and pundits were narrowly theorizing in purely technological and economic terms the current “crisis of journalism” and the consequent changes and innovations in news. This perspective was crystalized in The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered (Alexander, Breese, and Luengo, 2016), a book that shows how crisis and change in journalism are equally caused by cultural and ethical factors. The empirical investigations in The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered demonstrate that intense alarm over digital change implies the strength of both journalistic ethics and democratic values (Carlson, 2016; Luengo, 2016). The book argues that the compulsion to defend these ethical and civil commitments actually energizes a search for new organizational and technological forms.
In line with this previous cultural sociological theorizing and research, this book focuses on the energizing of journalism’s ethical and civil ideals by looking at emerging journalistic practices and products such as 360-degree immersive journalism, newsgames, the automatization and personalization of news, artificial-intelligence news production, and data journalism. Our book theoretically and empirically explores new concepts, models, initiatives, and practices that show how forms of professional ethics that overlap notably with civil ideals—truth seeking, transparency, accuracy, accountability, and civic engagement, among other ethical values—are invigorating the innovative dimension of journalism. If Alexander, Breese, and Luengo’s cultural sociological perspective issued a significant challenge to the technological and economic view of a so-called “crisis” in the sector in a recent context of dramatic changes within journalism, this new collective book entails a fresh turn of the screw against reductive explanations, this time specifically within the area of news innovation.
The Ups and Downs of Techno-economic Explanations
It is becoming increasingly evident that new digital technologies and new forms of news production and distribution have gradually led to the emergence of innovative and consolidated journalistic organizations. Many pure digital media born more than a decade ago have survived the current crisis facing the news industry and now compete alongside major legacy media nationally and globally. On the other hand, many other initiatives have failed, and well-established national and local journalistic enterprises have cut jobs drastically or just disappeared from the market. And news media companies are continuing to suffer enormous hits to advertising as a result of COVID-19.
Media experts and scholars explain the emergence of new actors (and the erosion and digital reinvention of old ones) in the Schumpeterian economic terms of “creative destruction” (Bruno and Nielsen, 2012; Schlesinger and Doyle, 2014; Nee, 2013; García-Avilés, 2016; Negredo et al., 2020). Schlesinger and Doyle’s exploration of how major UK media groups have responded to the crisis in printed newspapers draws on this economic pattern. They argue that, because of advancing technology, “the value of large, dominant incumbent firms that fail to transform themselves eventually becomes eroded and, in some cases, completely destroyed” (Schlesinger and Doyle, 2014, p. 2). In Bruno and Nielsen’s pioneering report on journalistic online start-ups in Western Europe (2012), pure digital media players, which are first tentatively located on the “creative” side of this Schumpeterian process, are also seen as subjects of destruction in the same way as inherited business models are. Explanations of the rise, survival, success, or failure of new players and the destruction of old ones seem to reflect a process through which new technologies and new markets cause the “mutation” of journalistic organizations (Boczkowski, 2004) and the whole media system from within.
Just as technology and economics bring the “destructive” element, they also embody the “creative” one. Responses to the transformations of journalism include technological innovations, innovative ways to measure and analyze audience figures, and new business models (sources of revenues, ownership, and financial sustainability). The success or failure of new media are also measured and assessed according to techno-economic factors. Through the process of creative destruction, technology and economics impose “a regime of trial and error and of making wagers,” as Jean-Gustave Padioleau puts it. The image of creative destruction establishes a present scenario and foresees a digital future in which new players are forced to compete with old ones, and new arrivals successfully win niche markets using up-to-the-minute technology. Padioleau observes that “under the guise of innovation, activities disappear to make room for newer, more ‘creative,’ more reliable/efficient ones. According to Schumpeter, creative destruction is at the heart of economic growth” (Padioleau, 2006, p. 110).
Schumpeter’s economic reductionism parallels a narrow technological understanding of journalism innovation. Drawing on research on journalism in Canada, Hermida and Young’s thought-provoking Chapter 3 in this book examines whether legacy newsrooms’ defensive adoption of innovation “as a technological-led solution” to economically navigate financial turbulence has been to their detriment. By entering into “the cycle of the never-ending pivots in the search for the killer innovation that will save the media,” Hermida and Young say, journalistic organizations get trapped in it. And in times of survival, they argue, few can afford to adopt the latest shiny new technology.
Seeing Creative Destruction as Creative Reconstruction
Padioleau (2006, p. 10) is critical of the use of the term “creative destruction” in describing the crisis facing the media, on the basis that it is misleading. Is creative destruction a deceptive label? This terminology focuses mainly on economics and ignores the critical cultural and ethical component when explaining current changes in journalism. This book aims to put current technological innovations of journalism into the broader context of professional ethics and civil values. It examines journalism innovation from the energizing of ethics, looking at specific arenas of such innovation, from new forms and narratives to processes and ways of dissemination.
Without denying the tangible role played by digital technology and market conditions in reshaping the news today, this collaborative book takes a different angle to interpret recent changes in news media. Contrary to reductive techno-economic explanations, the contributors’ analyses of new journalistic forms and practices help show the power of journalistic and civil values for invigorating the profession. By looking at the ethical dimension of different initiatives and innovations in various countries, the chapters in this book seek to advance cultural and ethical insights into journalistic innovation.
Alexander (2016, p. 2) points out that:
Recent technological change and the economic upheaval it has produced are coded by social meanings … Cultural codes not only trigger sharp anxiety about technological and economic changes; they also provide pathways to control them, so that the democratic practices of independent journalism, rather than being destroyed, can be sustained in new forms.
Following Alexander, contributors to this book were invited to look at news media innovations from the ethical values that make technological innovation sustainable. The various contributions to this book make it possible to identify the ethical and professional codes that are invigorating the profession through digital technologies. The selected innovations are characterized by an online-only or online-first approach, conveying the news via websites, mobile apps, or social networks. They integrate experienced journalists, journalistic entrepreneurs, reporters, and computer scientists.
The ethical perspective deployed to cross-examine the different innovations discussed also serves as the basis for the theoretical argument behind this book: ethics and values can be envisioned as pathways to a creative reconstruction of journalism. This new conceptualization transcends the economic logic of a creative destruction, which, according to Alexander (2016), would result in the destruction of the economic foundations of journalism. “Journalism would become Exhibit A of capitalist ‘creative destruction,’” he observes [p. 7]. In this vein, in the following two sections, I wish to briefly draw attention to the performative power of journalism for innovative repair by looking at the professional and civil values that may be generating and sustaining new entrants in the news media digital ecosystem. To what extent does the ethics of journalism prevail and foster quality journalism through innovation within new disruptive digital scenarios? How are these ethical values shaped