Within journalism education, we often see the
The focus of the present article is on internship, during which the journalist trainee finds himself, in the middle of praxis, attempting to put into practice what he has learned at journalism school. The professional socialization begins at the educational institution. However, the beginning of the internship is where the actual newsroom socialization process starts (cf. Cotter 2010), and this is our focus.
The research question for this study is: How do socialization processes take place in the routinized practice in the newsroom? In the present article, we initially describe socialization in general and how this has been studied within journalism studies. Then we set out our interdisciplinary theoretical framework, present our research design, and describe and discuss important findings showing how socialization takes place in the newsroom, focusing in particular on conversations and interactions between interns and editors.
In general terms, Baquedano-López (2001:345) defines socialization as “the process of becoming a competent member of society, of internalizing the norms, role expectations, and values of the community; in sum, of becoming culturally competent”. When it comes to socialization into the news culture, the trainee needs to learn to become a competent member through acquisition of a range of
The socialization process is embedded in a specific
The professional veterans, i.e. the trained journalists and editors, are perceived by theories of profession as
Through this process of socialization, the journalist trainees acquire the knowledge that enables them to participate effectively and appropriately in this particular community of practice (Schieffelin and Ochs 1986; Garrett and Baquedano-Lopez 2002; Goodwin 2003), and they internalize the values and norms of the news organization. Aldridge and Evetts (2003) describe this acquired professionalism as one way in which news organizations create a control mechanism that works from a distance. As a consequence, the news organizations can minimize their direct control of work in favour of a more covert control of the autonomy of the journalists (Sigelman 1973; Berkowitz and Limor 2003; Preston 2009).
As demonstrated in Figure 1, below, the concept of socialization into the profession of journalism has been conceptualized and studied in different ways. A major part of this research has studied socialization by focusing on the
As these surveys focus on the results and products of socialization, they are able to point out changes in attitudes, opinions, values, etc. However, they are not able to describe
A smaller part of this previous research focuses on socialization as a
This previous research emphasizes the great importance of the socialization process. However, journalism research has not yet provided detailed empirical analyses of
Kulick and Schieffelin (2005) emphasize that language is the “most central and crucial dimension of the socialising process” as the novice becomes a competent member of a particular community of practice. Furthermore, Schiffelin and Ochs both underline that “all interactions are potentially socializing contexts” (Ochs 1988: 6; Schiffelin 1990: 19), and that ordinary conversational discourse is a powerful socializing medium (Schiffelin and Ochs 1986: 172). Therefore, in order to study the socialization process, we have to perform microanalytical studies of the social interaction in the newsroom involving both novices and experts, analysing language use and its social entailments in this particular community of practice (Cotter 2010).
The study presented here is interdisciplinary, as we bring together insights from linguistics, sociology, anthropology, theories of profession, and journalism studies in order to explore the socialization process. This is part of a recent shift in research focus towards combining 1) the traditional
When building up professional expertise, both institutions and professions create boundaries between ways of knowing the same object (Abbott 1988; Goodwin 1994; Carr 2010) as they cultivate, authorize, and organize certain knowledge practices. The ability
As professional expertise is inherently interactional and accomplished and enacted through linguistic practices (Goodwin 1994, 1996; Carr 2010), the interns in the news-room learn, in their relationships with veterans, how to define and interpret objects in an expert way and to master a linguistic repertoire (Carr 2010; Cotter 2010; Van Hout and Van Praet 2011). Therefore, we must analyse practice and the talk-in-interaction in the actual routinized practice in the newsroom and study how objects of knowledge are socially constructed through systematic discursive procedures within this particular community of practice where news is talked into being (Ekström 2007).
Within linguistic anthropology,
As this research project aims at offering an insight into how socialization happens at the micro-level in routinized interaction in the newsroom, we draw upon
Conversation analysis (CA) studies social interaction and focuses on practitioners’ talk-in-interaction. CA treats talk as the primary vehicle for the accomplishment of social actions, as it looks at how social action is brought about through the organization of talk-in-interaction. This is an observable part of doing social actions in a particular context, and CA focuses on the construction of social realities and practices in these interactional practices (Pomerantz and Fehr 1997; ten Have 1999; Arminen 2005).
Our study is what Antaki (2011) refers to as
From linguistic anthropology (Duranti 1997), we know that one cannot, however, rely on analyses of conversation and interaction alone. In order to understand and interpret the different layers of meaning involved in the interaction and to understand the values, routines, roles, and relationships in the community of practice, it is important for the researcher to acquire detailed background knowledge about this community (Duranti 1997; Antaki 2001, 2011).
