Abstract
The news is highly visual yet this aspect of journalism, particularly in non-urban areas, is often neglected or attempted through a piecemeal approach that is based on intuition and trial-and-error rather than supported through formal training or professional development. Drawing on the community of practice literature, this interview- and observation-based study explores how visual journalism is made at six news outlets in non-urban areas and the factors that influence its production. By interviewing and observing people making visual news—sometimes in specialised visual roles and sometimes as generalists who make visuals in addition to their other reporting duties—as well as editors and management who can set the overall tone for an outlet’s approach to visuals, this study explores how staff education, training, visual literacy, organisational resources, and equipment affect routines and typical approaches related to visual news production, editing, and presentation at these outlets. In doing so, this study identifies the degree to which news workers at regional, rural, or remote news outlets are participating in communities of practice related to visual journalism and muses about the implications of uncertain or uneven access to such communities.
Keywords
Introduction
Jack 1 works at a news outlet in a rural town of about 7,000 people within Australia’s outback. He grew up in a metropolitan capital city on Australia’s coast and headed to the regions to make his start in journalism and try to break into the industry there. At the outlet where Jack works, there are no dedicated photojournalist or other specialised visual roles. Jack is nominally part of a two-person team who covers events, writes stories, edits their own and community members’ contributions, makes photos and the occasional video, and manages the outlet’s social media presence. His other counterpart, however, is based in another rural town about a 4.5-hour drive away and only contributes 2-3 stories a week remotely because they have their own news outlet to run. Jack completed a general journalism degree but said he hadn’t been taught how to make photos or videos during it. He enrolled in a photography class in his local community to learn how to use his outlet’s standalone camera but, in his words, doesn’t “have time at the moment to actually put that training into action” so uses his smartphone camera for the bulk of the photos he makes for work. He has an interest in video and desires some upskilling in the area but doesn’t know how or when that might happen. In his words, “I don’t think the company [Jack’s employer] has given me any opportunity for upskilling.”
This anecdote, collected during an interview in late 2022, reveals some of the personal, organisational, and sector-wide aspects that affect how journalists approach their craft and how they are able to better their skills in it. Visual news is ubiquitous and important for attracting attention, engaging audiences, and providing more concrete clarity on the issues that matter to local communities (Midberry and Dahmen, 2020). However, at the same time, despite its ubiquity and importance, visual news is often an afterthought or is regarded as a content hole where any visual will do (Langton, 2009). In Jack’s own words, “If I don’t have my camera on me, my phone is perfect, especially for this paper. It doesn’t need to be a great photo; it just needs to be a photo.”
This comment is reflective of broader and longstanding power dynamics that position visual journalism and visual journalists in a marginal position within newsroom hierarchies (Bock et al., 2017; Krantz and Thomas, 2026). As a result, visual journalism around the world, including in Australia, tends to be more precarious and de-professional than other types of journalistic roles that management considers as more “core” to the outlet’s business and editorial operations, leading to perceptions that visual journalism is less valued and less worthy of being invested in compared to other types of journalism (Thomson, 2025).
Visual news is the product of individual attributes, routines, organisational dynamics and influences, and wider societal institutions and ideologies (Reese and Shoemaker, 2018). The way visual news is made, sourced, edited, and presented is also potentially a product of how the journalist learns and develops skills through a community of practice (Wenger, 1998, 2011). As the subsequent literature review unpacks in greater detail, a community of practice is one way that journalists can learn more about their craft—visual journalism in this context—and seek to better their thinking and skills regarding it. This paper uses the community of practice concept, which originates in social or situated learning theory, as a theoretical lens to guide and inform the study’s analysis. This paper operationalises visual journalism in a broad and inclusive fashion: as the visual ways that news is relayed, including through photographs, video, illustrations, infographics, data visualisations, and choices that affect layout and design. However, in practice, photography plays an outsized role in visual journalism in regional, rural, and remote areas (Thomson, Anderson and Snowden, 2025a; Thomson, Hess, Anderson and Krismantari, 2025).
This study has a two-fold aim: first, to explore how visual journalism is made in non-urban parts of Australia and to identify the factors that influence its production; and second, to explore how much the news workers at these regional, rural, or remote news outlets are participating in communities of practice related to the visual journalism they create, edit, and/or publish.
