‘Our newsroom in the cloud’: Slack, virtual newsrooms and journalistic practice

Bunce, Melanie, Wright, Kate and Scott, Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6744-443X (2018) ‘Our newsroom in the cloud’: Slack, virtual newsrooms and journalistic practice. New Media and Society, 20 (9). pp. 3381-3399. ISSN 1461-4448

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Abstract

Virtual newsrooms have enormous potential: enabling journalists around the world to pool their knowledge, skills and perspectives within joint projects, such as the Panama Papers. These virtual newsrooms are supported by Online Collaborative Software (OCS), the most popular of which is Slack. This article presents the first, in-depth ethnographic study of a news outlet’s Slack newsroom, asking two broad questions: how does Slack shape journalistic practices? And how can we theorise these digital platforms? Our research found that Slack deepened relationships and enabled new creative practices across geographic regions. However, it also contributed to the erasure of the line between private and professional spheres for workers, and introduced new opportunities for management to shape newsroom culture. We argue that the concept of ‘space’ as developed by Harvey can helpfully frame the analysis of these new, important digital platforms.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (grant number AH/N00731X/1)
Uncontrolled Keywords: slack,virtual newsroom,journalism,ethnography,space,news production,4* ,/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/REFrank/4_
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Social Sciences > School of International Development
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > The State, Governance and Conflict
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Cultural Politics, Communications & Media
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Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 29 Nov 2017 06:07
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 09:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/65595
DOI: 10.1177/1461444817748955

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