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Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11.

MacGregor, P., 2013. Siren songs or path to salvation? Interpreting the visions of web technology at a UK regional newspaper in crisis, 2006-11. Convergence: the journal of research into new media technologies.

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DOI: 10.1177/1354856512472605

Abstract

A 5-year case study of an established regional newspaper in Britain investigates journalists about their perceptions of convergence in digital technologies. This research is the first ethnographic longitudinal case study of a UK regional newspaper. Although conforming to some trends observed in the wider field of scholarship, the analysis adds to skepticism about any linear or directional views of innovation and adoption: the Northern Echo newspaper journalists were observed to have revised their opinions of optimum Web practices, and sometimes radically reversed policies. Technology is seen in the period as a fluid, amorphous entity. Central corporate authority appeared to diminish in the period as part of a wider reduction in formalism. Questioning functionalist notions of the market, the study suggests cause and effect models of change are often subverted by contradictory perceptions of particular actions. Meanwhile, during technological evolution, the ‘professional imagination’ can be understood as strongly reflecting the parent print culture and its routines, despite pioneering a new convergence partnership with an independent television company.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:1354-8565
Group:Faculty of Media & Communication
ID Code:20708
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:16 Feb 2013 18:22
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 13:46

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