Literature review
This study focuses on non-urban news organisations due to the distinct functions they fulfil compared to their metropolitan counterparts (Nielsen, 2015), including advocating for local communities and providing a platform for community voices (Hanusch, 2015), as well as because of the unique environmental differences that affect visual news in regional news outlets compared to urban ones that have received greater research attention and often enjoy greater access to resources (Caple, 2019; Thomson, Anderson and Snowden, 2025b).
This literature review examines research from two key contexts that shape the production and editing of visual news in regional, rural, or remote areas. These include the education and training of visual journalists, including through communities of practice, and routines in visual journalism production and editing, broadly and in Australia, more specifically.
Education and training of visual journalists
Visual news is produced by journalists with varying levels of training and education. Research into journalism training has identified long-standing tensions between industry-centric approaches focused on skills-based and technical training, and academic approaches concerned with communication theory and the role of journalism in society (Creech, 2021). In Australia, journalism training has historically taken an industry-centric approach through paid cadetships or paid or volunteer on-the-job training in newsrooms. By the 21st century, most cadetships were replaced by shorter internships, although cadetships are still common in regional newsrooms (Sheridan-Burns, 2003). While university-taught journalism courses proliferated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, these courses favoured “an approach to professional education that relies on the student’s ability to individually reconcile theoretical learning with technical skills and integrate these into professional understanding” (Sheridan-Burns, 2003: p. 57–58). While comprehensive audits of contemporary journalism education in Australia by communication mode are lacking, some research has found that communication degrees in Australia, in which journalism majors are often housed, focus more on writing than on providing training in speaking or visual communication (Thomson et al., 2021).
The digitalisation of news has prompted a push for increased industry training focused on technology, upskilling and multi-media production (Salzmann et al., 2023). The focus on upskilling is particularly strong in training and education for visual journalists (or for all-rounders who nonetheless must make and edit photos, videos, or charts in addition to their other duties) (Thomson, 2025). Scholars have analysed how a range of news workers have adapted their skills for publishing landscapes increasingly focused on mobile and visual media (Dahmen and Thomson, 2025; Maenpaa, 2014; Salzmann et al., 2023). Research indicates that while most photojournalists and photo editors are doing multimedia work, news organisations rarely provide them with the necessary training in multimedia skills (Klein-Avraham and Reich, 2016). For example, clear tensions exist between a shift to multimodal production and visual journalists’ comfort with shooting video (Maenpaa, 2014).
Broader changes to sourcing practices in visual journalism—including the downsizing or elimination of dedicated photojournalism teams—have led news organisations to assign visual content production to non-specialist journalists (Caple, 2019; Thomson, 2025). These journalists often lack formal photographic training, leading to shifting new values and markers of quality for visual content (Thomson, 2025). In-house training for journalists to learn and develop their visual production skills is relatively ad-hoc (Caple, 2019; Salzmann et al., 2023). In the Australian context, Caple (2019) found varied approaches across newsrooms in how journalists were trained in visual news practices. At the ABC, where most photography is produced in-house, two levels of training for digital photography for journalists were available, run by established camera operators (Caple, 2019). In contrast, at the AAP, no training in video production or editing was provided to trainee journalists.
Unlike larger countries, such as the USA, Australia lacks professional associations for visual journalists, such as the National Press Photographers Association or American Society of Media Photographers. Similarly, it lacks recurring annual shortcourses or workshops, such as the Eddy Adams Workshop, Northern Short Course, or the Missouri Photo Workshop. Instead, it survives with smaller collectives, such as Oculi, that offer ad-hoc workshops or through one-off training sessions offered by generalist journalism associations or foundations that sometimes focus on visual topics.
The training of journalists in visual news practices at regional news outlets has received limited attention, despite the fact that community media has long been considered a “training ground” of the local media (Anderson et al., 2022: p. 132). In regional Australian newsrooms, in particular, journalists are especially time-poor with “no time to think,” which impacts on their ability to invest time in skills development, whether institutionally supported or not (James-Garrod, 2023).
Communities of practice
The presence, vibrancy, and sustainability of—or access to—a community of practice can also be a form of education, training, or ongoing professional development for student, trainee, or professional journalists. Wenger (1998, 2011) defined communities of practice as being composed of “people who engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavour” (2011: p. 1). Such communities can be intra- or trans-organisational and can exist for personal or professional purposes. Wenger underscored that intentionality is not a prerequisite of communities of practice—the group might come together explicitly to learn or the learning might happen incidentally through the group’s interactions—and that not every community is a community of practice.
