Online/offscreen

Abstract

As televised news content is no longer being solely produced by professionals and consumed by family members staring at the box, the traditional television industry has entered a new era. This article introduces a set of theoretical propositions relating to the industry’s responses to such changes and, in particular, to the implementation of networked technologies and social media in television news organizations. The technological frames analytic lens was used to identify journalists’ assumptions and expectations about technology use and to explain the outcomes of technological and professional change in the journalistic environment. Through interviews conducted with journalists working for television news desks in Israel, we show that the interviewees’ perceptions of the technologies, the role of their organization, and the essence of their profession provide a meaningful explanation of the actual implementation of networked technologies. The findings resolve the contradiction between potential contribution of the emerging technologies and their limited use in journalistic organizations.

Keywords

Journalism locative/mobile media networked technologies news organizations social media technological frames television

Introduction

Digital devices and platforms that allow for live, one/many-to-one/many communication among journalists and their audience could arguably alter the established top-down, one-to-many televised journalism environment (e.g. Atton, 2004; Curran, 2003; Gordon, 2007; Herbert, 2000; Klein, 1999). As many have demonstrated, however, social transformations depend on the nature and characteristics of the interaction among shared interpretations, social actions, and technological artifacts within organizational and professional contexts (e.g. Boczkowski, 2004; Jones et al., 2008; Paulussen and Ugille, 2008; Robinson, 2011; Wardle and Williams, 2010). Observing this three-sided interplay in the televised news arena through the technological frames (TFs) analytical lens, we attempt to diagnose and explain developments and changes in the journalistic environment, leading to the introduction of a set of theoretical propositions relating to the social process that occurs during adaptation of media technologies in established media organizations.

Literature review

Theoretical lens

Our analytical lens draws on a major premise in social cognitive research, which suggests that people act on the basis of their interpretations of the world, and in doing so, they enact particular social realities and endow them with meaning (Smircich and Stubbart, 1985; Weick, 1979). In his 1974 book, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, Erwin Goffman articulated this substantial conception by introducing the term ‘frame’ – a tangible metaphor that resonates with what many sociologists tried to invoke by using phrases such as ‘context’, ‘background’, or ‘settings’ (see discussion in Davis, 1975). For Goffman, the term frame attempts to convey that human actions (in particular, interactions among people) are governed by unstated rules or principles more or less implicitly set by the character of some larger (sometimes invisible) entity ‘within’ which the activities occur. Significantly, Goffman argued that the character of a frame is not always clear and, even when it is, participants in interaction may have interest in blurring, changing, or confounding it (see discussion in Berger, 1986).

This idea was developed in a growing body of scholarly work with sociologists extending the concept of individual cognitive structures (or frames) to social groups. A variety of expressions have been used to convey this notion of shared cognitive frames, including ‘cognitive maps’ (Bougon et al., 1977; Eden, 1992), ‘interpretive frames’ (Bartunek and Moch, 1987), and ‘interpretative schemes’ (Giddens, 1984) to mention but a few noticeable terms.

More recently, the notion of shared cognitive frames was picked up by organizational behavior scholars who turned attention to group-level decision making. Theorists operation within this field pointed to the manner in which social agents’ cognitive frames influence the meaning people ascribe to their organization and the action they take within it. Gioia and Sims (1986: 5) called such frames a set of ‘definitions of organizational reality that serve as a vehicle for understanding and actions’. Empirical studies that embraced this idea showed that shared cognitive structures developed by key players (usually by managers) in a certain organization about a given concept, type of stimulus, or an issue affect the subsequent organizational action related to it (see discussion in Olesen, 2014).

The cognitive frames concept was also adopted by sociology of technology theorists, especially by those who subscribe to the so-called social construction of technology (SCOT) approach that traces its origins to Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker’s (1987) article, ‘The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might Benefit Each Other’. In this original work, the author suggested that technology design is an open process that can produce different outcomes depending on the social circumstances of the development. Following this early work, critics who examined the developments of various technologies (media technologies included) and patterns of consumptions have demonstrated that technologies (artifacts and use) are the product of negotiations among agents who operate in certain social and economic settings (e.g. Bijker et al., 1987; Lax, 2009; Winston, 1998).

In the mid-1990s, Bijker (1995) added the idea of the technological frame to the original presentation of the SCOT approach. He perceived the TFs as the shared cognitive structures that define a relevant social group and constitute members’ common interpretation of the technological artifact. In this new conceptualization, a technological frame includes goals, key problems, current theories, rules of thumb, testing procedures, and exemplary artifacts that, tacitly or explicitly, structure group members’ thinking, problem-solving, strategy formation, and design activities (Bijker, 1995: 125). Significantly, a technological frame may promote certain actions and discourage others: ‘Within a technological frame not everything is possible anymore (the structure and tradition aspect), but the remaining possibilities are relatively clearly and readily available to all members of the relevant social group (the actor and innovation aspect)’ (Bijker, 1995: 192). Importantly, frame on the one hand enables ‘thinking and action’ and on the other hand, by defining what constitutes a sociotechnical problem and an acceptable solution to it, it acts as a constraint.

