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Introduction
The Future of Journalism
Developments and debates
Bob Franklin
Radical shifts in journalism are changing virtually every aspect of the gathering, reporting and reception of news. The pace, extent and significance of these developments have accelerated markedly since 2009, when the previous Future of Journalism Conference convened at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. The factors prompting this radical and structural reshaping of journalism, which were analysed and discussed on that occasion, included: the continuing innovations in communication technologies; the harshly competitive and fragmenting markets for audiences and advertising revenues; dramatic reductions in the entry costs of some online outlets for news; the collapse of the traditional business model to resource journalism; an expansive role for social media as sources and drivers of news; dynamic changes in government media policy; as well as shifting audience requirements for news, the ways in which it is presented and, given the expansive number of (increasingly mobile) devices on which it is received, even the places and spaces where news is produced and consumed (Franklin, 2011, pp. 1ā2; Peters, C., 2012). Each of these trends and developments continues to have significant implications for journalistsā jobs, their workplaces, products and perceptions of their professional roles, ethical judgements and day-to-day practice. They also pose significant challenges to the future funding of a sustainable, critical and high-"quality" democratic Journalism. The economic recession since 2007 has exacerbated these longerterm trends, heightened their consequences for journalism and increased the already "break-neck" speed of developments, prompting Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger to claim that journalism "as an industry, [is] collectively suffering from what deep-sea divers refer to as the bends" (Rusbridger, 2010).
One indicator of the pace of these changes has been the proliferation of neologisms describing these developments in journalism. Not since philosopher Jeremy Bentham fashioned an unprecedented 246 new words in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, including maximise, marginalise and monetary, to describe an entirely new range of sentiments, values and economic behaviours and relationships which existing words could not articulate meaningfully, has such a flurry of new words been generated (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-project/tools/neologisms). But in the new millennium the requirement is for words which explain new communication relationships between journalists and audiences, as well as journalists and sources, and all this, in a setting where the professional identity and roles of journalists seem less certain. A cluster of new words such as "produsage" (Bruns, 2008), "churnalism" (Davies, 2008), "crowdfunding", "crowdsourcing" (Aitamurto, 2011) "Infomediaries" (Goyette-Cote et al., 2012), "newsfulness" (Chyi and Chadha, 2012) and "Huffingtonization" (Bakker, 2012), along with new verbs (to blog, to curate, to download, to repurpose, to text and to tweet), describe and in turn help to fashion new communication behaviours. Existing adjectives and nouns join in novel combinationsācitizen journalist, legacy media and user-generated contentāto identify and label new communication relationships; the same ambition informs the more clumsy collection of words into novel phrases such as "the people formerly known as the audience" and the "people formerly known as the employers".
But it was the breaking of the "hacking scandal at News International" in July 2011 which added even greater momentum to public as well as scholarly concerns about the future of journalism; and just ahead of the Conference in early September. The story enjoyed extensive and global media coverage. "Hackgate" possessed the essential ingredients of a strong tabloid story; celebrities, sex, the royal family, phone hacking, bribery, blackmail, crime and corruption. Journalism scholar Brian McNair, in his review of Mary McGuckianās film Rag Tale, which depicts journalistic culture in a fictional tabloid newsroom, observed wryly that following the events at News International, "the representations of office sex, hacking of sources, double dealing and betrayal among colleagues, heroic consumption of cocaine and alcohol" seem less like the "loose satire" which the film originally intended than "cinema verite" (McNair, 2011, p. 615). The prompt appearance of Rupert and James Murdoch at a House of Commons Select Committee hearing risked relegating the story from high drama to farce, as questions, accusations and eventually custard pies were thrown at the newspaper proprietor. Restored to some semblance of dignity, Rupert Murdoch conceded that it had been "the most humbling day of my life" (Guardian, 20 July 2011).
The ongoing events at News International continue to have significant implications for the debate about the future of Journalism, and probably for the unravelling of that future. One significant consequence has been the establishment of the Leveson Inquiry into the Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press (http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/) which began taking oral and written evidence in mid-November 2011. A special Roundtable was convened at the Future of Journalism 2011 to allow an early assessment of the importance of "Hackgate" and Leveson for journalism.
This brief introduction begins by setting out the ambitions for the Conference in 2011, as well as providing the broader context and background to the discussions, plenary lectures (delivered by Professors Emily Bell and Robert W. McChesney) and the 90 research-based papers delivered by journalism practitioners and scholars from more than 30 countries, a selection from which is published below. Second, it offers some further background to the Hackgate scandal by reporting brief extracts from the Roundtable which explore panel membersā initial assessments of the causes and consequences of the scandal for the future of journalism.
The Future of JournalismāDevelopments and Debates
The Future of Journalism 2011 was organised to explore the collective scholarly response to five broadly framed questions which, in turn, articulated the central Conference themes:
- First, how are developments in media technologies generating new devices (such as mobile telephones and tablet computers) for distributing and consuming journalism products, but also shaping a new journalism practice and innovative opportunities for reporting news including citizen and participatory journalism, crowdsourcing and live blogging? (Theme 1; Media Technology and Changing Journalism Practice).
- Second, what are the implications of these changes for the revenues traditionally available to fund journalism and what business models are emerging (for example, the recent enthusiasm for the construction of pay walls, the development of crowdfunding) to resource newly emerging forms of journalism? (Theme 2; Journalism Business Models and Strategies).
- Third, how are these changes unravelling globally in different national settings with their distinctive journalism cultures, audiences, media structures and histories? (Theme 3; Global Journalism Developments).
- Fourth, what are the implications of these developments for the education, training and employment of journalists, as well as journalistsā changing perceptions of their professional roles and identity? (Theme 4; Journalistsā Professional Roles and Identity).
- Finally, in what ways do these changes impact on journalismās wider connections with the moral, political and democratic life of communities locally, regionally, nationally and internationally? (Theme 5; Journalism, Democracy and Ethics).
Legacy Media and the "Crisis in Journalism"
A "crisis in journalism" frame has been widely adopted to understand and respond to the current changes in journalism. This frame highlights the dramatic closure of newspaper titles along with plummeting falls in circulations, journalistsā jobs and advertising revenues in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe (Meyer, 2004; Starr, 2009). Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, the UKās most successful mid-market tabloid, captures the mood of the crisis frame but turns his fire power against the too frequent and precocious epitaphs for "good journalism":
It is an ineluctable truth that many provincial newspapers and some nationals are now in a near terminal condition. If our critics spent as much zeal trying to help reverse this tragic situation and work out how good journalismāwhich is, by its nature expensiveāis going to survive financially in an internet age, then democracy and the publicās right to know would be much better served. (Dacre, 2010)
But the future of newspapers requires a more nuanced understanding than the crisis narrative allows. Such an assessment needs to explain important variations in the fortunes of journalism in distinctive national settings and market sectors (Franklin, 2009; Preston, 2009); to move beyond the arguments which ...