To qualify as a community of practice under Wenger’s definition, three criteria are essential. The first of these is a shared domain of interest that brings people together. The second criterion, community, underscores the importance of intergroup interaction, exchange, and activities rather than just being linked together in some form. Indeed, while a directory or listing of medical practitioners are linked by a similar interest in medicine or might share similar titles or roles, the community is not a community of practice unless the members of the directory or listing interact and learn from one another. Likewise, being collocated or in proximity to one another—such as neighbours or work colleagues—is not a community of practice unless interaction and engagement about a shared domain occurs. The third and final criterion, practice, requires that members of the community are practitioners in some way rather than just being interested in the topic and that the practice is shared in some way, either tangibly or intangibly. Wenger argues that communities of practice require time and sustained interaction to “develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems” (2011., p. 2) and, as such, one-off conversations with practitioners who share a common interest or concern in a domain do not qualify as a community of practice.
Communities of practice often function through a mix of activities, such as problem solving, requesting information, seeking experience, reusing assets, coordinating and harnessing synergies, discussing developments, documentation projects, conducting visits or observations, and mapping and identifying knowledge gaps (Wenger, 2011). Scholars such as Meltzer and Martik (2017) argue that focusing on communities within professions like journalism with “unstable or fluid boundaries” can be useful in advancing scholarly thought on such professions (p. 209). Some research (see, eg, Bardan, 2015; Ditlhokwa et al., 2025) has referred obliquely to communities of practice within the context of photojournalism but it appears the concept has yet to be used centrally within visual journalism to drive an empirical study as its theoretical lens.
Given the precarious nature of visual journalism and the limited resources that non-urban newsrooms have access to, as this literature review underscores, exploring communities of practice as a way to help educate, train, or develop skills in visual literacy and visual media production and editing is a promising area of scholarly exploration and, potentially, a useful intervention to enhance professional practice, also.
Routines in visual journalism production and editing
The adoption of digital technology in newsrooms and broader structural and economic shifts in the news media landscapes have significantly transformed routines and practices in visual news production (Klein-Avraham and Reich 2016; Maenpaa, 2014; Nilsson, 2017). Along with taking photos and shooting video, visual journalists also now perform initial gatekeeping through selection of material, editing images and footage for publication, and post-production tasks, such as writing captions and providing metadata (Klein-Avraham and Reich 2016, Štefaniková and Láb, 2018). The photojournalism industry in Australia, however, has been “decimated” (Caple, 2019: p. 10), with the role of dedicated photojournalists having been diminished or completely displaced (Thomson, 2025), in part because of the perceived lower status of visual journalism in newsroom hierarchies (Bock et al., 2017; Krantz and Thomas, 2026). These dynamics, in turn, affect who is making visual news, in which conditions, and how visual news is made and edited.
Equipment
Visual journalists predominantly use digital cameras to capture images (Štefaniková and Láb, 2018), affording them with a sense of “unlimited material” for shooting compared to film photography (Klein-Avraham and Reich 2016). Digital cameras offer autofocus and auto-exposure, meaning it is easier to create technically competent images with minimum professional knowledge (Štefaniková and Láb, 2018: p. 247; Klein-Avraham and Reich, 2016). Journalists also use mobile phones, often for shooting video (Salzmann et al., 2023). The use of specialised equipment can help establish and promote journalistic credibility with the people they are documenting and can also affect the operator’s “ways of seeing” (Thomson, Anderson and Snowden, 2025b).
Journalists’ approach to making images
Scholars researching the digitalisation of photojournalism have highlighted the “cinematic” way of shooting enabled by digital cameras with vast storage capabilities (Štefaniková and Láb, 2018). Rather than waiting for what photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson described as the “decisive moment”, or the point when moving elements align within the camera’s frame, journalists can shoot almost continuously and choose the best shots during post-production (Klein-Avraham and Reich 2016; Štefaniková and Láb, 2018).
Analysing video production practices specifically, research has identified how different media traditions shape how video is shot and produced (Mäenpää, 2014; Bock, 2016; Bock et al., 2023). For example, Bock (2016) found that American newspaper-based outlets tend to adopt a mimetic “showing” style, while television stations use a diegetic “telling” approach (Bock, 2016). In contrast, Mäenpää (2014) suggested in her study of visual journalists at Finnish newspapers that practices for making online videos were largely adopted from television production, as this was seen as the easiest way for journalists who were inexperienced with online video as a format.