More recently, this conception regarding technological frame (better understood as a ‘frame with respect to technology’ (Bijker, 1995: 126)) has been deployed in mainstream organization studies of technological change. Scholars working within this terrain attempted to explain emergence and change in technologies and their use in organizations.

In their 1994 article, ‘Technological Frames: Making Sense of Information Technology in Organizations (based on earlier working papers in 1992 and 1993), information system theorists Wanda Orlikowski and Debra Gash defined TFs as ‘the core set of assumptions, expectations and knowledge of technology collectively held by a group or community’ (p. 199). Interpretive schemes about technology (or TFs) include assumptions and expectations about what the technology is, why it has been adopted, and how it could and should be used. According to the authors, it is important to identify such TFs because interpretative schemes of a technology (Giddens, 1984; Yoshioka et al., 2002), which typically operate in the background, influence its implementation:

To interact with technology, people have to make sense of it, and in this sense-making process, they develop particular assumptions, expectations, and knowledge of the technology, which then serve to shape subsequent actions toward it. (Orlikowski and Gash, 1994: 175).

The critics suggest – and others using the TFs concept have shown (e.g. Davidson, 2002, 2006) – that because technologies are interpretively flexible, in that meaning is attributed to them rather than perceived as existing within them, members of different groups can indeed construct distinct frames that guide their interpretations of technology’s functionality and uses.

As indicated earlier, the technological framework will be utilized in this study, as it allows us to gain a better understanding of the implementation of (as well as a resistance to) networked technology by television news desks. We will return to this approach below.

Technological innovation in the journalistic environment

The large body of research concerning transformation occurring in the traditional journalistic arena may be divided roughly into the following four research tracks: One group explores the ways in which new technologies are used by journalists to obtain information; another focuses on the emergence of online dissemination of news, examining in particular the formation of online news desks in established organizations; a third considers the changing role of journalists in a new journalistic environment, concentrating on the emergence of citizen/participatory journalism; and the fourth explores consumption patterns and audience preferences of online news material disseminated by professional and nonprofessional sources using cross-media devices and platforms. Subsequently, we review the four groups briefly and schematically. As noted above, scholarly interest in journalists’ use of technologies has increased over the last 30 years, during which reporters have found themselves surrounded by new communication technologies after a century of relying almost exclusively on the landline telephone as a medium for obtaining information. This revolution in the technological environment – from one to six technologies (landline telephone, pager, facsimile machine, mobile telephone, Web, and e-mail) – occurred at different times in different places but is now reflected in most modern news cultures.

The nature and characteristics of such technological upheavals and their impact on news work has been addressed by two core schools, dubbed reformist and traditionalist (see discussion in Reich, 2005). The reformists claim that technologies transformed the work of journalists (e.g. Kawamoto, 2003; Pavlik, 2000), while the traditionalists have identified long-range trends in news production methods that may limit the effects of the new technologies significantly (e.g. Boczkowski, 2004; Reich, 2008, 2011).

In parallel to the above discourse, a growing body of research is concerned with the creation of online news desks in established news organizations. Here as well, some scholars (e.g. Jones et al., 2008; Pavlik, 2000; Peer and Ksiazek, 2011; Schrøder and Larsen, 2010) claimed that new digital publishing ventures transformed the journalistic arena, while others identified enduring trends in news dissemination and consumption methods that limit the effects of digital technologies on the journalistic landscape (e.g. Boczkowski, 2004; O’Sullivan and Heinonen, 2008; Reich, 2008).

While the above groups focus their attention on the manner in which technologies were used by professional journalists in their quest for information and audience attention, another growing group of researchers points to the changing role of professional journalists vis-à-vis the development of new technologies. They suggest that the unique role journalists play in the construction of ‘mediated publicness’ (Thompson, 1995) is now being challenged by audience members, using various media, who penetrate the journalistic arena and thus change the nature of deliberation and action in the public sphere (e.g. Wiesslitz and Ashuri, 2011; Jarvis, 2007; Thurman, 2008).

This scholarly discourse, that highlights the emergence of civil/participatory journalism, may also be divided into two discernible trends. Scholars in one such group espouse the view that technological developments generate editorial effects and hence transform the nature and characteristics of news contents (e.g. Jarvis, 2007; Pavlik, 2000). These scholars’ observations were scrutinized by a second group of critics, who underscored the structural aspects of news production (e.g. Becket and Mansell, 2008; Fortunati et al., 2009; Hermida and Thurman, 2008; Hille and Bakker, 2013; Örnebring, 2008; Paulussen and Ugille, 2008; Singer et al., 2011). Proponents of this view pointed to structural forms, such as norms, habits, economic constraints, and the like, that hinder adoption of new technologies and – by implication – new, ‘audience material’ (Wardle and Williams, 2010) news content.

