Acceleration is a constitutive part of modern society, which has been observed by social scientists already in the 19th century. The article is based on a holistic definition of acceleration that uses Hartmut Rosa's theoretic model in which he separates between analytically distinct, but mutually dependent dimensions of acceleration. Amongst them is technological acceleration, where in communications telegraph and digitalization have had the most notable impact. Lately algorithms are seen as technologies with potential for a vast social impact. Their basic features in digital capitalism include: (1) opacity, (2) datafication, (3) automation, and (4) instrumental rationalization. Consequences of these characteristics are multifaceted, amongst them further push for acceleration because of automation. I then assess the relationship between journalism and time, which is inseparable from journalistic work. The need for immediacy, instantaneousness and promptness is not only a part of journalistic practice, but also ideological foundation of journalistic profession. This has consequences for its normative presuppositions, which will also be influenced by algorithms. I propose two speculative scenarions: pessimistic one, with further acceleration of journalistic work and mass layoffs, where algorithms are a replacement for journalists, and an optimistic one, where algorithms take over routine tasks and supplement their work, leading to a rise in quality.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36556893
The study investigates how automation novelties in the newsroom both challenge and maintain the core values of journalism's professional ideology. Building on semi-structured interviews with editors of legacy news institutions in the United Kingdom and Germany, the study reveals the rationales behind the changing journalism-technology relationship and the dynamics of the re-articulation of the core ideals of journalism. In discussing automation with respect to strategic newsroom development, the interviewees see journalism's professional ideology as being in a state of flux. They identify contradictions between automation and some of journalism's core ideals (public service, autonomy, and objectivity) and acknowledge both the potential and limits of technology with regard to others (timeliness and ethics). Despite the growing relevance of automation for news production, human journalists are still regarded as the dominant agents in news production and its continuous reinvention. This human-still-in-the-loop perspective highlights the idea that journalism is undergoing a profound yet long transformation where new technologies are not simply appearing and changing everything, but are innovations developed and embedded in established relations of the news production process. This perspective both reiterates and challenges the prevailing meanings of journalism.
COBISS.SI-ID: 36153693
Research into the algorithmisation of newswork is most often limited to the impact of technology on newsrooms and changing patterns of the labour process of journalists and editors. Consequently, the development of technology remains a blind spot and the literature tends towards an explicit or at least implicit technological determinism when trying to understand the contemporary transformations of newswork. This contribution addresses these shortcomings with a case study of the algorithmisation of newswork at the Slovene Press Agency (STA) in which we identify the factors that are shaping the process of technological development at the agency and the specific tools and applications result from this process. The case study thus complements the initial research question on how technological innovations are influencing the work of journalists and editors with a research question on which factors shape the development and implementation of technological innovations at the agency. We find that market pressures are the main driving force of the development and implementation of technology as well connected organisational changes. The agency views technological innovation as a crucial way to secure its position on the market as well as generate additional revenue in the face of shrinking media markets. Automatisation of journalistic work remains a marginal phenomenon, instead technological innovations are geared towards enabling a faster pace of work as well as broadening the range...
COBISS.SI-ID: 36557405