can be challenging when considering contemporary journalistic practice in particular when trying to distinguish between what management expects of journalists and what journalists are “voluntarily” doing themselves. The convergence of new technologies and the growth of new ways of producing and consuming information have significantly changed the profession of journalism and work processes (Deuze 2008). The fundamental challenge is that newsgathering, production and distribution can now occur simultaneously across different media platforms, and this instant nature of distribution has led to the streamlining of editorial processes, requiring journalists to learn multi-media production techniques. As discussed by Neilson (2018, 3), many tasks in news production including the gathering, filtering, and production of information are mediated by digital devices including content management software. Moreover, as journalism continues its migration to online platforms, journalists cannot be conceived simply as writers anymore, but must also be photographers, subeditors, audio recorders and camera operators.

Örnebring (2010) argues how journalists often view significant changes to their working lives as a result of technology, not because they are committed to technological determinism as a social theory but because they “seem to view technology and technological development as inevitable, impersonal forces that directly cause many of the changes taking place within journalism” (Örnebring 2010, 58). It is important not to be overly deterministic about the role of technology and the internet in the context of financialization and monopolization in the media sphere, which as some scholars suggest is "a long-term secular trend typical of capitalist industry” (Silke 2017). In his testimony to the US Senate, journalist and filmmaker David Simon, points to some of the key changes which occurred in the news industry, including media concentration and cutbacks that long preceded the online revolution (Simon 2009). Likewise, Almiron (2010) in her book Journalism in Crisis: Corporate Media, describes financialized, multimedia, communication groups today as “more of a market power” than “than guardians of liberty, creators of consensus, egalitarian democratizers, or subverters of the structures of authority” (Almiron 2010, 175–176).

As journalism scholars have found (see Cohen and Ornebring), labour process theory provides an appropriate theoretical lens with which to consider how technologies are deployed by organizations in the production process often in the context of organizational restructuring to increase profits and reduce labour costs. In some news organizations, digital first strategies require journalists to publish instantly but often without investing in the necessary training and support resulting in increasingly pressurized production arrangements, higher stress levels and burn-out rates (Paulussen 2012). Örnebring (2010) points to much of the seminal studies on journalism practice (Gans 1979; Tuchman 1978), which were ethnographic, and focused on journalistic routines and practices rather than management control over the labour process or the dilution in journalists’ perceived levels of autonomy over the labour process. Cohen (2019) argues for the expansion of contemporary labour-focused research that addresses “the complex ways media corporations are entangled with new, often very powerful actors that are situated outside of the direct labor–capital relationship but which have enormous influence on how media corporations operate and how journalists work” (Cohen 2019, 575). These new labour processes include the need for journalists to produce content for multi-platform use while often engaging in simultaneous audience interaction on social media outlets.

Journalists as Digital Labourers

The concept of digital labour is useful when exploring how journalists work, as it considers the ways in which both digital and networked technologies act to shape contemporary labour markets and work processes (Neilson 2018, 2). Marxism has been influential and continues to inform understandings of digital labour (Whittaker 2019), which is conceived by Fuchs and Sevignani (2013, 237) as having two elements: how the dominant capital accumulation model of contemporary internet platforms is based primarily on the exploitation of the users who are in fact the creators of content; and secondly on the sale of information commodities to advertisers based on the users’ social media use. Journalists are defined as cultural workers in the literature (see for example Cohen 2015) and journalism is often considered for its social role as expressed in journalistic ideologies such as the “fourth estate” (Deuze 2005).

However, journalistic labour, prestigious or not, remains a commodity that is sold by workers utilizing production equipment and intellectual work to create news and audience commodities (Smythe 1977). This, as with any other industry, involves a labour process working within class relations (Fuchs 2009). Journalism as a form of intellectual labour has never had clear temporal divides between work and leisure time. While certain types of contemporary journalism, most notably in fast-paced newsrooms, may resemble an intellectual factory, other forms of journalism like feature writing, documentary, or investigative journalism provide journalists with more autonomy. Journalism by its nature happens everywhere and not just within the confines of the newsroom, though certain work processes and routines exist in other ways to construct news (Tuchman 1973). Neilson (2018) and Scholz (2012) note a blurring of the distinction between work and leisure online, alongside the incorporation of affective and unpaid work. Similarly, Hayes and Silke (2018) found the conflation of work and leisure time to be an emerging trend among freelance journalists in the Republic of Ireland. This not only acts to blur boundaries of work but has implications for labour capital relations if management is using this to extract more labour power from employees.