Research methodology

Our study aims at challenging the scholarly divide that tends to prioritize either structure or agency by investigating the two perspectives that dominate the four scholarly discourses reviewed above. Instead of inquiring whether and how new technologies facilitate various transformations in the journalistic environment, we wish to identify the reasons for implementing (and rejecting) technologies, by looking at the manner in which journalists perceive the technologies at hand and how they envision the organizational and professional transformations that emerge as a result of technological innovations. We believe that this integrative approach can better explain emergence and change in media technologies and their use in the journalistic environment.

As discussed above, we applied the technological frame analytical lens, focusing on works by Orlikowski and Gash (1994) and Yoshioka et al. (2002), who argued that by examining key actors’ notions of technology that are ordinarily taken for granted, one may gain considerable insights into how technologies are developed in organizations and how people interact with changes in their work arenas. The authors identified the following three frame domains: (1) The nature of technology, referring to people’s images of the technology and their understanding of its capabilities and functionality; (2) technology strategy, consisting of people’s views of why their organization acquired and implemented a particular technology; and (3) technology in use, addressing people’s understanding of how the technology will be used on a day-to-day basis and the likely or actual conditions and consequences associated with such use.

Building on this typology, we address the following three chief research questions (RQs):

RQ1: How do informants understand the technologies they use and their functionality?

RQ2: How do they perceive their journalistic profession (its nature and role) and the contribution of the emerging new technologies to their work (news data gathering, organization, presentation, and distribution)?

RQ3: How do they explain their organizations’ acquisition of a specific networked technology and how do they understand the use of this technology on a day-to-day basis and the likely or actual conditions and consequences associated with such use?

The study is grounded on analysis of networked technology implementation at two television news desks in Israel – Channel 2 and Channel 10. These networks were chosen first because they provide the most frequently watched news bulletins in the country and also because we were promised full access to all personnel. During the summer and fall of 2011, both researchers conducted approximately 1-h semi-structured interviews with nine elite interviewees (two women and seven men). Of the nine respondents, four work at the news desks of Channel 2 and five at Channel 10. Interviews were conducted with the ‘new media directors’ of both channels, with each channel’s chief editor of the evening (main) news bulletin, with Channel 2 editors/producers of main news bulletins (the morning and the afternoon bulletins), and with Channel 10’s editors/producers of the main news bulletins (the night, the late night, and the Friday night news bulletin). The editor/producer of Channel 2’s Friday night bulletin refused to be interviewed. Reporters were omitted from the study since it focuses on decision-making processes. We hence interviewed those who make decisions regarding the implementations of digital devices and contents. Significantly all interviewees were trained journalists who worked as reporters in the early stages of their journalistic careers. Importantly, most interviewees were in their 30s or 40s at the time of being interviewed, which means that when they began their career in journalism, electronic news gathering (ENG) technologies were in full use (and hence taken for granted), unlike networked technologies that entered the journalistic arena after they entered it. All participants were promised anonymity and therefore names and gender were omitted from the text.

Findings

From screen to screen: Conceptions of the essence of technology

As indicated, Orlikowski and Gash (1994) showed that by assessing the conceptions of current technology expressed by key actors in a given organization, one may identify and explain how technologies develop and how they are used. Participants in the current study were asked how they perceive the technologies available to them and how they understand their operation and function.

First, the participants presented their technological frame regarding television, the medium for which they work. From their point of view, the news content they produce is intended first and foremost for broadcasting via this medium. They consider television a medium that enables journalists to disseminate audiovisual content in real time to a perceived passive mass audience, most of whom are watching from home, as expressed by a morning news editor: ‘They [the audience] get up in the morning and the television is on opposite them. Television stays with them all the time as they go about their business’. An afternoon news editor reinforced these views, indicating that the afternoon news bulletins he produces are intended primarily for retired persons, housewives, and women coming home from work at that time.

Editors and producers of later news shows (evening and late night news) perceive a more varied target audience, including men and young adults in their 20s and 30s, although they agreed with their colleagues’ definitions of television’s key characteristics.

Participants also expressed consensus regarding the characteristics of the networked platforms available to them, indicating that networked technologies resemble television because they too serve the masses and enable distribution of news to numerous people in real time.

Participants also noted the differences between television and networked media. First, they claimed that the Internet, unlike television, enables continuous news distribution/consumption. Second, they emphasized that the Internet allows for consumption of news anywhere (including at work), unlike television, whose broadcast programs are consumed at home (usually in one’s spare time). This fact is especially significant, as the director new media points out, because ‘events happen during work time and these are peak hours in terms of ratings’.

