[Commlist] Call for a Special Issue of ‘JournalismStudies’: Rethinking the Sociology of News

*Call for a Special Issue of ‘Journalism Studies’: **Rethinking the 
Sociology of News: Global, Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives*

**

*Special Issue Editors:*

Hayes Mabweazara, University of Glasgow - (Hayes.Mabweazara /at/ glasgow.ac.uk)

Catherine Happer, University of Glasgow - (catherine.happer /at/ glasgow.ac.uk)

*Manuscript deadline*:

1 May 2022

*Rationale and scope:*

Journalism studies is defined by and benefits from its interdisciplinary 
nature and broad scope of interests and priorities. However, one 
consequence of this is that the way in which distinct disciplines might 
differentially shape and bring value to our understanding of the field 
can be overlooked.  A key strand of the current foundational critique of 
journalism was established and deeply rooted in the discipline of 
Sociology, which gave rise to specific concerns and approaches to 
understanding the ways in which news organisations manage the processes 
through which information is gathered and transformed into news and the 
pressures that encourage journalists to follow familiar patterns of news 
making.  In the British context, the late 20^th  century was a 
particularly prolific period for the sociology of news in which the 
empiricism of institutional research centres such as the Glasgow 
University Media Group (GUMG) played a leading role in setting the 
agenda for journalism and media studies. The conceptual basis for such 
work was the understanding of journalism as embedded within systems of 
power (economic, political, social, cultural) and as institutionalised 
through everyday practices, shared beliefs, and norms.  Methodological 
approaches which involved the analysis of production processes, patterns 
in content, audience reception and the formation of public opinion 
addressed the totality of communication systems with journalism and 
journalists as key agents in driving a range of societal outcomes.

The body of work produced by the GUMG in particular was influenced by 
the political economy of the media as represented, for example, by 
Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model, ideas of media as cultural 
hegemony and the role of ‘primary definers’ in the work of Stuart Hall.  
Shared foci around journalistic selection, inclusion, and omission 
paralleled work in the US, including McCombs and Shaw’s research on 
‘agenda setting,’ Robert Entman’s ‘media framing’ and David Manning 
White’s seminal ‘gatekeeper theory,’ among others.  The importance of 
structures of ownership and control and the extent to which the broader 
ideological climate shapes the thinking of journalists also came to the 
fore. News production was also seen as a highly regulated and routine 
process shaped by organisational pressures, with very little 
acknowledgment of journalistic agency. For some time, this pioneering 
body of work collectively ushered in revolutionary approaches to 
understanding news as a historically contingent ‘manufactured’ product.

However, the complexities of contemporary societies and their media 
systems have increasingly rendered these early sociological approaches 
anachronistic, and in some cases, inadequate as explanatory frameworks 
for understanding the operations of journalism in the 21^st  century. 
The systems of power or ideological climate of news production have 
changed significantly and the field of analysis has expanded beyond a 
focus on the production of information flows and their impacts within 
Western economies. New political and social formations, including the 
complexities of increased globalisation and the emergence of 
multicultural citizenship have become central concerns in changing 
social and political contexts in which new global news players are 
emerging. At the heart of these changes are developments in digital 
technologies which have radically transformed the working practices of 
journalists and news consumption habits. The time is long overdue for 
revisiting early sociological studies and their deep-rooted 
Western-centrism which continue to define journalism studies’ key areas 
of inquiry and the field’s theoretical and methodological direction 
globally.

This special issue addresses the question of the continuing value of the 
priorities of the sociology of news and the importance of a sociological 
critique of journalism more generally, the dynamism and adaptability of 
its modes of analysis to different contexts, and the validity of the 
conceptualisations of power and resistance built into them. Themes and 
areas of particular interest may include:

  * Emerging methodological approaches to studying news and news
    organisations
  * Doing content analysis beyond mass media
  * Conceptualising ‘media power’ in the age of big tech
  * Constructing ‘public opinion’ through social media content production
  * Agenda setting on social media platforms
  * News values in non-Western contexts
  * The impact of technological innovation on traditional sociological
    understandings of news production
  * Studies that challenge and throw into question Anglo-American
    conceptions of news
  * Changing connections between journalists and news sources
  * Shifts in the culture and patterns of news consumption/reception
  * The shifting nature of social class identifications and media audiences
  * Contestable notions of bias and objectivity in the news media

*Submission Instructions:*

  * Select 'Rethinking the Sociology of News: Global, Empirical and
    Theoretical Perspectives' when submitting your paper to ScholarOne.
  * Full paper submissions only: 1 May 2022.
  * All submissions will undergo the normal peer-review process.
  * We will consider theoretical papers, case studies and those which
    contain original research.
  * Anticipated publication date: early 2023.
  * *Please note that there are no Article Processing Charges associated
    with this CfPs.*


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