One of the key normative conceptions of journalism is that of its role as “watchdog” on democracy, holding power to account. Journalistic practice does not always align with these ideals as increasingly the working journalist must be cognizant of the different interests of their employers, advertisers and consumers while carrying out their role (Hall 1986). According to Singer (2003), one of the biggest challenges to the notion of professional autonomy in journalism stems from inadequate independence from commercial pressures and the organizational structure of some online news operations. As newsrooms converge and downsize, journalists have seen their workplaces radically transformed which has often resulted in less autonomy and control over work processes (Sherwood and O’Donnell 2018). Public interest agendas have also been demoted as editorial decisions are increasingly influenced by web analytics, and attention-grabbing clickbait (see Tandoc, Hellmueller, and Vos 2013; Blom and Hansen 2015). In their research on journalism as a profession “under pressure”, Witschge and Nygren’s (2009) discuss how “the defense of the profession from within seems to indicate that journalists are at least not ready to let go of the professional standards” (2009, 57). The journalists they interviewed describe how technological developments have led to a more stressful work environment, with more production problems and more errors in the news published.

The concept of immaterial work, as part of digital labour, as discussed by Jarrett (2015) also has salience in journalistic working practices; in particular, the need and expectation of journalists to keep track of various social media networks, making contacts via social media, and engaging with readers (Hayes and Silke 2018). Earlier studies have discussed this internationally; for example, Neilson (2018) questions how journalists can separate their work from their personal lives when sharing content on the same social media platforms. Another key element of digital labour for journalists may be conceived as the necessity to build online networks, through monitoring various websites, updating online accounts, and developing a social media presence for personal and professional career development opportunities and organizational brand building purposes. The requirement on many journalists to create a customer experience for audiences through engagement and comment sections can be considered a form of unpaid affective labour. This can entail journalists spending a significant amount of unpaid labour hours monitoring social media websites (Siapera and Iliadi 2015) or engaging with audiences via comment forums. As Cohen (2015, 126) points out, there is “no off time” for digital journalists and as such there are key elements of digital labour that are salient and which this paper considers in exploring contemporary journalistic working conditions and changes to labour capital relations in journalism.

Methodology

This is an exploratory study with a qualitative design and based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 10 journalists and editors working in a range of different legacy media organizations in the Republic of Ireland. A purposive sampling strategy consistent with qualitative research of this nature was implemented and the choice of interviewees was strategic. The common denominator is that they all work full-time in journalism on both digital and so-called traditional platforms (TV, radio, newspapers). Notwithstanding the small sample size, respondents were deliberately recruited to represent a selection of Ireland’s main news organizations (see Table 1). Two of the respondents work as regional correspondents for national broadcast organizations and three for local commercial radio outlets. The remaining five respondents work for either national or regional newspaper titles, all of which have a strong digital presence. Four of the respondents work in editorial roles (one editor, one deputy editor, one digital editor and one head of news). Journalists working in senior editorial roles were deliberately recruited as they occupy the occupational space between journalists and senior management and are likely to have potentially competing interests of maintaining journalistic standards and ensuring organizational viability.

Table 1. Profile of respondents.

The sample includes four women and six men. The interviewees ranged in age from 35 to 60 with the most experienced journalist having worked in the industry for almost four decades. The interviews were conducted in person (4) and over the phone (6) between January and May 2019 and each one lasted for approximately one hour.

