Technology has revolutionized how people can opt for the type of news they prefer to consume. Technological innovations have played a significant role in engaging journalists and people by incorporating people to be part
RESEARCH PAPER
Introduction
Over the past years, the media industry has experienced technological advancement. Journalism production has significantly adopted various technological innovations which have helped in creating convenience and enhancing journalism production. A significant shift from traditional news production to electronic new production and process has been noted. Especially the newsroom is at the forefront of adopting technological innovations. The technological trends in the media industry have been noteworthy and have been shown to significantly transform content and media processing as well as production in journalism (Lewis & Westlund, 2015). However, some heated arguments have currently emerged regarding some adjustments of the editorial workforce to electronic news processing technologies stimulating the traditional confrontation that exists between news works and the media industry management. This paper will discuss the role of technology, social environment, political environment, and industrial relations in shaping journalism production.
Example of technology
Media houses have significantly adopted the use of the internet which has led to a new model of journalism called citizen journalism. Task-technology fit theory is applicable to CNN media house. Essentially, task-technology fit theory speculates that the ultimate outcome varies based on the technology being utilized as well as the fit between a task and technology. The focus of this theory is on how technology is appropriate to a task. Drawing on this, CNN uses the internet through a website called iReport.com, which is appropriate for the main task of CNN which is to gather news to be reported. iReport.com is a citizen journalism initiative allowing every individual worldwide to post videos and photos of breaking stories. Here, iReport.com is the CNN technology in use and the submission of stories by citizen journalists to the website is the task. This task of submitting stories to iReport.com which is used by CNN in making News to report is appropriate to the internet technology. This has provided a shortcut for CNN in news gathering, making their news production easier and unfolding events in real-time. One specific example is a certain CNN broadcast in 2007 showing a video of policemen responding to a shooting incident at Virginia Tech shootings of which the video was taken by a student on his mobile phone and later given to CNN through the iReport.com website belonging to CNN (Rappaport, and Leith, 2007).
Role of technology
Technology has revolutionized how people can opt for the type of news they prefer to consume. Technological innovations have played a significant role in engaging journalists and people by incorporating people to be part of the newsgathering process. Digital transformation has eased the new gathering process making the news-making process convenient and efficient (Global Dialogue Forum on Employment Relationships in the Media and Culture Sector, International Labour Office, & Sectoral Activities Department, 2014). This transformation has also eased the accessibility of news through online sites or platforms via computers or mobile phones.
Moreover, journalists and news editors can engage with the readers by leaving comments. Information transformation brought about by this technological revolution has created convenience for the readers, enabling them to choose either to read the entire story or just a portion of it (Grubenmann, 2016). Sometimes back, the primary sources of information used to be radios and newspapers. They enjoyed the monopoly but lacked flexibility, convenience, and timely delivery of news as one had to wait till the following morning to read yesterday’s news. The communication flow was one way, but the digital transformation, provides a two-way flow of communication which has enhanced journalists’ work in news production.
Journalists have to cope with the digital transformation to improve content production that suits the current audience. The existing technological tools that journalists exploit have improved news collection, processing, and distribution, offering readers diverse options. Alternatively, news consumers are diverting from old traditional media and are currently establishing the news preference that they intend to read (Bruns, 2018). Reporting on stories by journalists was quite restrained to the media they work for. These journalists utilized expensive equipment like cameras in capturing their stories. Today, as a result of technological transformation, there has been a prevalent use of phones which are equipped with cameras, audio as well as the internet. This ability means that anybody with a phone can be part of the newsgathering process, therefore, making the newsgathering process easy for the journalists (Young & Hermida, 2015). With technological evolution, social media has emerged, and the world has seen its power.
The digital revolution in the form of social media has enabled people to self-publish on the internet through Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, blogs, and Facebook. This digital transformation has offered a new communication platform whereby people have the opportunity to say what they have in mind. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have made it easy for journalists to distribute their news. Technology has proven to play a vital role in relaying information to people. Social media has helped journalists to set their agendas and mobilized the public to take part in the discussion (Kalyango Jr et al., 2017). The technological revolution has led to the emergence of citizen journalists. Necessarily, citizen journalists are non-professional journalists who report and produce stories. This helps professional journalist increase their news base. Most citizen journalists tend to deliver news that has not been published by the media houses. By doing so, they help the journalist to cover the stories that they had not reported and also to backup stories that journalists have covered. With the availability of mobile phones, computers, and audio recorders, citizen journalist is able to produce their own stories and share them via social media platforms. Mostly, technology has inspired citizen journalists since they feel the sense of responsibility of covering every piece of information and not for the sake of getting paid. Currently, ordinary citizens are reporting what happens on the ground while capturing compelling footage which helps journalists in gathering news to report. In countries whereby the government controls the media, citizen journalists stand up to cover what is going on.
Role of industrial relations
Industrial relations play a significant role in journalism by promoting media houses to achieve their goals through cooperative and collaborative work practices among their workers. Employee relations are essential since the human resources strategy of the media house, as well as its organizational success, significantly rely on productivity and employee engagement (Anderson, Bell, & Shirky, 2015). Maintaining industrial relations creates a healthy working environment with a workforce collaboratively working together toward achieving a common shared goal.