Editing
An overall suspicion from audiences and practitioners alike surrounds photo editing (Mäenpää, 2014; Solaroli, 2015) linked to normative ideas around photojournalism as an objective visual record or witness (Zelizer, 2007). In the digital age, as Solaroli (2015) identifies, there is an increasingly blurred line between “legitimate” post-production and “illegitimate” manipulation of images. In Mäenpää’s (2014) study on the work practices of photojournalists from daily regional newspapers in Finland, she found that photojournalists often follow “the darkroom principle”: only using photo editing that was allowed in traditional darkrooms, such as cropping and adjusting lighting (p. 95). Participants also expressed a preference for as many adjustments to be made before the photo is taken on the camera—for example, by adjusting exposure, lighting, lens and focal length—rather than in post-production, illuminating the desire for the interviewed photojournalists to be distinguished as professionals (Maenpaa, 2014).
Summary and synthesis
As the preceding literature review has shown, the education and training of visual journalists can vary markedly by country, industry conventions, organisational resources, and whether such journalists have access to a community of practice to dialogue about best practices and share resources. There remains a need to conduct complementary research on how visual journalism is made at smaller regional news outlets and on how journalists learn about and develop their skills in this area. As such, the study proposes the following umbrella research question to guide its data collection and analysis.
Methods
This study draws on data from two complementary research methods: a combined 15 weeks of observations of and in-depth interviews (ranging from 1-2 hours) with 13 journalists and editors working for six news outlets in regional, rural, or remote parts of Australia (in South Australia, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Victoria, and Western Australia) 2 . The observations and interviews took place over 2024 and 2025 at outlets with different geographic positionings and with varying ownership attributes. This includes at independently owned news outlets and news outlets that are part of small-, medium-, and large-sized conglomerates 3 .
The outlets were chosen based on the the state or territory they were in, their ownership attributes, how regional, rural, or remote they were, and their publication mode (print and digital or online-only). Observations lasted for several weeks in each community and included a mix of shadowing journalists during their work in the community as well as newsroom observations. Invitations for interviews were extended to all editorial staff members who were responsible for making, sourcing, editing, or publishing visuals (as well as editors who were responsible for overall outlet operations) and about 80 percent of them, including at least one at each outlet, accepted the invitation and followed through with an interview. Most often, the news outlet only had 1-2 editorial staff employed so the number of interviewees reflects a majority of all the potential staff who could be interviewed.
Transcripts were analysed using a thematic analysis approach (Braun and Clarke, 2006), which focuses on capturing “a salient aspect of the data in a patterned way, regardless of whether that theme captures the majority experience” (Scharp and Sanders, 2018: p. 1). Braun and Clarke (2006) suggest a six-step approach that includes (1) becoming familiar with the data, (2) generating coding categories, (3) generating themes, (4) reviewing themes, (5) defining and naming themes, and (6) locating exemplars.
We became familiar with the data through listening to the audio-recorded interviews and through correcting and re-reading transcripts. To generate coding categories, which is done by “marking interesting features of the data in a systematic way and then collating the data” (Scharp and Sanders, 2018: p. 2), we systematically focused on participants’ reported experiences around three areas: staff education, training, and visual literacy; equipment used and typical approach to making and editing visuals; and organisational resourcing and attitude toward visuals. To generate themes, we collated all relevant data into similar areas or buckets. To review themes, we ensured that the themes worked in relation to the coded extracts and the larger data set. To define and name themes, we ensured our working theme names captured the essence of what the underlying data extracts related to and not more or less than these. We also endeavoured to make our theme names be explanatory and interpretative rather than merely descriptive of topics. Finally, to locate exemplars, we selected quotes that were representative of larger patterns in the data set to provide evidence of the theme and help answer the corresponding research question.
We created and shared an internal report with each participating newsroom during the site visit that detailed a short summary of the research findings as well as (de-identified) comparisons with other newsrooms that participated in this research. These reports indirectly inspired the “communities of practice” lens that this study used as well as this paper’s title, which came from a conversation with an editor at the fifth and final observation site. That editor was keen to receive a report summarising the research findings at his own newsroom and to compare his approach to others. In his words, “Getting a copy of a report to read would be helpful … It’s interesting to know how well we’re doing compared to others doing something similar because we’re very isolated professionally.” That last part of the sentence stuck in our minds and made us think about professional connections within or beyond newsrooms and how this could shape professional practice. It also led us to reading more about the “communities of practice” concept and exploring how it could be used as a novel intervention in visual news to enhance professional practice in this marginalised area.