Finally, participants noted that networked platforms provide various sources of audience feedback regarding television or online news content. For the informers, who work in television, this is a substantive component because until these platforms began to enjoy mass use, audience preferences could only be derived from the ratings charts. A new media department director claimed that ratings data mislead those involved in creating television news because they provide no demographic information concerning viewers (gender, age, socioeconomic status, etc.). He also explained that unlike the ratings charts that only supply data about a given program long after it has been broadcast, online applications provide viewer preference information as soon as a program is broadcast or very shortly thereafter.

In their responses regarding perception of networked technologies and their characteristics, participants emphasized that their position as journalists employed by journalistic organizations has a profound influence on the way they understand the operation and function of the media available to them, including both the traditional medium (television) and the newer media (Internet platforms).

The above observations led us to expand Orlikowski and Gash’s model. Hence we introduce an additional dimension that we term nature of profession, relating to the manner in which participants active at the news desks of Channels 2 and 10 perceive the essence and function of their profession. We suggest that to understand the implementation of technologies in an organization, the key actors’ notions of technology must be identified in these two different social/cultural contexts, that is, the organization (Orlikowski and Gash, 1994) in which they operate and their profession.

The profession and the technology: Conceptions of the technology’s contribution to the journalism profession

Although the participants perform various functions at the organizations studied (editors, producers, and new media department directors), all perceive themselves as journalists. In interviews, all participants emphasized that they began their careers in the printed or broadcast media. Their conception of the essence of the journalism profession and its role frames their understanding of the possible uses of networked technologies.

As journalists, the participants stressed that their key function is to disseminate essential information to the masses, noting that they will use all technologies – traditional and new – to achieve this objective. Thus, for example, a weekend news roundup editor informed us:

I come from the press and as far as I’m concerned, the Internet and television are only instruments of transmission.

This view was shared by others, who noted the advantages of networked technologies in promoting achievement of their journalistic objective: disseminating vital information to the masses. A late night news editor expressed it well:

I’m happy that more people are being exposed to information. It’s certainly much better, much more correct from a democratic point of view.

Participants also emphasized that networked platforms contribute to their work as journalists by enabling distribution of information on events as they occur. A weekend news editor provided an example:

[Following the tsunami] and the massive radiation in Japan, a reporter sat with his iPad and received reports at the studio. He reported about things in real time.

While recognizing the essentiality of networked platforms in journalism, participants stressed the supremacy of television as a means of news distribution. A late night news editor, for example, claimed that the digital era of information distribution accords television journalists a significant function as gatekeepers:

The chief problem with the Internet in general is the lack of hierarchy, that I perceive as a substantial obstacle to total, meaningful transition from traditional to online media. […] People don’t really want to follow events all the time and are very pleased to have someone inform them and give them a broader and rounder picture of the situation, along with some kind of story of the entire day.

Later in the interview, he explained that television, unlike the Internet, plays an additional substantive social role. He claimed that because television news is broadcast at fixed times daily, it constitutes an important element in maintaining order and a sense of confidence in the living room and in society as a whole: ‘No disaster is big enough to keep us from being here tomorrow’. This conception suits findings of previous studies that emphasized the function of television in general and television news in particular as a creator of ‘ontological security’ (Giddens, 1984). According to Silverstone (1994, 1999), television – and especially its news broadcasts – bridges the abstract-mediated knowledge with the familial and face-to-face interaction, thus turning abstract and distant symbols, such as those associated with hardships and disasters, into elements of everyday life. In so doing, television (and television news, in particular, especially in its embeddedness in routines and rituals) contributes to ordering everyday by generating a sense of continuity and enabling necessary distancing from forces that threaten the continuity. In the words of Silverstone:

Routines and rituals of television ‘disturb but also regulate everyday life’ and thus manage crises and insecurities. Ontological security is sustained through the familiar and the predictable. Our common sense attitudes and beliefs express and sustain our practical understandings of the world, without which life would quickly become intolerable. (Silverstone 1994: 19)

Despite the special role of television as a means of news distribution and its supremacy over networked platforms, all participants emphasized that adoption of networked platforms by their news desks that employ them is worthwhile and essential, as discussed subsequently.

Caught in the net: Conceptions of the function of technology in the organization

Orlikowski and Gash (1994) and Yoshioka et al. (2002) claimed that the manner in which an organization’s key personnel perceive available technologies and their function – that they called interpretive schemes – will affect their understanding of the way these technologies contribute to the organization and their consequent use therein. Hence participants were asked how they perceive the contribution of networked technologies to the television news desks.

The research population views the Internet as an efficient means of locating newsworthy information, usually free of charge, at any time. A late night news editor summed it up: ‘In general, the heart of the matter is to obtain online sources quickly, to know where there are good stories, where stories that interest the public are hiding’.