The present analyses of socialization processes are based on empirical studies of 12 Danish journalist trainees from the University of Southern Denmark during their one-year internship. The 12 trainees worked at two national daily newspapers, two national tabloid newspapers, and two national Danish TV stations. There were two trainees at each media. The research design consisted of:
Participant observations made over the period of a year and following all 12 trainees three days each Semi-structured interviews with the journalist trainees before, during and after their internship Three e-mail surveys among the interns during their internship period
This research design allowed us to be in the middle of everyday practice in the news-room and to closely monitor and record all interactions and conversations during entire workdays. Moreover, we could talk to the interns during these days about their perception of this practice. The semi-structured interviews allowed us to spend 1–2 hours of undisturbed time with the interns, during which we could focus on their descriptions and thoughts about being an intern, on their feelings, problems, victories, wishes, and fears. The e-mail surveys were conducted three times during the internship period, and each time we asked very open questions about what was going on right now, and about how the intern was feeling. Also, we had 3–5 questions each time connected to a certain theme, for instance the relation between the intern and his or her editor.
In the present article, we are particularly interested in analysing the relation between the intern and the editor. The editor is
In general, journalism studies have not paid much attention to the important relationship between journalists and editors (Schudson 2000), and almost no focus has been put on the relationship between journalist trainees and their editors. Two Danish surveys show that Danish journalists feel a high degree of independence in relation to their editors; especially if they work in the newsrooms of daily papers (Gravengaard 2010; Skovsgaard 2010). At the same time, they also sometimes feel that their autonomy is constrained by the editors, especially when selecting and framing news stories (Skovsgaard 2010). Therefore, we consider the idea of development phase to be particularly relevant when studying socialization processes, as this is one of the key activities in news production (Gans 1980; Becker and Vlad 2009). We focus on this early process, and we will zoom in on what happens between the intern and the editor, when the intern is “getting an idea for a news story”.
By studying conversations and interactions between interns and editors in the routinized practice in the newsroom, we found that “getting an idea for a news story” can happen in several different ways – all of which socialize the intern into the professional culture in different ways, creating different identities for the novice and the veteran, respectively. We have placed these ways of “getting an idea” on a continuum stretching from the intern being “assigned an idea” to the intern “developing an idea by himself”.
In the following, we give examples of these different
In these cases, the intern is assigned an idea for a new news story by the editor. The editor describes the idea in detail and tells the intern how to move from idea to news story by issuing orders and directives about which angle to choose, people to interview, questions to ask, and how to build up the news story.
The following example is from a face-to-face conversation between an editor and an intern at a national daily paper. The intern is assigned an idea by the editor and has to write about a major Danish (and international) company that is about to choose a new chairman of the board of directors. The candidate for becoming this new chairman is currently a professor at a Danish University. “I” is the intern, and “E” is the editor. They are sitting at the intern’s desk in the newsroom.
”I would be happy if you would look at: Who is he, this potential new chairman? Right now, it’s only the present chairman who points to him. It could be someone else in the end (…) He’s a professor in – I think – nuclear physics or something like that. At the University of XXXX (…) So this is what we’re going to do. First: We’re going to try to find out: Who is he?”
“Yes”
“Call somebody at the university in XXX. Call him. Does he see himself as the new chairman or only as a candidate? What does he have to contribute? Then we also have to write some kind of portrait of him – and try to come closer to: What kind of person is he? What is he capable of? What is his background? What are his qualifications for this job? Ahh… and what is his attitude towards: “How do you feel about ‘one of your type’ sitting in this chair? You are an expert within a totally different field?””
“Mmmm”
”What is the justification for you sitting there? Do you think this is a good solution? He will probably not say much. Perhaps he will not say anything to you”
”Yes”
”Let us try that. Try also to talk to some of his colleagues at the faculty. Will anybody say anything about him? What type of person is he? Then we have to talk to (…) some experts on this. I’ve sent you some phone numbers and stuff”
“Yes”
“How does this work? Do they know of experiences abroad where people from higher education institutions occupy these positions? Does it work well? Are they actually competent? Do they know of any data showing how these organizations perform compared to those with a more ‘classic’ chairman of the board of directors?”
”Yes”
The editor is dominating in the excerpt, as he is instructing the novice by issuing orders and directives. The editor defines angles, sources and questions for the interviews. The intern answers by saying “yes” and “mm”. These minimal affirmative responses (Heritage 1984) indicate both his attentiveness to and positive acknowledgement of the orders the editor is giving him. Not much is left for the intern to decide, and as a consequence not much freedom of action is given. This creates an identity for the editor as “the boss in charge” making the decisions, controlling the workflow and telling the newcomer exactly how and what to do, and it creates an identity for the intern as the newcomer following orders – and also as a novice lacking the expert knowledge that is required in order to complete this task. In these instances, the novice learns about what is “a good news story” by following the veteran’s orders.
