Journalists as mobility agents: Labor mobilities, individualized identities, and emerging organizational forms

Abstract

As mobility is becoming a distinctive feature of 21st century journalists, this theoretical article proposes a mobility turn in journalism studies. Drawing on sociological perspectives on mobilities, individualization, and turnover, it puts forward a shift from the analysis of news workers as static and fixed to the organizations that employ them to their analysis as mobility agents. By stressing that their capacity to move is transforming their employment and identities, it invites contemporary journalism scholars to recognize how this bottom-up disruption is reshaping the institution, the organizations and the labor of journalism. Since journalism’s corporate and industrial structures have not fully crumbled, this article’s emphasis on labor, physical and virtual mobilities offers an alternative to current theorizations of change in journalism.

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