Although participants considered the Internet to be an efficient tool for locating essential newsworthy information, they noted that only a few sites serve them as a source of information on a daily basis – usually the news sites of competing networks or sites maintained by the Hebrew printed press. As an afternoon news editor, ‘Don’t tell anyone, but all journalists primarily use ynet (the leading news site and content portal in Israel, part of the Yedioth Ahronoth Group) as an information-gathering tool’. He claimed that familiar news sites are more accessible and more reliable, as backed up by one of his editor colleagues:

From my point of view, our competitors are the Channel 10 news desk and ynet. So what interests me is what’s featured on their site.

The models proposed by Orlikowski and Gash (1994) and Yoshioka et al. (2002) regarding the interpretive schemes of key organizational personnel explain the limited use of networked technologies for journalistic information gathering. The interviews reveal that the research population is suspicious of information published on the Internet. An evening news editor presented his reservations regarding Internet material: ‘Online information should be treated with caution’.

The suspicion toward the material and the limited resources and time needed for fact-checking and accuracy verification are yet another possible explanation for the scarce use of social media (SoMe) material. These conceptions also arose in previous studies conducted by various news organizations in different countries. Researchers claimed that professional journalists’ suspicious view of audience material is a significant factor in the limited use that news organizations make of such material (e.g. Boczkowski, 2004; Wardle and Williams, 2010).

Participants in the present study offer additional explanations of the limited use of Internet technologies, particularly the lack of any threat embodied in their conception of this means. This view was well expressed by the editor of a morning news show:

Your competitors are those who are up against you on the air […]. Perhaps I have no vision, but at this stage, I do not perceive Internet platforms as competitors.

Furthermore, this participant believes, information with journalistic potential publicized online will be identified quickly by mainstream media. Hence the importance of its being identified online by the television organization for which he works is marginal. He expressed this conception as follows: ‘It is believed that the best stories will be viewed [on television] and will not remain [hidden] in some blog’.

Their reservations notwithstanding, all participants emphasized the contribution of networked platforms to the work of their news organizations. Below, we discuss two major observations expressed in interviews: (1) Networked technologies enable members of the organization to obtain audience feedback (using these platforms, viewers can send the news desk newsworthy material and information about their viewing preferences) and (2) networked platforms help market the television organization.

As indicated, the participants explained that through networked platforms, viewers can supply newsworthy information essential to their organizations. As one evening news editor said, ‘Everyone’s got cameras and everyone films. That’s the added value of television, the images’. A late night news editor backs him up, ‘People are always sending me material. Nearly every night we show a scene that someone filmed in one context or another’.

The participant made sure to emphasize that the advantage of networked platforms is not only that they enable the audience to submit much material (mostly videos) to the news desk but also that they enable rapid transmission of vital information. He claims that networked platforms available to numerous users enable rapid distribution of newsworthy material from the field to the news desk within a few minutes:

If, say, a crime took place in Bat Yam and we ask people in the vicinity to send pictures, then Bam! We’ll have material in seconds flat. They’ll even correct us: ‘Not Rashi Street, Rambam Street!’

Participants’ conceptions of the audience’s contribution to organization work are not limited to submittal of photographed material from the field. As far as they’re concerned, the audience serves as a potential fact-checker. A late night news editor explains, ‘We’re always asking viewers questions, like how much does a gram of cocaine cost’.

According to the participants, the ‘audience’ also contributes to journalistic work by supplying actual news items. A weekend news editor provides an example:

Yael Grinspan [sister of a 12-year-old-girl who was run over on a traffic island by a drunk driver, who aroused a public scandal after her reaction to the plea bargain] posted a status about her sister who was run over and a friend of a friend on Facebook was someone from Maariv [a major Israeli daily newspaper]. Then, the whole country was talking about it. The source was a Facebook status that became a huge story.

Other participants told similar stories in which the role of networked platforms was described as tools with which journalists receive newsworthy items from audiences. At the same time, the participants clarified that the contribution of audience materials to the television broadcast news program is very limited. An evening news editor explained:

They contact us on Facebook, but I don’t know how well that works. I don’t think I’ve received any big story from there yet.

A weekend news editor expressed similar thoughts:

When we presented a report about the show dog scene, people sent in tons of material about their dogs on Facebook. We made a clip, but it wasn’t significant.

These conceptions and the reservations they reflect conform with the findings of previous studies in which researchers showed, primarily by content analysis of the products of news organizations, that professional journalists in traditional news organizations make quantitatively and qualitatively sparse use of audience materials. Moreover, audience material publicized by professional news organizations usually concerns esoteric topics and is presented as entertainment and gossip (Hille and Bakker, 2013; Örnebring, 2008; Paulussen and Ugille, 2008).