Findings
The study’s umbrella research question explored how visual news is regarded and made at news organisations in regional, rural, or remote Australia. It also explored how the presence and vibrancy of a community of practice affects this. This question is answered by three themes that emerged through the analysis of the observation and interview material. The sampled organisations’ overall and varied attitudes and approaches toward visual news was the focus of the first theme. The second theme explored how staff education and training on visual news affects their visual literacy. The third theme focused on the importance of time, skill, and specialisation to the type of visuals that are published and on how these are made, edited, or sourced. Throughout each of the themes, we offer insights on how the presence and vibrancy of a community of practice affects visual journalism practices and outputs.
(Not) valuing visuals
The first theme focuses on the overall attitude of management or editors toward visual news and how even the volume of visuals published at each outlet didn’t necessarily reflect how much (or how little) visual news was valued or invested in, reflecting the paradoxical place of visuals in news organisations (Krantz and Thomas, 2026).
It became clear from the observations and interviews with staff that the six news organisations in the sample reflected a mix of attitudes and approaches toward visuals as three of the outlets (independents) had no staff specialising in visuals, two (which were part of a network owned by larger conglomerates) had full-time staff specialising in visuals, and one organisation (also an independent) had a part-time photographer and hired freelancers when needed (primarily on the weekends to photograph sports).
One of these outlets, an independently owned one, doesn’t place much emphases on visuals because of preferences by the organisation’s owner. In the words of one of the journalists at this outlet: The owner’s not big on photos and when I was at a different outlet, we had to take a photo to go with every story. And it may be used, it may not be used. But that was just what we did and so it'd be on your mind all the time what sort of photo you're gonna get to go with this story, but I'm so out practice now.
A second of these independent outlets “runs on pictures” in the words of its editor but doesn’t make the majority of the ones it publishes. Its staff, instead, sources the bulk of the photos it publishes from community members or online sites.
The third and fourth of these independent outlets were “middle-of-the-road” when it comes to visuals. The staff at these outlets acknowledged the value of visuals but didn’t think they were in a position to invest more in them. As of the editors at one of these outlets said, “We would love to have a photographer on staff every day, but the resources for regional papers to do that aren’t viable” while another said, “[Photos are] not like an afterthought, but they're not also, to me, in this context, they're not the lead, either.”
For these first four independently owned outlets, the reporters and editors alike routinely made photos and the rare video along with their other daily tasks. For some, visual newsmaking was an enjoyable part of their routines and a challenge to find unique angles and vantage points. For others, it was seen as an annoyance and a distraction from what they perceived as their main duties. In one of the reporter’s words: I am not a photographer and I don't like taking photos. It just becomes really difficult when you're holding your notebook and your recorder and then you know, you're walking around and then somebody also asks you to take a photo. I don't like that.
The final two news outlets in the sample (owned by and part of a larger conglomerate) invested in visuals by having specialised staff dedicated primarily or exclusively to making photographs or videos. But even for these outlets, the specialised staff found it hard when they were expected to multi-task. One photographer-videographer said, “You go to an event and you got one chance to get this moment and you have to decide, do I get a still or a video? It's really hard trying to do both.” This participant thought the quality of the output decreased when one person had to multi-task across multiple roles. Another agreed, saying: We’re having to multi-task incredibly: be the writer, be the videographer, be the photographer, on some jobs, it's too much … if you want me to come to an event and do video and switch between video and photography, you're limiting the quality of what I'm giving you because I can't focus on just one thing’. So yes, I'll get you a quick clip and yes, I'll get a photo of that, but it's not the best photo and it's not the best clip.
The staff at these outlets with specialised visual roles also desired more visual leadership in the newsroom. They felt it difficult to be the sole role dedicated to anything visual and thought more visual-focused staff could help words-focused reporters make their reporting shine. In the words of one of the photographer-videographers interviewed: So, it's journalists publishing the stories and picking the photos. I often feel like they don't pick the best photos. And I feel like if they had sort of like a photo editor around that, like someone who is in charge of picking the photo to go into the article, I think that would work a bit better.
While participants’ responses evidence a mix of attitudes toward visuals, many of these evidence a logocentric approach that places visuals and those who make them at the bottom of the newsroom hierarchy despite the ubiquity and importance of visuals to news in general (Bock et al., 2017; Krantz and Thomas, 2026). These attitudes, in turn, affect staff opportunities for professional development, training, and resource allocation.
