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418

Saturday, November 12

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research, to make sense of a quality experience: e.g. attention and satisfaction (Stanca et al. 2013), hedonism and eudaimonism (Bartsch & Schneider, 2014;

Tamborini et al., 2011); enjoyment and appreciation (Oliver & Bartsch, 2014); lean forward and lean backward (Costera Meijer & Groot Kormelink, 2015)

and transportation and engagement (Green & Brock,2000). I will illustrate the value of conceptualising journalism as experience by comparing the results

of three case studies: viewers of current affairs television; citizen journalists; users and producers of regional journalism. Studying journalism in terms

of experience enables us to improve our conceptual distinctions between various quality experiences, such as learning how politics work; being transported

into the story world of the newspaper’s weekend edition; and enabling residents to get a grip on the reality of their neighbourhood again. In conclusion

the paper suggests how the concept of quality experience may make it easier to understand why some recently introduced user and producer practices

get adopted more effortlessly than others. Bartsch, A., and Schneider, F.M. 2014. "Entertainment and Politics Revisited: How Non-Escapist Forms of Enter‑

tainment Can Stimulate Political Interest and Information Seeking." Journal of Communication 64 (3): 369–396. Costera Meijer, I., & Groot Kormelink, T.

(2015). Checking, Sharing, Clicking and Linking: Changing patterns of news use between 2004 and 2014. Digital Journalism, 3(5), 664–679. Dewey, John

(1985, 1934) Art as Experience. London: Penguin Green, Melanie C., and Timothy C. Brock. 2000.“The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public

narratives.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79: 701–721. Stanca, Luca, Marco Gui, and Marcello Gallucci. (2013). "Attracted but Unsatisfied:

The Effects of Sensational Content onTelevision Consumption Choices." Journal of Media Economics 26 (2): 82–97.Tamborini, Ron, Nicholas David Bowman,

Allison Eden, Matthew Grizzard, and Ashley Organ. 2010. “Defining media enjoyment as the satisfaction of intrinsic needs.”Journal of Communication 60:

758–777.

PN 320

Journalism as Networked Normativity: Tracing the Life of Journalistic Norms

D. Domingo

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Universite Libre Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

At a time when journalism as a social practice is increasingly dispersed (Domingo and Le Cam, 2014) and as a profession is challenged by blurring boundaries

(Carlson and Lewis, 2015), normative definitions of journalism are still central to make sense of what news means and who has legitimacy to produce credi‑

ble narratives about current events.This paper contributes a new perspective to the debates about the future of journalismby deconstructing the underlying

normative assumptions that usually rest implicit in both academic and professional proposals. Encouraged by the proposal of Boltanski andThévenot (1999)

for a sociology of critical capacity and recent developments in actor-network theory (Latour, 2013), it proposes a comprehensive theoretical framework to

understand the processes of (re)creation of journalistic norms and their significance. Everyone has certain expectations about what journalism should be,

but we seldom challenge their implications nor acknowledge their origins. They are either described as long-standing values to which journalists adhere

in certain degrees, showing the diversity of the profession; or they are presented as new trends that offer opportunities to redefine the work of journalists

and overcome the shortcomings of the profession. Critical and historical analyses have shown that these norms, as a social -and academic- construction

(Weisbord, 2014; Kreiss and Brennen, 2016), are defined within specific cultural contexts and moments in time. If we conceptualize norms as actants that

are inscribed in institutional arrangements and are mobilized by other actants, we can reconnect the abstract ideals with the everyday practices that enact

them or challenge them: in everyday life, the interactions between journalists, other social actors and technical devices, are shaped by normativity while

reinforcing or rewriting the norms in the process. This approach allows to effectively bridge two traditions of research that have usually been independent:

the macro perspective of journalism history and the micro approach of the sociology of newsmaking. This would lead us to empirically trace the life of jour‑

nalistic norms beyond newsrooms and formal professional settings, acknowledging that journalism is co-created also elsewhere by other social actors.

The proposal fosters that journalists, citizens and researchers themselves engage in a critical reflection about their expectations regarding the role of jour‑

nalism in society, in order to empower them to develop more fulfilling forms of newsmaking. References: Boltanski, L., & Thévenot, L. (1999). The sociology

of critical capacity. European Journal of Social Theory, 2(3): 359–377. Carlson, M., & Lewis, S. C. (eds.). (2015). Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism,

Practices and Participation. Routledge. Domingo, D. and Le Cam, F. (2014). Journalism in Dispersion: Exploring the Blurring Boundaries of Newsmaking

Through a Controversy. Digital Journalism, 2(3): 310–321. Kreiss, D. and Brennen, J.S. (2016). Normative Models of Digital Journalism. In Witschge, T.,

Anderson, C.W., Domingo, D., Hermida, A. (2016) The SAGE Handbook of Digital Journalism. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Latour, B. (2013). An inquiry into modes

of existence. Harvard University Press. Waisbord, S. (2013). Reinventing professionalism: Journalism and news in global perspective. New York: Wiley.

PN 321

Journalism as Emotion

K. Wahl-Jorgensen

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Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

This presentation contributes to the reconceptualization of“Journalism Elsewhere”by considering the implications of departures from conventional“objec‑

tive”and“impartial”paradigms of journalism. Specifically, the presentation suggests the urgent need to take seriously the role of emotion in the production,

texts and consumption of journalism. The historical failure to consider emotion in journalism studies could be considered a significant disciplinary “blind

spot.” Taking emotion seriously is particularly vital because technological change is bringing about changes in journalistic storytelling in the direction

of more personalized and affective forms and genres. The increased prominence of user-generated content, citizen journalism and social media has brought

about new conventions of journalistic story-telling and hence new forms of truth claims.This should be understood against the backdrop of broader cultural

transformations which have also impacted on the journalistic field. First of all, there is a growing recognition that rather than necessarily undermining

the rationality of the public sphere, emotional expression may be a vital positive force in enabling new forms of engagement, expression and solidarity

(e.g. Chouliaraki & Blaagard; 2013; Papacharissi, 2014; ). Secondly, the rise of “subjective and confessional journalism”(Coward, 2013) has been a growing

trend in journalistic expression over the past few decades. This, in turn, has been accelerated and underwritten by the emergence of digital journalism and

social media. The blurring of conventional boundaries between “journalists”and “audiences”has contributed to challenging epistemologies of journalism,

away from ways of knowing which privilege objectivity and distancing, and towards a central place for emotionally inflected narratives of witnessing and