Despite participants’ reservations concerning the quality of news material submitted by audiences, the news desks studied do use networked platforms for efficient and rapid distribution of audience material (chiefly videos), recognizing the clear advantages of these platforms – mass accessibility and the option of receiving news material in real time from people on the scene.

Online/on-screen: Use of technology at the news desk

Both news desks set up active Web sites: The Channel 10 news desk is featured on the Channel 10 Web site, called nana10, while the Channel 2 news desk operates through the Keshet network franchisee’s site, called mako. Viewers may watch full or partial news programs at these sites. The Channel 2 news desk also produces special online programs around the clock. The two organizations provide links at their Web sites for what they call redmail – an application enabling visitors to send printed, audio, and visual materials to the news desk.

The two news desks also maintain Facebook accounts: a central account for the news desk and accounts for specific programs and editions. At the Channel 2 news desk, a team of four journalists was assembled, most of them in their 20s, who spend the day gathering information posted to the Facebook accounts and creating content for distribution via this social network (see below for particulars).

Furthermore, with the development of smartphones, the two organizations developed applications for all types of mobile phones through which smartphone users can watch news reports at any time, wherever they may be. Other smartphone apps (like redmail) enable viewers to transmit audio, print, and visual materials to the news desk. A new media department director explained that these apps were designed ‘to encourage reports from the field’.

Besides developing apps, news organizations also use existing apps for rapid receipt of visual audience material from the field. A new media department director supplied an example:

A month ago, there was a wildcat strike at Ben Gurion Airport. We used foursquare to find someone there.

An evening news editor adds:

We get information from them [the audience] and they link to us. Once a person is linked up and knows that he has done something active, that he is reporting, he feels connected. From then on, that person is our partner.

Participants use a variety of methods to encourage the news audience to supply news material using networked platforms and to act as ‘partners’. One outstanding means consists of crediting the people who provide information.

If a story comes in by redmail, I mention it and that spurs more people to do the same … We have a tool to encourage activity from the field. From our point of view, giving credit is payback too.

The decision to encourage audience participation by mentioning the names of people submitting information is related to the conception of television as a key medium in Israeli society, a medium that shines much more brightly than the gray world of ‘ordinary people’ (Couldry, 2000; Livingstone and Lunt, 1994). This perception provides a possible explanation for the development of the incentive noted by the new media department director and his colleagues.

As the research population considers the Internet (and not just television) to be a means of communication in use by the masses, participants also mentioned the use of apps as a means of encouraging the public to send in journalistic materials to the news desk. A new media department director explained:

We set up a game with a remarkable number of players. It’s a kind of application: You send us news and the more valuable it is, the more points you’ll get. What do you need to do? Send in a scoop, on video or otherwise. Then, according to the number of points you have, you’ll receive prizes.

As indicated, all participants noted that networked technologies contribute to their organizations by constituting an effective tool for viewers to dispatch essential news content to the news desk. In interviews, however, they emphasized that these platforms are most valuable for increasing the audience of the medium for which their principal output is intended – television.

Participants claim that two-way communication with their audiences, enabled via networked platforms, contributes to the organization by helping journalists increase their (television) audiences through adapting output to their tastes. A weekend news editor notes:

I look at the number of hits for items on the [organization’s] Web site. I actually do check that. It was already Friday evening and I was surprised to see that the item about [Dov] Lautman [an Israeli industrialist and business person, winner of the Israel Prize for his contribution to society in education, who was stricken with ALS] was among the three leading ones. You’d think that someone who’s disabled and static and preaches Zionism would gain no ratings at all, but I saw it was among the top three most viewed and that astounded me. It’s not that I’m going to write an article about the disabled now, but it does give me a quick picture of what’s happening.

Despite the attention to feedback received from their audiences and the importance they ascribe to it, the participants noted that as far as they were concerned, the chief function of networked platforms – especially the organization’s Web site and Facebook page – is to publicize news information to audiences other than television news viewers. They are referring primarily to young people in their 20s who spend many hours a day surfing the Web. An evening news editor explained for example that maintenance of networked platforms (primarily an active Web site and Facebook page) helps increase the network’s audience of young consumers because such platforms, unlike television, enjoy the image of innovation: ‘I really want that little [Facebook] “f” to appear on our screen, because it transmits something young’.

The new media department director at the rival network, who manages several Facebook accounts, made similar remarks and explained that Israeli young people spend many long hours surfing social networks. Consequently, he claimed, ‘you have to exert all efforts in that arena’. To appeal to a young audience, he set up a social network team that distributes content to the target group via such platforms:

We published the answers to high school matriculation examinations (conducted by the Israel Ministry of Education; [the examinations] are considered the chief indicator of a person’s education and a prerequisite for certain jobs and higher education) as soon as the test was over. All matriculation examination [writers] rushed to see our solution. Two thousand people not only visited the site but also wanted to participate … We realize that we are dealing with a younger audience that is interested in different content worlds.