More freedom of action is given to the intern when he or she is involved in the development of the idea. In these cases, the intern is assigned an idea – typically a topic (algae and dead fish) or a case (undeclared employment and new legislation) – by the editor combined with the question: “Could you look further into this?” The editor might, in such cases, suggest possible angles or possible interviewees, but the idea is not final as in the previous example. The intern has to finish the development of the idea himself.
The following example is from a face-to-face conversation between an editor and an intern at a TV station. The intern is assigned an idea about a topic – algae cause dead fish – by the editor. The editor thinks that this idea could be developed into a news story and asks the intern to look further into it. “I” is the intern, and “E” is the editor. They stand near the intern’s desk in the newsroom.
“Listen, XX (name) has just arrived at the newsroom saying – as he always does this time of year: “There are algae everywhere”…. At first, I don’t pay attention because he says this every year because his son is an angler”
“Yeah, I know that”
“In short, I couldn’t help listening because he kept on talking about these algae”
“I can imagine”
“But I cannot say if there is a news story”
“We will have to find out”
“But I think …. The only thing I can say for certain is that we have nice weather and we have a helicopter in the air anyway. And if it is true that the fish stock (…) suffers from these algae….. It could be: the Little Belt, North Funen, East Jutland…. Should we try to get an overview as to whether there actually is a problem here – that does not exist every March? (…) Because if you are going to make a spring reportage, anglers, helicopter – and also, check if there really, factually speaking, is a news story here, then you have enough work to do. I can picture it. In this weather it would be nice”
“Yes, definitely”
“Then you can have all afternoon to fiddle with this and go outside. And if you need to interview someone in Copenhagen, then we will take care of that for you”
”Yes, yes”
”So you’ll make the reportage – if there is a story. Right?”
”I’ll find out. Yes”
In this example, the idea assigned to the intern is more open-ended than in the previous example, and the intern’s responses indicate the shared knowledge about and responsibility for the idea. The editor suggests that the finished news story should consist of “something about” algae, dead fish, beautiful pictures from the sunshine (taken from a helicopter) and perhaps an expert (the person from Copenhagen in the extract above). And within this framework, the intern has to develop the idea and create a news story. In other instances, the editor only decides the topic for the idea, and the intern has to develop an idea for a news story about this topic.
These examples create an identity for the editor as the one who decides the topic for the news story, but who relies on the intern to be capable of transforming this vague idea into a news story. Simultaneously, the identity constructed for the intern is: a novice who has so much expert knowledge about the routinized practice that he is capable of completing the task at hand. Or at least the intern is given the opportunity to try to solve it.
In these instances, the novice learns about what is “a good news story” by being given the opportunity to create one within a more or less specified framework of suggestions from the veteran or perhaps with only a topic given beforehand.
Most freedom of action is given to the intern when he himself creates and develops ideas for new news stories. In these instances, he develops the idea and the angle, researches it, and considers or even plans his sources, cases, and questions. After that, the intern presents the idea to the editor.
As a result, the very first part of the ideation process is rather independent from the editor, and the intern is not obliged to follow a range of orders pertaining to a given idea. This does of course not mean that the intern can make up any idea he wishes. The idea must still comply with the editor’s conception of “a good news story”, and there is no guarantee that the editor will accept the idea when it is presented by the intern. However, compared to the previous examples this way of working grants the intern more freedom to develop an idea.
The interns’ own ideas can cover many things, from ideas about treasure troves or weapons disappearing from military barracks to ideas concerning juicers or parents’ GPS surveillance of children. An intern at a national daily paper explains about ideas he has developed himself:
Often it starts with something you have perhaps read somewhere. It is a very good idea to read XX (name of newspaper) if you write about matters concerning the church. Often they just know things first. However, the news story I did on the work environment in the national churches was because of a little theme on their own website. There it was not a critical story, but I developed the idea. My story about dealing with hash stems from a report. I think it was a PhD thesis. And the story I did on the trade union movement, that was just something I had been thinking about: Why is it that all the unions – or most of them anyway – almost ‘cling’ to the red block? (ed. the socialist wing in the Danish Parliament). Is it because they know that they might get more influence after an election – or what is it? And that was what we tried to find out
In these processes, the intern creates and develops the idea himself. He reads, sees or hears something that gives him an idea for a new news story. In these cases, the intern has a major influence on the idea development process.
