Abstract
Introduction
Continuous innovation is a defining characteristic of the modern media environment. New roles have emerged in journalism that support the development of media products incorporating audience engagement, interactivity, multimedia, and data presentations. An anonymous respondent to a 2017 study articulated the complexity of product in journalism. “We used to know what a media product was. It was a newspaper or a television broadcast. Now it’s much broader” (Royal, 2017, para. 25). Media products now encompass both internal and audience-facing initiatives, including the organization’s website, special project and event sites, mobile applications, data visualizations, podcasts, newsletters, bots, artificial intelligence projects, and other applications. Consideration of news as a digital product offering recognizes new approaches in identifying and understanding audience problems, collaborating across functions and developing solutions. It introduces newsroom skills that differ from those of traditional reporters and editors. This reconceptualization of media requires that academia and media professions make accommodations to adapt and adjust (Sonderman, 2016).
Stories themselves, which can be described as “editorial products” (Stray, 2015)—like the interactive, data projects of ProPublica and Texas Tribune—can be managed as products when they require collaboration across resources in editorial, technology, and business functions. Internal products further an organization’s mission in helping journalists search for and identify story ideas and sources, manage content, and use analytics to assess results (e.g., the open-source project DocumentCloud—documentcloud.org—for sharing and tagging source documents and the Vox-developed publishing platform Chorus—getchorus.voxmedia.com). Strategies around external social platforms—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok—are benefited by product approaches to assure an organization’s goals are aligned with audience needs.
A focus on digital news products influences research and theory associated with newsroom processes and routines across all areas of influence: political economy, sociological organization, and cultural spectrum (Schudson, 2000, p. 194). Research and theory have evolved to encapsulate the effects of digital media. Singer (1998) identified mass communication theories relevant to studying the ways that journalists’ roles would change in an interactive and participatory media environment, including gatekeeping theory, diffusion of innovation, sociology of news, and a cultural theory of the social cohesion function of journalism. Convergence research in the mid-2000s addressed the merging of print and broadcast skills in media organizations (Deuze, 2004; Kolodzy, 2006; Thornton & Keith, 2009). Now, we see emerging roles associated with the development and support of digital products resulting in the broadening of functions in support of journalism and to some extent, a power struggle between consumer and producer and among those with editorial and development skill sets (Royal, 2017). We also see roles across non-media organizations, particularly technology companies, that could benefit from trained communicators with strong exposure to and appreciation for technology culture. More than just a new process or support function, product management may introduce a profound shift in the mission of journalism, as well drive innovations in academic curriculum offerings (Royal, 2016) and faculty training and development required to support it (Royal & Smith, 2019).
The contributors to this forum are a diverse set of experts on journalism, digital media, technology, and pedagogy, both professionals and scholars. They further explain and assess the issues presented above: defining and comprehending product management, situating product management in journalism, ethics associated with digital products, emerging roles and skills required in media organizations, and the role of product in curriculum and professional development.
Amanda Bright (University of Georgia, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication) and Kirstin Pellizzaro (University of South Carolina, College of Information and Communications) are graduates of the PhDigital Bootcamp, a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation program designed to prepare future faculty to lead innovative curriculum. The product focus of the program provided them a foundation upon which to open our discussion on further understanding what a media product is and identifying key issues for media and the academic discipline.
Valerie Belair-Gagnon (University of Minnesota, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication) and Avery Holton (The University of Utah, Department of Communication) introduce tensions and challenges associated with integrating technology resources into more central functions of the newsroom and academic curriculum.
Those who develop or work on teams in developing digital products are often making or ignoring editorial judgments and decisions, obscuring the ways in which journalistic ethics and standards, such as truth, objectivity, and transparency, are exemplified. The effect of product management on these standards is addressed by Don Heider and Subramaniam Vincent of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
New academic programs and initiatives have emerged to address product issues and leadership in media. Anita Zielina, Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Newmark School of Journalism at City University of New York, discusses the need for leadership programs to embrace strategic product thinking. Damon Kiesow, Knight Chair in Digital Editing and Producing at the School of Journalism at University of Missouri and a former Director of Product for the McClatchy news organization, outlines opportunities for academic programs and communities of practice around product concepts.