A new media department director emphasizes that appeal to a younger audience through social networks is accomplished not only by adapting content but also by ‘converting’ official television language ‘to a more friendly, sociable language, more casual …’.

Appeal to a young audience through networked platforms – primarily the organization’s Facebook page – is perceived by editors as essential not only because it enables news desks to reach younger people who would not usually watch television news programs but also because it accustoms them to watching the network’s television news shows in the future. An evening news editor explained:

We promote items taken from the television news online. This exposes the young audience to our content, to our people, to our names, to our items. Someone will come and see it at the site. If he likes it, he’ll watch it on television. In another 5 years, when he goes to watch television, he’ll have consumed 5 years on our Web site, so he already knows things, recognizes the people, the pictures, everything. He didn’t watch television news over those 5 years but he did see mako (the organization’s website) and he recognizes [Channel 2’s evening news presenters] Yonit [Levi] and Danny [Kushmaro]. They’re not strangers to him, even though he never saw the news on television.

Besides identifying the young adult audience as a potential target audience that can be pinpointed and conquered via networked platforms, participants noted that such platforms may also be used to reach other niche audiences that are usually not included in the primary audience of commercial television network news viewers. A new media department director supplies a tangible example – appeal to religious audiences – that often avoid watching television because it is operated primarily by nonreligious persons and aims its products primarily at that sector:

Every Friday afternoon we publish [Sabbath] candle-lighting times. Responses have been most cordial: ‘Wow! All of a sudden Channel 2 is sending me Sabbath greetings!’ A network that bears news of disasters is thus linked to something good.

Participants also noted that networked platforms help consolidate the organization’s status – its television brand name – among television news viewers. People watch news programs that are broadcast at specific times of day – early morning and evening – when they are usually at home. Networked platforms consumed by the masses (including television viewers) allow for around-the-clock news consumption from anywhere. Above all, this all-encompassing 360° presence ensures audience loyalty. One evening news editor considers networked platforms to be ‘a kind of Video On Demand’ through which viewers can consume news at times convenient for them and not only when it is broadcast’.

All-encompassing presence in a variety of networked platforms also enables promotion of news content that is usually televised during evening hours only, as noted by an evening news editor: ‘We use such platforms not [only] to supply information but as teasers’. His colleague at the rival network provided examples:

We’ll show a clip at the Web site of a special interview with Israel’s ambassador to the United States that was shown on the television news. The same with [a series of reports on the activities of] children on vacation … [This] series of articles was “pumped up” on the Internet. An item [on that topic] was sent to 100,000 subscribers on the Internet. If I promote something, I’ll promote it there [on the Internet] … As far as we’re concerned, it promotes our content, showing what we’ll be broadcasting today.

A new media department director maintained that the presence of news organization material on networked platforms is a condition for the organization’s survival as the country’s dominant news network:

It is understood that as a leading content body, if you don’t play the game to the end, you are liable to lose your relevance, your leadership, the relevance of your brand name. You don’t want to wind up dead in the water. If I don’t make sure that Web surfers/customers/viewers encounter us at every point, they’re liable to get used to something else at another point and display that on their screens [instead].

To render distribution of brand name content via networked platforms more efficient, the participants reported that over the past few months, they have been generating news content suitable for networked platforms, especially YouTube. An evening news editor, for example, explained that to promote content broadcast on television news programs, the news team he manages produces short films to attract viewer attention and encourage viral distribution. He hoped to achieve a dual objective: generating network loyalty and ensuring that many people watch the program:

Today we had a surprise for Miki Haimovich [an evening news presenter who retired in June 2011] on her show. For the past week, I’ve been working on how to post it to Facebook the second it’s over because I have a feeling that it’ll be a kind of Internet hit that I hope everyone will want to see.

The new media department director at the rival network also emphasizes the importance of networked platforms for marketing his news brand name, indicating that they help his organization, whose news desk has the highest ratings in Israel, maintain its status as the country’s leading television network:

Some of the material that I distribute – like Home Front Command warnings – yields nothing of marketing value, but I want it to become routine that [Channel] 2 News is always first. That’s how we became engraved in people’s minds as the leading body in Israel […]. On Facebook, you see exactly when we’re promoting something … We also have a BlackBerry app because we don’t want to miss the smallest group, even if it’s only a negligible number of users.

This position is common among the research population. Participants working for both leading television networks in Israel consider the various networked applications to be essential technologies for the development of their respective news organizations and for maintaining their status. Nevertheless, they do not believe that the new technologies are effective in changing the face and objectives of the organization or the nature and function of the journalistic work taking place within them. From their point of view, new technologies contribute primarily to consolidating the news organization’s status as a leader and innovator. This is also the principal reason for their adoption, as a new media department director said. ‘We’ll do whatever can help us [the television organization] be the first and most innovative’.