This way of working and “getting ideas” creates an identity for the editor as a gate-keeper and a coach who expects the intern to be capable of finding, developing and presenting ideas that the editor will perceive as “a good news story”. And the identity constructed for the intern is that of a novice doing what the trained journalists do: constructing ideas for “good news stories”. When giving the intern this possibility, it is also implied that he has enough knowledge about the community of practice to be able to create such an idea and develop it into a news story. In these instances, the novice learns about “a good news story” by creating it himself in practice.
This is rather similar to the way in which professional veterans – the trained journalists – work themselves. And it displays expertise when an intern is capable of developing and presenting an idea that the editor acknowledges as a “good news story”. This is a sign of integration into the community of practice, displaying craft ethos and professional vision. Therefore, this is what the trainees see as one of their main goals.
Freedom of action is desirable to most of the interns in our study. However, some of the interns also stress that it is often a less demanding task to “just” follow the editor’s orders compared to standing before this “abyss of freedom”, as one intern puts it. Working this way demands considerable expert knowledge and independence on the part of the novice. In many newsrooms, interns are expected to create their own ideas. As one intern explains:
Already the first day here, the editor asked: “Ok, what do you have for the front page today?” It was only for fun, and he smiled. However, every day we can sense these expectations from him
Some of the interns are very comfortable with these demands, other interns consider them strenuous. One intern describes:
It’s a little difficult to come up with ideas every morning. Every morning they ask you: “What are you going to do today?” And I don’t know (…) It’s hard for me not to be able to live up to these expectations
The intern feels uncomfortable not being able to produce ideas and thereby not being able to demonstrate professional competence. Another intern dreams of becoming better at “getting ideas”:
It’s difficult for me. I don’t get many ideas (…) And the others have a lot of ideas. Where do they find out about all that? (…) I wish I could be better at saying: “I want to do this” and get those ideas
During the one-year period of apprenticeship, we saw progress in most of the trainees, as it became easier for them to create ideas for news stories. They became more and more competent members of the community of practice, learning how to create an idea and what constituted “a good news story” in that newsroom. And the longer they stayed in the newsroom, the more they were allowed to develop their own ideas.
In general, if the editors thought that the interns’ own ideas were “good ideas”, then the interns were more likely to be granted freedom to develop more ideas themselves. In the words of Schiffelin and Ochs (1986:166), the novices in the beginning carried out this particular task through
By combining an analysis of naturally occurring talk-in-interaction with ethnographic and contextual data, we have been able to explore the relationship between the microlevel of talk-in-interaction in the routinized practice and the wider social and institutional structures to which they contribute. In this way, we offer a behind-the-scenes look at important elements of the practice of socialization in the newsroom where news is talked into being. The interactional analyses made it possible to capture some of the intangible and blurred parts of this socialization process and the construction of craft ethos and professional vision, and how this is produced and reproduced through interaction. The findings complement previous research demonstrating how expertise is enacted in news-room meetings (Cotter 2010; Van Hout and VanPreaet 2011, Gravengaard and Rimestad 2011). In the routinized practice in the newsroom, the different ways of “getting an idea” are not explicitly described, nor is the development towards more freedom of action and less interference and control. What we have described in this article is
The increasing freedom of action experienced by the interns is interesting when discussing tacit socialization, because there might not actually be such a great difference between “little” and “much freedom of action”. As the interns become more competent members of the community of practice, they internalize values, norms and knowledge, making the overt and direct corrections of culturally undesirable behaviour from the editors more and more superfluous. In this way, the socialization process has done exactly what Aldridge and Evetts (2003) define as creating a control mechanism that works
The knowledge produced in the present study is relevant to the profession and the professional veterans. “Getting an idea for a new news story” is one of the most important skills for a journalist. However, the socialization process and the ideation process are parts of the veterans’ routinized practice and expert knowledge seldom explicated, and hence seldom discussed. The analyses provide an opportunity to transform parts of the editors’ tacit expert knowledge into a voiced knowledge. This creates an opportunity for editors to gain a more nuanced insight into their actual practice, and furthermore allows them to discuss and reflect upon this practice: Is this the most fruitful way to develop the competency for “getting a good idea”? Is this the most fruitful way to learn how to be an independent and innovative journalist? In this way, the analyses of the interaction may concretize, broaden, detail and perhaps even correct the veterans’ professional stock of knowledge (Peräkylä and Vehviläinen 2003) and their understanding of their routinized practice and interaction in the newsroom with the interns (Perrin 2013; Zelizer 2013).
Furthermore, the study can also establish a general point in socialization research, demonstrating just