Traditionally, institutional approaches emphasize social institutions’ durability over time by studying how patterns of behavior become internalized and routinized and how resources (material and symbolic) and rules (informal and formal) guide behavior and provide individuals with identities and professional roles (Ryfe 2016). While stability is at the core of how we perceive institutions, they are not static entities; disruptions or critical incidents can “shock” the system, potentially leading to significant change or reconfirming shared understandings (March and Olsen 2011). These incidents are characterized by uncertainty, pushing important and powerful actors within institutions to make decisions. Stressing empirical variations, Ryfe (2016) underlines the need to study critical incidents in different national contexts, as both threats to journalism and institutional responses are unevenly distributed across the globe. Our point of departure is that when journalistic values, routines and practices are disrupted by controversies or “critical incidents,” such incidents cause people to question, challenge, and negotiate the boundaries of appropriate practice and attitudes (Carlson 2020; Zelizer 1993). In other words, when journalists are pushed to think about their roles and rules and to give them meaning, institutional identity is defended discursively (Hanitzsch and Vos 2017). For researchers, then, critical incidents are well-suited empirical cases to reveal how boundaries of the journalistic institution are challenged and defended, and to identify both continuity and change as potential outcomes.

It has been extensively documented that digitalization has disrupted journalism in several ways, having an impact on both structures and practices, even though continuity is also an important part of the picture (Ryfe 2019). In the context of this chapter, we emphasize two important developments that have been identified as a challenge to the journalistic institution. The first is related to the changing boundaries of journalism due to digitalization (Carlson 2015). Numerous studies have pointed to the dramatic proliferation of actors producing content on the borderline of journalism, including content marketing, alternative media, bloggers, fake news sites, that compete for attention and impact (Eldridge 2018; Holt, Figenschou, and Frischlich 2019). Consequently, the competition for audiences and revenues have become fiercer and it has become more difficult to define what journalism is, as new actors that enters the media sphere might or might not share or follow the constitutive or regulative rules of the institution (Carlson 2015; Culver 2017; Ward 2015, 2016, 2019). The second (and related) dimension is that journalism is under attack, and its authority and legitimacy is being questioned (Carlson 2017; Reese 2021). Particularly relevant here is far-right actors’ harsh criticism of journalists and specific news organizations (Figenschou and Ihlebæk 2019) as well as the institution of journalism more broadly (Holt 2020; Reese 2021). Anti-institutionalism or counter-institutionalism fundamentally challenge the structures of journalism, questioning perceptions of facts, truth, objectivity, and neutrality (Carlson, Robinson, and Lewis 2020; Reese 2021). The worry is how such attacks influence trust in journalism. Falling levels of trust in journalism have prompted widespread concern that the institution of journalism is in crisis (see Newman et al. 2019; Strömbäck et al. 2020), with audiences positioned to the right of the political center having comparatively higher distrust in established news media (Tsfati and Ariely 2014).

In the context of this chapter, these two developments extend to the scholarly discussion of right-wing alternative media and how they should be understood in the wider media environment. At one level, it has been pointed out how right-wing alternative media is on the rise and that they manage to set the agenda on social media platforms with content that is often partisan and pushing the ethical standards of the mainstream press (Benkler, Faris, and Roberts 2018; Sandberg and Ihlebæk 2019; Wischnewski, Bruns, and Keller 2021; see also Russell and Vos, this volume). As such they compete with professional news organizations for agenda-setting power. At another level, these kinds of news producers have a dubious relationship with the journalistic institution. It has been pointed out that alternative media demarcate their position by emphasizing their role as a “self-perceived corrective” to the mainstream (Holt et al. 2019; Mayerhöffer 2021). This counter-position is specifically visible in how alternative media engage in media criticism or cynicism as part of their publication strategy, claiming that the established media is biased and not trustworthy (Cushion, McDowell-Naylor, and Thomas 2021; Figenschou and Ihlebæk 2019; Mayerhöffer 2021). At the same time, the antagonism is paradoxical, as alternative media sites often refer to or recontextualize content from established media sources and copy their style in terms of lay-out and practices (Haanshuus and Ihlebæk 2021). It is also necessary to distinguish between those actors that are deviant and those that are closer to the professional field. Extreme actors are more likely anti-institutional, but it is far more common to support the constitutive rules but criticize the practice of professional journalists (Figenschou and Ihlebæk 2019)...