The research question asks, how are digital technologies shifting the boundaries and the nature of work in journalism? To address this, journalists were asked questions which centred on four main areas: (1) how digital technologies influence work processes (news gathering, production and publication processes); (2) their main use of social media (as a news source, audience engagement, professional/organizational branding); (3) their obligation to engage with social media platforms (contractual requirement or otherwise); (4) the hours spent working within the 24 h news cycle and on social media. The transcripts were analysed using a thematic analysis approach, the goal of which is to identify patterns in the data that are important or interesting, and to use these themes to address the research or say something about an issue. This is much more than simply summarizing the data; a good thematic analysis interprets and makes sense of it (Braun and Clarke 2006). The thematic method also assists in achieving “substantive meaning of “how” and “why” questions in relation to the phenomenon under investigation” (Carson et al. 2001, 64). The focus here is on understanding the meaning of the professional journalist that is being communicated by participants, how this is informed, and its effects.

Findings and Discussion

This paper is concerned with how the use of technology is shifting the boundaries and the nature of work in journalism. It seeks to further understand the often, invisible labour of news work and changing journalistic working conditions. The analysis of the interviews is discussed in the following sections under two main headings: firstly, the pressure felt by journalists to engage with social media platforms and online audiences is discussed in the context of whether it is considered an implicit or a contractual obligation. Secondly, the demands of breaking news in a 24 h news cycle where click rates increasingly influence the news agenda, often side-lining public interest journalism is discussed by journalists who describe working longer hours but having less control over the quality of the work they produce. This it is posited has not only shifted the boundaries of news work, but also tilted the balance of power in favour of news organizations.

Pressure to Engage: Contractual or Implicit Obligation?

As Olsen (2018, 134) notes, the digital shift comes with “new requirements, regarding where to work, when to work, how to work and whom to be occupied with”. When discussing the demands of working in a 24-hour news cycle, all of the interviewees agreed that digital technologies have an immense influence on how they work. The constant nature of online deadlines and pressures to be first with breaking news has driven an acceleration in the news cycle and the pace of news work, according to respondents. Journalists spoke about increasing demands to promote content on their news organizations websites and interact with audiences on social media platforms; gauging audience reaction to stories and events. As one television journalist reported, digital technologies have utterly transformed the news cycle.

It’s 24/7 you are constantly plugged in, it’s no longer the hourly bulletins you are thinking about, you need to be updating your website and social media feeds all the time. Digital has made every deadline a now deadline (authors emphasis). (J4)

A journalist with 40 years’ experience expressed concern that the demands of social media were not always fully appreciated by news editors and senior editorial management, yet she still described it as a “professional obligation”.

Social media is a whole other layer to the work you do and management don’t understand that you’ve got to make time for it. You’ve got to make time for all these additional layers, and the heaviest layer is undoubtedly social media. The deadline for the main 6pm and 9pm bulletins go, but the demands of social media never go away. (J6)

Despite working to a weekly deadline, a journalist working for a Sunday newspaper discussed how she is constantly viewing the main talking points on Twitter and described engaging with audiences and potential sources on social media platforms, as “very time consuming and likely to run to several hours a day” (J1). She described feeling an organizational obligation to promote the stories she wrote for her newspaper, even though this was not specified in her contract, something which was also reported by other journalists. This “implicit” pressure to engage with social media platforms and audiences online raises an interesting question around how this level of engagement is achieved and indeed can be sustained, if it is not explicitly stated in contractual stipulations but rather an unspoken expectation. One editor of a local commercial radio station said it was “simply expected” that staff would recognize the need to promote their stories online, which she posited would not only promote the radio station but also help a journalist’s professional career and “help get their name out there” (E4). The focus in labour process theory on controlling the labour process is of particular relevance to these findings when we consider how media organizations can, (often through editors), extract more labour power, requiring journalists to do more over longer hours (Örnebring 2010, 2018) as is seen in the response of this local radio journalist.

Hours have expanded; we are more likely to be working outside of our working hours now than before because you are not going to wait for the next day’s bulletin to report a story even if it breaks late, you are going to have to put it up online straight away. (J5)

One editor of a legacy news title explained how a new evening online roster system had been introduced to ensure staff would be available to ensure the website and social media platforms were being updated constantly with breaking news. This was not considered overtime but journalists working these shifts would start later in the day.

