Journalists and objects of journalism relations during the COVID-19 pandemic: An ethnographic study in three Indonesian newsrooms.

Abstract

This chapter explores how the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced social distancing practices, reshaped the relationship between journalists and objects of journalism, often described as “the material forms of journalism”. As Carole O’Reilly demonstrates in Chapter 2, to date, scholarly attention on the pandemic’s impact has tended to centre on the removal of journalists from the physical newsroom, and their dislocation from the physical environments and objects that have traditionally shaped their professional practice and vocational identity. However, in this unprecedented time, it is important to look at how digital-enabled technology played a role in the news-making process and what the consequences were when journalists left the newsroom and moved to remote environments.