International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

News routines are repeated practices and forms that make it easier for journalists to accomplish tasks in an uncertain world while working within production constraints. The routines journalists employ serve functional ends for journalists, news organizations, and audiences. Routines also result in dysfunction. All work relies on routines, but tasks become more routine in organizations that produce on a mass scale, that face little environmental uncertainty, and that do not seek innovation. Journalists face uncertainty, but predictable mass production is more important than innovation for news organizations. To manage work and insure a flow of incoming information, news organizations have adopted factory-like practices and processes ( Berkowitz 1997 ; →  Organizational Communication ). News routines emerged where the organization and the social environment intersect, say journalism historians. The development of western democratic market societies and the rationalization of economic life in the 1800s led to the pursuit of wide audiences, increased scale of production, and larger news organizations ( Schudson 2003 ). As staffs increased, management attempted to control production bureaucratically. Rules and new technologies facilitated control, as did professional routines such as balancing sources and writing in a neutral style, which serve organizational purposes ( Berkowitz 1997 ... log in or subscribe to read full text