We are not Sky News, we are just a local paper but we had had to introduce a night time roster system for breaking news stories so our website is updated if a big local story breaks. (E1)

An editor of another large regional/legacy title, explained how staff reporters were each responsible for an individual geographical patch and any breaking news event that might occur in that area even when off duty.

If something happens at the weekend and if they are not in a position to cover it, I’ll do it myself. I see the editor as playing an important role in trying to lead and having to help out. Working as a journalist is not always conducive to family life but that’s the industry we are in. (E3)

Most of the interviewees said they were expected by their media organizations to have a professional social media presence but again this was not explicitly stated in their contracts. One national broadcast journalist described social media as an integral part of how she worked.

I could ditch it personally but it’s an obligation professionally. It is 24/7; and unbelievably time consuming. It’s a constant in every sense of the meaning of that word in our lives. I don’t have it written down in my contract, but it is absolutely part of my working day if not more important than the TV and radio reports because it’s first, and it’s what drives the push alerts. (J6)

Interestingly, there was little divergence in how journalists and editors discussed the hours they worked, aligning with the work of Örnebring (2010) who contends that the distinction between workers and management may not always be applicable to news work, given editors often identify more closely with journalists than the owners of the newspapers. This is reflected in the comment of one newspaper editor who sees the work of a journalist as having a vocational role.

I’ve been working as a journalist for 20 years and just because I am now the editor it doesn’t mean I’m no longer a journalist. Any journalist who is any good is always on duty. A doctor might be off duty but if they come across an accident they are going to use their skills, so if a journalist is getting petrol and the garage is robbed then of course they are going to report on the robbery. (E3)

There was a divergence in opinion on staff training and resources, which as highlighted in the literature (See for example Gollmitzer 2019; Cohen 2019) is often an issue in digital-first newsrooms, and legacy news organizations migrating to digital platforms. For print journalists, this has led to increasing requirements to take photos, and record soundbites and video to complement their text-based stories for multi-platform use. One newspaper journalist discussed having to regularly “learn on the job” and described the time-consuming nature of video.

The biggest change in recent times has been the requirement to produce video content for social media and online. Where possible and appropriate I record video (on my phone) at every marking I attend. It is not part of my contract but we are actively encouraged to use social media - particularly for breaking news and for retweeting and sharing content. (J3)

When asked about recruiting new journalists one Digital Editor (E2) discussed viewing potential employees’ Twitter feeds and only hiring staff with proven social media and video skills, a recruitment strategy which is becoming increasingly more popular amongst news organizations (Slattery 2020).

They will get some training in video but it’s really expected they will be able to do these most of these things automatically. If I’m thinking of giving someone a job then I am going on to their Twitter account scrolling through to see what they are discussing on their social media feeds and how they are using these platforms. (E2)

Breaking the News: More Work but Less Control

As the news cycle shrinks, many of the interviewees expressed concerns that new deadline demands coupled with the pressure to produce content for multi-platform use, leaves less times for “shoe leather” reporting with more time spent in front of computer screens monitoring social media feeds and not leaving the newsroom. This, some argued, has downgraded the quality of news. One journalist (J6) discussed practices in her organization, where journalists employed to sit in front of a large “oblong TV screen who are charged with watching tweets all day long”. This aligns with concerns expressed in journalism scholarship around “fading professional identity” (see, for example, Sherwood and O’Donnell 2018; Nygren 2014) and journalism’s role in society, which scholars suggest is more than a marketplace commodity (Harcup 2015). This veteran broadcaster discussed concerns for what she termed the traditions of decent journalism.

It’s the immediacy of breaking news and how technology has changed the news cycle; that’s what’s changed. It does make me think about what this means for the traditions of decent journalism and the profession, which could be going as a result. (J6)

Similarly, an editor at a commercial radio station (E4), who has over 20 years of journalism experience said she was concerned about the increasing tendency of some journalists to base stories on tweets and Facebook quotes “with zero fact checking”.