Overall, the number of staff specialising in visuals is arguably a critical area for a visually focused, intra-organisational community of practice to form. Organisations without staff specialising in visual news considered their outlets either didn’t place much value on visuals or didn’t have the expertise to provide the needed support and development other staff were seeking.
Factors that affect participants’ “ways of seeing”
The second theme focuses on the amount of emphasis on visual news that staff perceived was placed through their formal education (if relevant) or in peer learning and how this implicitly impacts their visual literacy and how they understand what makes a “quality” news visual.
Of the 13 participants interviewed who worked across the six news outlets in the sample, eight of them had university degrees (six in journalism and two in other disciplines), one had vocational training in journalism, one had undertaken some university studies in journalism but didn’t graduate, and three had no tertiary qualifications. For those who went to university, a handful had undertaken visual core classes or electives, such as a fine art photography class, a photojournalism class, and a digital imaging class, but most reported no particular emphasis in their university studies on the visual mode. This reveals a logocentric bias in formal educational settings where more attention is placed on writing and on other skills compared to visual communication and visual literacy. Such biases negatively impact on the opportunity for a visually focused community of practice—either among teachers or students—to form around this communication mode.
Many of the participants reported learning about visuals from their colleagues with the caveat that some had limited knowledge to share. For these participants, the “training” in visuals was basic and left them wanting more. One veteran journalist summarised her orientation to photography as her new boss saying to her, “Here’s a camera and you just point it at them and I’ve got it on automatic for you and just click that button and do it a couple of times,” reflecting a “spray and pray” approach rather than an approach that waits to try to capture a decisive moment (Klein-Avraham and Reich 2016; Štefaniková and Láb, 2018).
A photographer from a different outlet had a more involved training experience involving shadowing her predecessor in the role she would take over but said it was more about learning how a newspaper works in terms of production and editing processes for visuals than learning about photography itself, which she already considered herself adept in. Another participant from a third outlet said she learned some helpful things from her editor and supplemented this instruction with online resources, but thinks she has more to learn on the topic. In her words: Yeah, [editor’s name] was very helpful. He gave me the instructions on how the ideal pictures would be, and then he um taught me about posing [subjects] and giving people something to hold. And he pretty much taught me how to use the camera. I did a little bit of research on YouTube and stuff like that. I would love to learn more. I think I'm still quite an amateur.
These examples speak to the need for an ongoing community of practice that, instead of one-off trainings or initial orienting conversations, foster sustained conversations and activities that allow staff to focus meaningful and recurring attention on topics that are of professional importance and relevance. Indeed, only one of out of 13 participants, a specialised photographer-videographer working for the largest organisation in the sample, reported a quite in-depth training process, lasting several years, with visual news. He was able to shadow a senior camera operator who mentored him over a years-long process.
The presence or vibrancy of a visually focused community of practice affected not just the types and volume of visuals published—which is an area that the third theme addresses—but also how staff “see” and understand quality visual news. This, a measure of the staff’s visual and media literacies, was implicitly revealed through the interviews, where staff were asked to define a quality news visual. Those without specific training in visual journalism more frequently mentioned in their definitions aspects that were independent of the visuals’ aesthetic dimension. These included human presence and, more specifically, identifiable faces, the presence of children, the relevance of the depiction, an emotional connection or response to the visual, whether the image or video was in focus, whether the visual was parallel to the horizon line (if applicable), and whether the visual material was unique compared to what can be found elsewhere.
In contrast, those with more extensive experience in or training with visual journalism mentioned aesthetics-related aspects in their definitions more frequently. These included whether the depiction was posed or unposed (expressed through an aversion to “firing squad” photos of people lined up against a wall), the brightness and tightness of the composition, the lighting and its effect on mood, the presence of bold colours in the visual and whether the composition employed “interesting angles.”
Making, editing, and sourcing visual news
The third and final theme focused on the importance of time and specialisation to which type of visuals the outlet published and to how these visuals were made, edited, or sourced.
Staff reflected in the interviews on their use of visuals across forms but said that limited time or skills affected which forms they used and published most frequently (ie, photography and, to a lesser extent, videography) compared to other forms (ie, charts and other types of data visualisations). In the words of one of the editors: Maps are really hard to create, or time-consuming, maybe … I haven't got to the stage where my reporters are making the charts, though. They don't seem to have those skillsets. … We don't go creating our own, wholly and solely because of the time factor.