Industrial relations also play an essential role in resolving issues collaboratively. In every work, a problem is likely to occur, and it can be hard to solve the problems by one individual, therefore, with an industrial relation in place, journalists, editors, and other workers in the media house can join forces together to solve issues or make a concessive decision. Journalism activities are hectic, and one cannot handle them all by himself (Carter, Cushion, & Garcia-Blanco, 2018). In fact, in journalism, collaboration and coordination are vital and key to the success and effectiveness of that media house. Maintaining industrial relations in the media industry is essential in making things work out effectively and in an efficient manner. Without proper industrial ties, journalistic activities will be affected, leading to low-quality of news or stories produced by the media house. As a result, it will ruin the public trust and further affect declined profitability.
Industrial relations create a happy workplace for media house employees. For the employees to be effective and productive, they have to be happy and with a conducive environment to work in. Editors and journalists in a media house tend to lose focus and concentration when filled with anxiety and stress. This literary impacts on their work lead to low productivity and producing news that is of low quality (Anderson et al., 2015). Therefore, industrial relations encourage interaction between employees and equal sharing of tasks to avoid work overload that leads to stress and anxiety. It is also more focused on giving employees a conducive environment that provides employees with excellent mental health. Industrial relations encourage respect among media employees. Respect builds trust and coordination which is vital in aiming toward attaining the organizational goal.
Industrial relations have played the role of encouraging communal work and collaborative working among journalists. It makes work more comfortable to share work among workers. Since industrial relations promote sharing for work, is shared among employees, making it more accessible. Moreover, the sharing of work results in quality work produced (Carter et al., 2018). One individual cannot do all things on his one. Responsibilities need to be shared among employees to achieve the objectives of assigned work within the given timeframe. Therefore, industrial relations help employees to assist one another to achieve a common goal and make work easier.
Role of social environment
Social environments also play a role in forming a journalist’s self-beliefs regarding their abilities and probability of achieving their goals. A supportive and favorable social environment gives media the moral to work hard to achieve its goals. Journalists tend to develop self-belief in such a social environment, which compels them to put all their effort to work very hard toward achieving their goals (Wahl-Jorgensen et al., 2016). It enables journalists to preserve harsh conditions with the aim of attaining the set objects of the media house. In social environments that are understanding and supportive, whereby the news and journalistic activities are respected, newsgathering tends to be easier. With the given social environment, the media house is more probable to succeed.
Social environments play a big role in the media by facilitating social interactions between the media or journalists and the public. These social interactions enable journalists to view themselves through the eyes of others. Social interactions give journalists the ability to treat every person compassionately and report truthful news without any bias or favor. In essence, social environments enable journalists and media houses to get feedback, suggestions as well as comments in real-time regarding the way they reported news and also the quality of the story they report (Anderson et al., 2015). These enable journalists and media houses to improve on the quality and way of reporting their news. Timely feedback from the audience or public is an essential aspect of journalistic activities improvement and also offers a framework for evaluating journalistic developmental progress.
Role of political environment
The political environment has played a significant role in shaping journalism by providing a favorable political climate and cooperation from political stakeholders allowing the journalist to do their work without interference. In essence, politicians and government agencies have partnered with journalists to work together in providing reporting news on both development and those that critique the government’s performance (Bruns, 2018). They have granted journalists to be at the forefront in reporting any news without disparity. A favorable political environment characterized by aid and cooperation from the government has helped to spearhead journalistic practices to higher levels (Belair-Gagnon, Agur, & Frisch, 2017). It is evident that in areas that used to have an unfavorable political environment, journalistic practices were suppressed, making it difficult for a journalist to provide timely and truthful news to the people.
Moreover, favorable policies and regulations have been put in place, which play the role of protecting journalists from oppression or interference from any governmental body or anyone. These policies have also granted journalists and the media in general free access to report the news without any interference (Kalyango Jr et al., 2017). These policies have played a significant role in granting media houses independence to gather, process, and distribute news. With this kind of independence, journalists, editors, and other newsmakers have the freedom to exercise their practices effectively, creating convenience for them (Hassid & Repnikova, 2016). These policies have shaped journalism by ensuring that journalists produce reliable and high-quality news.
The political environment also plays a significant role in creating public trust in media content. For the public to accept the content, story, or news of a media house, public trust must be established. The political environment in form of government agencies in charge of media houses credit news and stories from these media houses (Kalyango Jr et al., 2017). They also support these media houses, and as a result, trust is developed among the public. For a media house to have a wider audience and remain profitable, it needs to have trust among the public. And with such support and credit from governmental agencies, the media or journalists can gain public trust.
Conclusion
To sum it all up, journalism has made a significant shift from traditional means of gathering, processing, and distributing information to electronic new journalistic production. The computer has enhanced editing, engagement, and sharing of news. Digital transformation has eased the new gathering process making the news-making process convenient and efficient. Technology plays a significant role in easing the gathering, processing, and distribution of news.
Moreover, the political environment plays a big role in shaping journalism by providing a good political climate and cooperation from political stakeholders allowing the journalist to do their work without interference. A good political environment offers policies that have shaped journalism by ensuring that journalists produce reliable and high-quality news. It is evident that social environments also play a role in forming a journalist’s self-beliefs regarding their abilities and probability of achieving their goals. Social interactions give journalists the ability to treat every person compassionately and report truthful news without any bias or favor. In essence, social environments enable journalists and media houses to get feedback, suggestions as well as comments in real-time regarding the way they report news and also the quality of the news they report. All in all, currently, journalism has significantly changed, and to reap the full benefits of technology, media houses have adopted the technology considerably.