Discussion/conclusions

The research findings provide a picture of the journalists’ conception, according to which their principal function as employees of television news organizations is to produce and broadcast the evening news program for family viewing at the end of the day. While the findings reveal a variety of uses of networked technologies and platforms, their influence on television content, news desk structure, and journalistic work methods is highly limited. The interviewees, whether being new media directors, chief editors, or editors/producers, are well aware of the true potential of networked technologies and platforms. Having said that, their testimonies regarding the actual use of social media is not to be regarded as downgrading the net as a significant tool for both newsgathering and news dissemination but merely as stating that the Internet is being used above all as a promotional tool.

These findings correlate with a recent study on the implication of Facebook in traditional news media in which it has been demonstrated that ‘[m]edia do not seem to have a clear strategy on using Facebook, which leads to an underperformance on the social media platform with low participation and minimal interaction’ (Hille and Bakker, 2013: 663).

Our findings show that networked technologies and platforms are used primarily for marketing purposes, including increasing the number of television viewers and reinforcing the news desk brand name. They are applied in production of viral clips, news program promos for Internet distribution, and targeted content for niche audiences (with emphasis on young people) as well as distribution of both television and targeted content over a variety of platforms for 360° viewing, anytime, anywhere. Besides marketing, journalists apply networked technologies and platforms in actual journalistic work, using the Internet as a source of information and a tool for obtaining real-time field testimony from people at the scene of an unfolding event.

The TFs model enables resolution of the contradiction between mass use of networked technologies and platforms by the public and limited use by the news organizations studied. According to participants, even in the online era, television is the preferred medium for news consumption by the masses constituting the organizations’ target audience. Hence the journalists’ primary goal is creation and distribution of the television news program, with the Internet serving as a kind of promotional means. In other words, while the expanding array of screens does have its uses, news desk journalists concentrate chiefly on applications that can increase the number of home television viewers.

In accordance with the theoretical expansion proposed in this study, the journalists’ conception of the journalism profession affects their limited use of networked technologies and platforms. The study shows that in an age of amateurism, journalists perceive themselves as exclusive agents charged with gathering, organizing, and distributing news information. They consider social media, with all its tools and services, to be a platform distributing information of doubtful reliability in near-deluge quantities.

Journalists’ conceptions of the organizations for which they work also help explain the partial use of networked technologies and platforms. The news desks examined have not instituted the mandatory organizational changes for efficient adoption of online technologies that requires an increase in personnel, earmarked resource allocations, and hierarchical changes in the news organization (Robinson, 2011) and so on. Furthermore, participants claim, there is no reason at present to change or expand the (advertising-based) news desk business model that is based on viewership as its main source of income. As direct leveraging of the investment in networked technologies and platforms is not feasible, they are developed and applied to improve the ratings of the television news show, the organization’s financial raison d’être. This means that so long as no economic potential is derived from the new screen array, the focus of journalistic work will remain the ‘small screen’ alone.

In brief, despite recognition of the importance and centrality of networked technologies and platforms, their specific and limited use by news desk journalists constitutes a derivative of the latter’s interpretive schemes in three respects.

Professionally, the journalists perceive their social function as exclusive responsibility for gathering newsworthy and reliable information, organizing it, and distributing it in a manner that structures the public and political agendas. This conception limits their use of the Internet, considered by them as a decentralized and anarchistic technology, flooded with unreliable content distributed to an audience of undetermined size at undetermined times.

Internet use is influenced not only by the journalists’ conception of their profession and its implications but also by their view of the function of new and traditional technologies in their organization. From a social point of view, the journalists perceive their growing audience as people who require information that originated in a variety of screen types, who require the order and ontological confidence supplied exclusively by television news. In accordance with their conceptions regarding the centrality of television news programs, optimal use of the Internet is perceived primarily as promotion of such programs.

The study shows that in the organizational sphere, journalists’ conceptions regarding the economic aspect of networked technologies and platforms provide a meaningful explanation of the limited uses thereof. Journalists believe that as long as their organization is unable to derive profit from the new technologies, it will not invest significant resources in them.

As our study shows, theoretical models emphasizing the effect of TFs on conceptions and uses of technology in organizations help resolve the contradiction between perception of the vast potential of the new technologies and their actual limited use.

Adherence to traditional conceptions of broadcast journalism regarding the role of the professional television journalist, the news organization’s economic structure, and the nature of broadcasted news consumption habits is what impedes full use of the frequently mentioned potential to challenge the journalistic environment and to enable change. Such change, arguably enabled by networked technologies, is likely to include expansion of the journalist’s function, improvement of tools available to journalists, increasing the number of topics covered and the perspectives of coverage, challenging existing business models, and empowering news producers/consumers.

Footnotes

Funding

This work was supported by the Second Authority for Television and Radio, Israel.

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