Social media puts pressure in terms of time, it means that quality sometimes gets sacrificed in favour of speed. I work in a commercially competitive news organisation and we are aware that when information breaks it is often the first who posts the information on line that gets most number of hits and not necessarily the best researched story. (E4)

The interviewees’ organizations are typical in that that they are experiencing a digital turnaround with circulation or audience decline and downsizing of staff numbers (Burke-Kennedy 2019; Slattery 2019; Kelly 2019). Competition among media outlets to be the first to report breaking news and the impact of this on news reports was discussed by all of the respondents.

Social media platforms were described as a minefield by one journalist (J4) who said while they provided access to an extensive range of sources, there were significant risks if strict verification processes were not undertaken. Deadline pressures often led him to rely on his “gut instinct”. Coupled with the additional pressure to be first with the news, one television journalist spoke about how stories can themselves often suffer in the rush to be first. Similarly, another journalist expressed concerned that the news reporting process is at risk of becoming a race to the bottom.

Because social media allows instant reaction very often it’s that reaction that creates its own story and then people come up with their own facts. I guess it is a race to the bottom because the minute you put something up on line people are commenting. Everybody is racing to be first with the story and sometimes without all of the information. (J2)

Similarly, the advantages or disadvantages on the availability of real-time data on audience engagement was an issue for many of the interviewees, reflecting what the literature suggests about commercial logic prevailing over professional logic (Nygren 2014). Journalists expressed concern that editorial decisions were increasingly being informed by ratings, which can often result in the number of clicks an article receives dictating news agendas. This was a greater issue for journalists working in local media, where it was felt that fewer resources were allocated to more time-intensive and less commercially attractive markings such as local authority meetings and court sittings. Echoing critics from the field of journalism such as Davies (2011) and Simon (2009), this would suggest that news organizations are increasingly choosing to invest less in content that fails to attract large audiences. This large audience-driven decision-making by news organizations was felt to be problematic by one local journalist, in terms of the nature of news that gets covered, and indeed that which does not.

While feedback is good and should be used to inform editorial decisions, the number of “clicks” must not be the only factor when making decisions on what stories should or should not be covered. For example, court sittings and local council meetings might not be a ratings winner but I believe it is important they should be reported on. Yet I fear this will not always be the case. (J3)

The role of social media giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, on the traditional news cycle, was viewed by interviewees as having an increasing influence on paid professional journalism. The following comment from a local radio journalist illustrates how the notion of the professional journalist is becoming disassociated with local news stories in favour of “news” that aligns with big business:

We need journalists to continue finding out what’s happening in local areas, holding politicians to account, finding out what judges are ruling in relation to domestic violence issues etc. I doubt Mark Zuckerberg is paying to send anyone to got to Killarney District Court and unfortunately there are fewer journalists doing that so people are often getting their news from other sources who are not trained. (J5)

Interviewees spoke of the demands of engaging in dialogue with audiences and raised concerns around professional autonomy. One local radio journalist (J5) discussed how his radio station had appointed a “content creator” who is responsible for the information going on the station’s website. Another journalist from a local radio said her organization had employed an IT specialist to work in the newsroom to help with editing skills where previously reporters were required to learn “on the job”.