Reflecting on the types of visuals published and staff attitudes toward these reveals the complexity and diversity of the visual mode. It also reveals how having just one “visual” person on staff, such as a photographer or videographer, might not mean that the visual literacies and skills required for thoughtful photography and videography translate to other visual forms, such as data visualisation, graphic design, or motion graphics. A diversity of visual forms as well as a diversity of communication modes in a newsroom, then, should be a consideration as news outlets try to upskill their staff and appeal to different cohorts.
All the outlets had staff who routinely made photographs (and sometimes video, as well). For the 13 participants who were interviewed, five reported using one or more standalone cameras only for their visual journalism, four reported using a mix of both standalone cameras and smartphone cameras, and three reported using smartphone cameras only. (One editor said she didn’t make visuals for the news personally.)
For those who used standalone cameras only, their reasons were “crisper” photos, more control over camera settings, and more flexibility with lenses and focal lengths. For those who used both, they said they appreciated the convenience of smartphones and their unique affordances, such as extra-wide or macro lenses that allowed for close-up photography of insects or objects. They also said they appreciated the low-profile nature of smartphones, which helped them be discrete, when needed. Some staff also didn’t have access to their workplace’s gear on the weekends so would use their smartphones during those times. The staff who reported using their smartphones only for photos and videos said their decision was motivated by the ease of use (to both make and to edit visual material), the device’s accessibility, and perceived better focusing than standalone cameras they had used.
The participants said that they were facing increasing expectations for visual output across different modes without training or support (Maenpaa, 2014). In the words of one of the interviewees: A lot of the older guys, have only ever done videography and now they're expected to do both [videography and photography] with no training, like there's been no one traveling the country going, this is how this new camera works, these are some basics. Even photo editing. That can be like 50% of the shot. Yeah, it's just like, ‘Here's a camera. Try and get a good shot’.
The availability and quality of specialised roles, or the time to invest in professional development, affected staff’s routine approach and which tasks they did or didn’t do. In the words of one of the interviewees: In terms of the actual taking of photos. I am not a photographer and I love having good photos, but I don't have the time to invest in improving my skills. So I'm an automatic, aim-and-shoot kind of person but I try to set it up so that the photos more interesting.
This also affected staff’s post-production routines, including around editing. In the words of one of the reporters, “I wouldn't say that I do much post-production. Like, I don't know how to make it lighter or darker or things like that.” Meanwhile, one of the editors said that their reporters don’t do their own photo editing, “mainly because most of them come with no skills in that area.”
From the observations and interviews, it seemed that a relationship existed between staff specialisation and the use or non-use of specialised hardware and software. For example, the more visually specialised staff were the ones who exclusively reported using standalone cameras compared to those who used both standalone cameras (sometimes on “auto” mode) along with smartphones or just relied on smartphones alone. Staff without visual specialisation—if they edited their content at all—reported editing their material with default software or with free or low-cost software, such as EDIUS for video editing and Photopea for image editing. In contrast, specialised staff reported paying—sometimes out of pocket—for more specialised software, such as Adobe Lightroom or Premiere because their employers wouldn’t cover this expense but these specialised staff had the skills to use it and could see the benefits of using it for their workflows.
Discussion
The observations of and interviews with staff at these news organisations provide significant insights into how visual journalism is made and, correspondingly, into how the presence or vibrancy of a community of practice shapes everything from how staff learn about and practice their visual tasks, speak about and understand visual conventions and principles, to their choice of equipment and post-production workflows (Bock, 2016; Mäenpää, 2014; Štefaniková and Láb, 2018).
Many of the news outlets in this sample were arguably too small to sustain an intra-organisational community of practice around visual journalism. When the outlet is as small as a two-person editorial operation (a reporter and editor or a photojournalist and reporter, which were the combinations at a number of the outlets in this study), there might not be the interest, time, or expertise for a meaningful community of practice to form.
For the outlet with the part-time photographer and freelance photographers who were hired to cover weekend sports, there’s more bodies and arguably collective interest in the visual but the precarious nature of employment, the potential for rivalry amongst freelancers competing for the same work, and the lack of an expectation of providing professional development to freelance employees all are challenges to a vibrant community of practice forming in such an organisation. The intra-organisational community of practice approach seems most viable at the outlet that was part of a larger organisation with a larger team of about 10 specialists in visual journalism. Although the outlet that was visited only had one visual specialist around at a time, who the specialist was would rotate and thus the host organisation and the visual specialists themselves had opportunities to share their knowledge and work with both more and less visually experienced teams.
