Stephanie Grubenmann
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Dr.
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Grubenmann
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Stephanie
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stephanie.grubenmann@unisg.ch
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+41 71 224 2401
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@stgrubenmann
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stephaniegrubenmann

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Action Research : Collaborative research for the improvement of digital journalism practice

2016-01-01 , Grubenmann, Stephanie

The combination of technological, organizational, and societal change constitutes a highly dynamic and complex research setting for Digital Journalism Studies, calling for process-oriented and inclusive research perspectives. At the same time, journalistic organizations have to generate sustainable innovativeness and creativity to remain relevant in these times of change. Action research offers a framework for research collaborations between scholars and practitioners, generating holistic and solution-oriented outcomes of value for science and practice. With the clear intention to induce change, action research starts with the reflection on practice with a view to improving it. This article argues for more action research in Digital Journalism Studies, elaborating on the opportunities for science and practice. A current action research project in Switzerland is introduced and evaluated to give an impression of this research culture. The remaining challenges derived from experiences in this project are also discussed.

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Social Media - Herausforderungen für den Journalismus

2012-10 , Meckel, Miriam , Fieseler, Christian , Grubenmann, Stephanie

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The Leadership Dimension of Coping with Technostress

2014-01-06 , Fieseler, Christian , Grubenmann, Stephanie , Meckel, Miriam , Müller, Severina

One pathway to alleviate the consequences of technology-induced stress may lie in the role that supervisors may or may not play in mitigating the negative consequences of ICT usage. Based on survey research with 491 salespersons using ICT in their work environment, and tested with structural equation modelling, we discuss the impact of two forms of leadership on individual and organizational outcomes. We differentiate between supervisor influence on ICT use and general leadership, and their influence on ICT-strain (i.e. technostress) as well as on general strain (i.e. work exhaustion). The data show that, in the context of ICT-induced stress, leadership has a significant compensatory influence on work exhaustion and on job satisfaction. The results lead us to the interpretation that leadership constitutes a potential further instrument to ease the negative outcomes of ICT usage in work contexts, and to propose further study into the role of ICT specific supervisor influence.

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Journalists as Innovation Agents : The Development of a Measure for Journalistic Role Stress

2013-09-12 , Grubenmann, Stephanie , Fieseler, Christian , Meckel, Miriam

Against the background of rapid change in the journalistic environment, we are interested in the potential to integrate journalists into organizational innovation processes. To this end, we are looking at journalistic role concepts, and especially the antecedents to these concepts that might or might not foster innovative contributions to the organization. Based on research with several news organizations, we propose the measures of role clarity, conflict and overload as antecedents to the propensity of journalists to act as agents of innovation within their organization.

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Matrix Organisation : The design of cross-beat teamwork in newsrooms

2016-02-09 , Grubenmann, Stephanie

Confronted by increased internal and external complexity, traditional forms of newswork have reached their limits. Journalistic start-ups, such as Quartz and NZZ.at, form emerging editorial teams around "obsessions" or "phenomena" to gain cross-beat perspectives of complex issues such as climate change, the financial crisis or the refugee crisis. Legacy media experimenting with cross-beat newswork see themselves confronted by challenges arising predominantly from beat structures. Consequently, this paper focuses on an example of cross-beat teamwork at a major Swiss daily newspaper, investigating the journalists' experiences of working in a particular project. Insights from 13 interviews indicate that a matrix organisation is one way to organise cross-beat topic-focused newswork in larger newsrooms. A matrix organisation combines traditional functional hierarchy (i.e. the beat structure) with a project dimension. Based on insights from organisational studies, I compare the known advantages and disadvantages of a matrix organisation with journalists' experiences and derive implications for the introduction and design of a matrix organisation in newsrooms.

