Abstract
In Journalism as Activism, Adrienne Russell explores the expanding network terrain where the contours of journalism and activism are becoming increasingly blurred, since the two genres overlap and intertwine in new, unexpected ways. While journalists are taking up the work traditionally ascribed to activists, activists are increasingly looking to journalists for information and ideas. In order to explore this space of activist–journalist convergence, Journalism as Activism maps the coverage around three transnational protests (the Occupy and the climate-change movements, and the struggle related to civil liberties and Internet freedom) and investigates the practices of what Russell calls the ‘news-media vanguard’, which she uses as a shorthand for political activists and innovative traditional reporters who are reshaping the ways through which news are imagined, produced, and delivered.
The book is structured into five chapters (Introduction, Networks, Tools, Practice, and Power) that have clear, recognizable one-word titles. After the Introduction, where Russell provides the context, the key concepts and ideas, and the methods on which the book relies, Chapter 2, ‘Networks’, focuses on coverage surrounding income inequality, climate justice, and Internet freedom. Russell maps the set of relationships born of emerging practices in the mediapolis, a moral space of political and social communication that Silverstone (2007) envisaged as being composed by a multiplicity of actors, and different patterns of inclusion and exclusion. The author describes the ways activist voices have become more influential, pointing out the enduring importance of legacy news outlets and showing how norms and practices are adopted in relation to the ways linking references are used to legitimate truth claims and to strengthen authenticity. In Chapter 3, ‘Tools’, the author analyzes how digital media shapes the strategies and identities of protest movements. She centers on Tim Pool’s ‘The Other 99’ new-style news service that relied on live-streaming chats, videos, and aerial drones to cover the Occupy Wall Street mobilizations and describes other cases where the media vanguard creates innovative tools to keep digital data out of the hands of the authorities. Throughout the chapter, Russell examines values and aspirations that help shape contemporary communication tools and the socio-technical innovation brought about by the media vanguard.
Chapter 4, ‘Practice’, describes the ways through which pioneering journalists are reshaping their field by reinventing the rules of their work in the networked media environment. In order to do so, Russell provides an in-depth account of the experiences of four key members of the media vanguard: Glenn Greenwald and his reporting on the Edward Snowden National Security Agency (NSA) revelations; Tim Pool’s live stream coverage of the Occupy movement; leading climate journalist Bill McKibben’s media practices; and finally, Juliana Rotich and the case of the crowd-data-management platform Ushahidi. The conclusion, presented as Chapter 5 ‘Power’, situates the book’s reflections within the history of media studies, sums up the diverse contributions of the book about the reconfiguration of power in the digital era, and suggests new ways through which media theory could cope with the fast-changing alterations of our mediatized societies.
In order to understand how power in the digital age is being recoded, Russell relies on diverse conceptual lenses, theories, and ideas. She adopts Silverstone’s (2007) concept of mediapolis, extending it to embrace not only electronic media but also to take into account the networked space enabled by digital connective media. She builds on Couldry’s (2012) social-oriented methodological approach that, moving beyond media as mere texts or institutions, conceives them as open-ended phenomena and urges scholars to explore the agency of the actors who use them in order to understand how ‘their media practices relate to their wider power to shape their realities’ (p. 8). In so doing, Russell connects her research to recent practice-based studies that investigate the communicative dimension of protest movements and activism. To identify the work of the media vanguard that is central to the book, she builds on Postill’s (2014) reflections on the role of ‘freedom technologists’ within recent global uprisings, outlining a tech-vanguard where journalists, reporters, activists, technologists, and hackers coalesce and influence today’s media ecology through innovation, experimentation, and competence. Media competence is intended by Russell as both technical facility and the sophisticated understanding of media power. The author adopts a wide and expanded definition of journalism and journalists, referring to ‘a hybrid environment in which a wealth of news-related information, opinion, and cultural expression, in different styles and from various producers, together shape the meaning of news events and issues’ (p. 11). Finally, Russell’s move ‘from logics to sensibilities’ signals her sidestepping of the media logic concept in favor of hybridity, openness, and unexpectedness. The main point she advances in her book is precisely that in today’s digital environment we cannot rely anymore on a codified set of practices that control media function, but that we need to be sensible to the rhythms, flows, and affective dimension of the mediapolis. In sum, power is being recoded in this hybrid media environment, and exploring hacktivist sensibilities can give us a privileged point of view to understand how this change is happening, and which processes, institutions, and practices are being affected.
Russell’s book is a fascinating read. The plethora of case studies and experiences analyzed is rich, and so is the variety of concepts and theories that are addressed and mobilized. The book is easy to read and it flows smoothly from beginning to end, advancing some convincing points. First, the move from logics to sensibilities contributes to emancipate the analysis from the constraints of thinking in terms of predefined sets of codes and procedures. Russell compellingly shows how these sets are being challenged in the networked era, but does not forget to underline the continuities with the past. The focus on media competence as a complex menagerie of technical skills, media literacy, and tactical understanding of media power is also a welcome addition, especially since this aspect has usually been neglected in studies on digital activism and networked social movements. The main strength of the book lies in the fact that Russell’s analysis of the connections between journalism and activism is original, multifaceted, accessible, and varied and opens up a space of reflection where the analysis of infrastructures, practices, routines, values, and cultures coexists and intermingles.
Paradoxically, this will be the aspect that some scholars may not appreciate, because in order to render this heterogeneity and richness, the author’s style through the book is at times repetitive, and less systematic than some would expect. But Russell’s aim is not to provide secure answers or to sketch a grand theory of power in the digital era, but instead to show how we should recalibrate our conceptual tools in order to understand how power is being recoded by an increasingly relevant media vanguard. The book will appeal not only to scholars who want to deepen their understanding of journalism and activism in the digital age but also to graduate and PhD courses on digital media, (digital) journalism, activism and social change, digital culture, and media theory. Because of its richness of timely examples, and the savvy combination of academic finesse and popular prose, Journalism as Activism will also appeal to the general public interested in understanding the changing landscape of contemporary journalism.