The Paradox of Connection

Abstract

The Paradox of Connection addresses crucial questions about journalists’ media work in dynamic social media environments through a framework of online connection and disconnection. The focus of the book is the exploration of how journalists’ practices of connection and disconnection in social media environments are formed, negotiated, and maintained. This book argues that journalists’ pursuit of online and social media connection with audiences has resulted in new work practices, new efficiencies in production, and new forms of reporting. But for all the new and innovative forms of online connection that have changed journalism practice, there are also material effects on journalists and their work. Journalists’ interactions with the technological, social, and cultural features of online and social media environments, paired with the related values and competencies of journalistic work, have influenced new online work practices. These new online work practices are largely based on tactics for online connection and disconnection, which both shape and respond to the many complexities of working in dynamic and fast-changing media environments. Using case studies, policy analysis, and interviews with journalists themselves, the book shows how journalists respond to technical, organizational, and institutional influences on work practices in social media environments and their implications for relationships with audiences and, more broadly, with their traditional professional identities and norms.

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