Conclusion

The challenges faced by the news media in an increasingly digital age are well documented. However, the precise nature, extent, and consequences of these changes for journalists are less known (Rottwilm 2014), in part because empirical research on the changing nature of journalistic work and labour in digital and transitioning newsrooms is still limited (Cohen 2019; O'Donnell, Zion, and Sherwood 2016). It is within this context that this research makes a contribution. The findings of this paper contribute to the demand for a more labour focused agenda in journalism research by exploring how digital technologies have shaped journalists’ work processes and the role of technology in furthering managerial control and extracting labour power. This dynamic is not novel in a capitalist political economy, however, some of the new forms of technology, specifically around social media, unlike traditional workplace technologies, reach beyond the newsroom and into the private sphere conflating personal space and time with labour space and time, reshaping the boundaries of news work. Following Jarrett (2015), it is accepted that such labour has always existed in capitalism, and, indeed, journalism. However, it is important to question the extent to which digitization and work around social media platforms are leading to an intensification of such work and the effects of this on the working lives of journalists whom, as argued by Deuze (2019) are experiencing precarious working arrangements. Using a labour focused approach, the findings of this paper suggest how news organizations, through editors, are extracting more labour power—requiring journalists to do more over longer hours - and how digital labour fits into this. The demands of digitalization are coming from management, yet editors as part of this management structure are often responsible for contributing to this expectation and “pressure to engage” as described by the respondents in this study. An expansion of this research, examining the differing perspectives of journalists versus editors on what is required to work in the “networked newsroom” would provide an important contribution to journalism scholarship. It would also provide valuable insights on journalism as a long-term career with literature suggesting a greater prevalence of burn-out amongst journalists (Paulussen 2012). Similarly, societal developments and expectations regarding the availability of news are influential in discussions about work processes. Further study could explore the extent to which news organizations are using these societal expectations to their advantage; as a rationale for increasing productivity.

Reflecting the literature, all the respondents spoke about the influence of digital technologies on their work processes in both positive and negative terms. The opportunities digitalization has provided for faster news delivery and wider access to sources and audiences cannot be ignored. However, the immediacy of digital deadlines was a concern for those seeking to safeguard the traditions of journalistic work practice or what one respondent termed “decent” journalism, especially around the verification processes, as journalists strive to deliver in a highly competitive media landscape. Likewise, concerns that click rates would increasingly dictate the news agenda suggest a concern that commercial logic will further dominate what might be termed a professional journalism logic, one based on the liberal pluralistic view of journalism as a public good rather than simply a commodity. Reporting for social media platforms and producing stories for multi-platform use was described by some of the respondents as an additional “layer of labour” often not fully understood by editorial management. Editors involved in the recruitment process discussed hiring staff with proven social media skills and monitoring potential employees’ social media feeds as part of their organization’s recruitment strategies. The need to remain constantly “plugged in” to breaking news platforms was referred to as a constant pressure, not just by reporting staff, but also for editors striving to be first with breaking stories and to keep their brands relevant. Concerns were expressed here about how this is impacting journalistic news values in particular the verification process. Interestingly, staff and long-established journalists interviewed for this study, felt implicitly obliged to engage with audiences online and to promote stories for their news organizations. The main findings reveal how these salaried journalists, despite having greater security of full-time employment, albeit in a precarious industry, convey a sense of insecurity and reported feeling an implicit rather than a contractual obligation to regularly engage in affective and unpaid digital labour to meet employer expectations.

This conflation of work and personal time, which was found to be an emerging trend amongst freelance journalists working in the Republic of Ireland (Hayes and Silke 2018), is again a common finding among the staff journalists who participated in this exploratory study. As discussed in Neilson’s study of online engagement of journalists in New Zealand (2018), dedicated online staff is more effective than simply tasking general reporters with additional responsibilities (Paulussen 2012). Some news organizations, both local and national as evidenced in this study, have begun to introduce new roster systems, and employed “content managers” and IT specialists to support journalists. Similarly, the practice of employing journalists to monitor “tweets” all day raises serious considerations if, as interviewees in this article suggest, it leads to the possible deprofessionalization of journalism. Furthermore, if increasing numbers of journalists and in particular new entrants to the profession see additional unpaid labour as the norm, the findings of this paper though limited in scale, could suggest negative consequences for journalism labour and for journalism as a long-term career. The changed labour processes in the findings point to the “networked newsroom” as no longer the fixed point of the traditional newsroom, but is everywhere the journalist is, with the smartphone as the umbilical cord to the spheres of production, distribution, and consumption. This unstructured labour is necessary to produce journalistic commodities and new technologies have undoubtedly provided journalists with opportunities for faster news delivery, and wider access to sources and information than ever before. However, with these opportunities come challenges for journalistic labour and specifically these new boundaries of work, which must be considered to protect the working conditions and professional power of an occupation deeply dependent upon digital technologies.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).