To help better understand the many different manifestations of the media lab construct encountered in our study, this article adopts a purposefully interdisciplinary approach spanning open innovation, institutional and social theories to illuminate and sense-make the global lab phenomena. Drawing on 45 semi-structured interviews with media labs around the globe, conducted between 20, this exploratory study explores the multifaceted nature of the media lab concept across academia, legacy media and independent structures. As such, we focus on innovation processes and practices rather than innovative outcomes. In this article, we offer insights into the multiple forms media labs can take, and how innovation in the media field is being organised through labs. Over the past decade, media labs have become an increasingly visible structure to create, catalyse and diffuse innovation within, and beyond, journalism. Mit diesen spezifischen Leistungen hat sich das SMC für seine mehr als 1.200 akkreditierten Journalist*innen insbesondere während der Corona-Pandemie als wertvoll erwiesen (Broer, 2020 Für die Journalistik ist es wichtig, zwischen diesen Entwicklungen zu differenzieren. Das SMC als neuartiger Organisationstypus wurde gegründet, um einschneidende Defizite, die heute in zahlreichen Medienunternehmen offensichtlich geworden sind, zu kompensieren ("Field Repair" Konieczna, 2018) und gleichzeitig darüberhinausgehende Fortschritte und Innovationen im journalistischen Feld anzustoßen ("Field Advancement" Buschow et al., 2022). Mit rund 20 festen und weiteren freien Mitarbeiter*innen produziert das SMC keine eigenen Medieninhalte, die sich an Endnutzer*innen richten, sondern stellt in der Rolle eines Intermediärs journalistische Vorprodukte oder "Rohstoffe" (Science Media Center Germany, 2021) in Form von Expert*innen-Statements, Einschätzungen und Hintergrundinformationen zu wissenschaftsbezogenen Themen und Publikationen bereit, ergänzt um weitere Maßnahmen zur Unterstützung und Stärkung der (wissenschafts-)journalistischen Arbeit. This article contributes to our understanding of novel media organizations with distinct functions in the news industry, allowing for advancements in theory on media work and the organization of journalism in times of digital upheaval. This helps to uncover emerging needs and anticipates problems before they intensify or even occur, proactively providing products and tools for future journalism. Our findings show that, in addition to field repair activities, SMC aims to facilitate progress and innovation in the field, which we refer to as field advancement. From a practice‐theoretical research perspective and based on semi‐structured interviews, virtual field observations, and document analysis, we have conducted a single case study on Science Media Center Germany (SMC), a unique non‐profit news start‐up launched in 2016 in Cologne, Germany. One new type is the field repair organization, which is characterized by supporting high‐quality media work to compensate for the deficits (such as those which come from cost savings and layoffs) which have become apparent in legacy media today. In the wake of the news industry’s digitization, novel organizations that differ considerably from traditional media firms in terms of their functional roles and organizational practices of media work are emerging.
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