Journalistic Product Personnel as Cultural Entrepreneurs: An Exploration of Background, Tenureship, and Knowledge Skills

Rowan McMullen Cheng, Valérie Bélair-Gagnon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

Product innovation within institutional journalism has become an increasingly apparent strategy for news organizations to form and maintain audience interest and economic stability. The common desire for product innovation to be a fiscal savior ultimately challenges internal boundaries of professions. This is particularly apparent as the product innovation field within the news industry expands and blurs institutional logics. To explore the ways product personnel challenge and contribute to the shifting boundaries of journalism, this research draws on content analysis data from top national U.S. print newspaper organizations’ LinkedIn member profiles. The research provides a more nuanced understanding of the shifting and conflicting logics of journalism through laborer backgrounds and experiences regarding product and innovation. It applies cultural entrepreneurship and conflicting institutional logic concepts to argue these news workers introduce knowledge skillsets and are reshaping the profession of journalism.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1531-1547
Number of pages17
JournalJournalism Studies
Volume23
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Christina Harisiadis, Andrew Locke, Trevor Zaucha, and Nicole Zhang who made insightful comments at the design stage of this project. We are also very grateful for Damon Kiesow, who contributed insightful comments on the previous draft of the manuscript.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

  • Product
  • conflicting institutional logics
  • cultural entrepreneurship
  • journalism
  • labor
  • skills

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