[Commlist] CFP. Special Issue of Journalism Practice: Journalistic Role Performance in Times of Change

CFP. Special Issue of Journalism Practice: Journalistic Role Performance 
in Times of Change*

**

*Guest editors:*

Claudia Mellado

Daniel Hallin

Over the past decade, research on journalistic role performance—defined 
as the study of how particular journalistic norms and ideals are 
collectively negotiated and result in specific practices—has become very 
important among scholars from the Global North and South, providing a 
more thorough understanding of the processes behind journalistic 
practices in relation to normative expectations in a fluid media 
environment.

While journalists must adapt, adjust, and perform multiple roles on a 
daily basis in response to ever-changing circumstances, shifting norms, 
rapidly changing technology, political polarization, and a years-long 
pandemic are making the profession more challenging than ever. In public 
discourse, journalists are often derided as failing to live up to their 
duties to serve society, and public distrust with media performance is 
widespread and by many accounts increasing. At the same time, 
journalists across the world are working in smaller newsrooms, covering 
a variety of beats, feeding more platforms, often in environments that 
offer little job security. How do these circumstances impact the 
performance of journalistic roles? How is the performance of 
journalistic roles shaped in the news, and how do journalistic ideals 
compare to actual practice?

As a concept, role performance conceives of journalism as a social 
practice, focusing on the interplay between political economy, agency, 
and the structure of the media. This epistemic umbrella provides a 
strong theoretical and empirical framework to account for the fluid, 
dynamic nature of journalistic roles and to explore the constant tension 
between norms, ideals, and the practices of journalists and news 
organizations in different institutional settings.

This special issue explores the factors shaping journalistic roles, what 
roles journalists most frequently perform in their newsrooms, the way 
journalists feel they can perform multiple roles, to what extent 
journalistic ideals consistently or fully match the real-world behavior 
of journalists and the content of news media in different newsrooms, how 
this varies across space and time, and how this affects the way 
audiences evaluate the profession.

We welcome empirical and theoretical submissions that contribute to the 
further development of this research area. Contributions to this special 
issue may employ different methodological and theoretical approaches and 
study professional roles and role performance from different levels of 
analysis.

A conference related to this special issue, “Between ideals and 
practices: Journalistic role performance in transformative times,” will 
be held by Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) in May, 2023 before the 
ICA Conference.  People interested in submitting to the special issue 
are encouraged, but not required, to submit to this conference as well.

The special issue aims to bring together innovative, thought-provoking 
contributions, from different national and regional contexts, exploring 
a range of topics, including:

  * Professional roles and pandemic reporting: How has the pandemic
    affected roles performed by journalists? How has journalistic
    content creation changed/evolved and how has a global pandemic
    impacted the ways journalists view their roles?
  * Role performance and technology: How have technology and AI modified
    news media practices and consumption? How has the digital
    transformation of journalism impacted the performance of
    journalistic roles in the news? How are converged newsrooms that
    deliver to multiple platforms changing traditional roles?
  * Role performance and media systems: What political, social and
    economic contexts shape the performance of journalistic roles?
  * Role performance and news beats: How does the performance of
    professional roles vary across news beats and genres?
  * Role performance and news routines: How do journalistic roles
    materialize in, or are shaped by, the practices of sourcing,
    newsgathering, and packaging the news?
  * Role performance and audiences: How do audiences play a role
    —shaping, perceiving or receiving— the roles that news media and
    journalists perform?
  * Methodological challenges of studying journalistic roles: What are
    the best practices to engage with and gain access to journalists and
    for data collection and analysis in the study of journalistic role
    performance?
  * Blurred professional boundaries: How do the proliferation of digital
    media and the variety of actors and channels introduced into the
    circulation of news affect professional norms and role performance?

*Submission Instructions*

This is a call for extended abstracts (500-750 words), accompanied by a 
100-150-word bio introducing your relevant expertise. Abstracts should 
be sent no later than *December 16*, to (claudia.mellado /at/ pucv.cl) 
<mailto:(claudia.mellado /at/ pucv.cl)> and (dhallin /at/ ucsd.edu) 
<mailto:(dhallin /at/ ucsd.edu)>. Upon selection, scholars will be invited to 
submit full papers. Article submissions should be about 8,000 words in 
length, including references, and are subject to full blind peer-review, 
in accordance with the peer-review procedure of /Journalism Practice/. 
Manuscripts will be submitted through the journal’s ScholarOne website. 
Authors must indicate that they wish to have their manuscript considered 
for this Special Issue. There are no article processing charges required 
for publication.

*Expected dates:*

Deadline submission of extended abstracts: *December 16, 2022*

Decision on abstracts: *February 1, 2023*

Deadline for full-papers submission: *July 1, 2023*.

Publication: Online first after acceptance, and later in a forthcoming 
issue of /Journalism Practice/

For further details: 
https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/journalistic-role-performance/ 
<https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/journalistic-role-performance/>



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