Whether a community of practice is viable is also determined, in part, by the vision of management and whether it sees visuals as something worth investing in or as a secondary or tertiary focus. This decision is especially relevant as younger audiences report consuming more visually engaging news and different formats of news than older cohorts (Park et al., 2025). As such, catering to this audience will likely be part of an outlet’s business case as audience demographics and consumption preferences continue to shift.
Those interviewed had limited opportunities in their formal education to specialise in visual journalism (Creech, 2021). Some had taken elective classes in photography or fine art but these were optional and not regarded as a core part of the curriculum. Those specialising in visual journalism also lacked formal university qualifications in a visual field and instead reported that their training and development was shaped by in-the-field experience coupled with shadowing or observing others with more experience (Caple, 2019; Salzmann et al., 2023). Only three out of 13 staff members reported having received or offered their staff training in visual journalism through their workplaces and for all three staff members, this was something that occurred in the distant past and wasn’t on offer for new staff or, because of the length of time that elapsed between the training and the present, was no longer informing daily practice. In the words of one of these non-specialist reporters in the sample: We used to have photography classes at the [previous outlet’s name] to help our photos and because there's not that emphasis [at this outlet], that part [about photography] is chopped out of my mind and it's not helpful for the paper at all.
The need for a community of practice was revealed in interviews with participants who didn’t know how to do certain tasks (adjust camera settings, use photo editing software, create photo galleries on the outlet’s website), who desired to learn more about visual storytelling and visual journalism conventions and principles, or who desired to change how their outlet approached visuals.
However, given the challenges mentioned earlier related to the difficulty of starting or maintaining a visual-focused community of practice within the organisation, staff might consider the opportunities for starting or being involved in a community of practice that already exists or could exist beyond the organisation. Staff at these outlets already have an opportunity to meet and interact with the staff at other outlets through the programming of, for example, state-based Country Press Association chapters that convene an annual conference with awards. The state-based Country Press Association chapters could expand their events to offer visual-specific training or serve as a directory that would allow this community to form at a grassroots level. There are also potential linkages between non-journalism groups, such as local photography clubs, that share a visual focus despite not being in the wider journalism community. Participants mentioned the presence of online resources (such as YouTube tutorials) as being helpful to their professional development and the possibility of an online community of practice might be particularly useful in the Australian context, given the country’s vast size and diffuse population.
Engaging with a visual-focused community of practice would likely have implications for visual journalists’ daily routines, from which equipment they use and how they use it, to if or how their visual material is edited, stored, and published (Maenpaa, 2014; Salzmann et al., 2023; Thomson, Anderson and Snowden, 2025b). Participant interviews reveal that one-off trainings have limited effectiveness as staff who join after the one-off training is offered miss out on the benefit and staff who did participate can forget learnings over time and slip into old ways of doing things rather than adopting to contemporary best-practices (Mäenpää’s, 2014; Štefaniková and Láb, 2018).
Over time, these communities of practice could evolve from more basic functions, such as problem solving, seeking experience, and discussing developments, to more advanced and resource-intensive operations, such as site visits or exchanges with the staff at other news organisations and mapping or documentation projects to track current visual journalism practices and identify knowledge or skills gaps (Wenger, 2011). A more visually literate and skilled workforce, in turn, can hopefully better engage a younger audience who is turning away from traditional news sources and is consuming news in different ways to older generations (Park et al., 2025).
Overall, communities of practice are not just a practical response to a lack of institutional support, value, or training (for visual news in this case) but also serves as a useful analytical framework for better understanding how news workers might connect and develop their professional skills and understandings in the absence of more formal organisational structures. This might be at the intra-organisational level for organisations that are big enough to support this or at the inter-organisational level (through what Lowrey et al, 2023, call meta-organisations, such as professional associations, training institutes, research centres, and trade publications) for news outlets that are too small to sustain their own communities of practice internally. This aligns with Reese and Shoemaker’s (2018) hierarchy of influences model to not only consider the micro influences of individuals and routines in shaping news content but also considering broader macro forces, such as organisations, institutions, and social systems, as well.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge and thank the reporters and editors who participated in this research through interviews and site visits.
Ethical considerations
Research ethics approval was granted by RMIT University through Project 26704.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Australian Research Council through DE230101233.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.