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VR Journalism. Non-fictional storytelling in 360 degree

2017-10-17 , Grubenmann, Stephanie

Nonny de la Peña pioneered the work with VR in journalism. Since the publication of her first piece “Hunger in Los Angeles” in 2012, many other journalistic and non-journalistic media organizations and NPO have been working with this new storytelling format. The New York Times belongs to the ones, really pushing the format by sending out millions of Google Cardboard sets to their subscribers in April 2015 and by releasing their own app NYT VR in November 2015 to publish content in 360° on a regular basis. Since then, others followed the example as ARTE360, SZ VR by the German Süddeutsche Zeitung, BlickVR by the Swiss Blick or the Guardian with its 6x9 / Solitary Confinement. Other non-journalistic platforms as Within or Jaunt VR also publish non-fictional content. VR Journalism includes both, the work in “real” VR, virtual reality, which is computer-generated content (that can be based on photographs or video footage) or the work with 360-degree video. 360-degree video is often called “the low hanging” fruit of VR (Hernandez 2016) as its production is way less resource-intense than real VR. Also, due to reception-based arguments, most publishers currently produce content in 360°. These videos can be watched on smartphones and even in most browsers for desk computers whereat contents in VR must be watched with corresponding headsets, for example the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. In their beginnings, most editorial teams had to collaborate with external producers (as for example Within) to produce content in 360°. Meanwhile many editorial teams have their own department capable of producing corresponding content in-house. However, how to tell convincing and compelling stories in 360° remains a challenge for producers in fiction and non-fiction and with this, the topic on the agenda of practitioners’ conferences around the world. For many, storytelling in 360° remains unsatisfying and they see the format rather as the result of a transformation process already envisioning more (or true) interactive formats. To learn more about journalistic or non-fictional storytelling in 360°, we decided to realize a research project generating our own experience working with the format. Between September 2016 and January 2017, we realized a non-fictional production in 360° together with our graduating class. The students developed and produced the content resulting in a multimedia and trans-media publication I might introduce in my presentation. As a researcher, I accompanied the project and applied participating observation and qualitative, semi-structured interviews to generate insights about challenges and potentials our students perceived in their work with the format. I conducted nine interviews with students who did the visual part, with students who did the audio part (sound design and spatial audio) and with an external expert with experience in 360° production who accompanied the production. Applying inductive, thematic analysis (Mischler 1986; Riessman 1993), I analyzed the collected data and generated recommendations for non-fictional storytelling in VR. In my paper and the corresponding talk, I want to introduce our project and the findings we draw from it. I will further compare and integrate our conclusions with recommendations from other experts around the world, who already gained first experiences with the new storytelling format. And I will briefly mention some critical aspects that should be discussed related to journalists’ motivations working with this format that can to a certain degree be traced back to the field of Activism Journalism (Ruigrok 2010). Finally, I will point to remaining open questions and emerging further developments.

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Journalisten als Innovatoren : Ein Beispiel partizipativer Aktionsforschung

2014-04-13 , Grubenmann, Stephanie , Meckel, Miriam

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Journalists's Professional Identity : A resource to cope with change in the industry?

2015 , Grubenmann, Stephanie , Meckel, Miriam

The internet, and particularly social media, have brought far-reaching change to journalism by calling into question how journalists' traditional roles are perceived. We introduce social identity theory-specifically the concept of professional identity-as a complementary approach to study journalistic role conceptions from a dynamic perspective. Building on existing findings in both research streams (professional identity and journalistic role conceptions), we undertook a qualitative study to explore the interplay between journalists' role perceptions, the core values of journalism, and ongoing change in the industry. Our analysis of 26 interviews conducted in a Swiss newsroom provided an affirmative answer to the question whether journalists' professional identity serves as a resource that helps them to cope with uncertainty. By identifying different identity negotiation mechanisms, we illustrate journalists' sensemaking of developments in their work environment. We show that journalists who rely on an elitist, traditional role concept construct online journalism as a threat to quality journalism and journalists' personal status. Another group of journalists with more service-oriented and solutions-oriented role concepts strives to improve a newspaper's online journalism. These journalists engage in creating new, adapted role scripts and value definitions.

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Journalists' Professional Identity: A Resource to Cope with Uncertainty?

2015-05-24 , Grubenmann, Stephanie

The Internet, Social Media in particular, brought far-reaching change to journalism, asking journalists' traditional role concepts into question. In this paper, we introduce Social Identity Theory as an alternative perspective to research journalistic role change, and propose a qualitative approach to study journalists' professional identity and relate it to their interpretation of change in the newsroom. We interviewed 26 journalists of a daily newspaper and investigated their professional self-concept. We identified a group of elitist journalists who act on traditional role scripts and feel threatened by online journalism and related principles. They see status and quality journalism endangered. A second group of service-and user-oriented journalists strives for the improvement of online journalism but lacks shared values and adapted role scripts. The paper shows the reciprocal interaction between journalists' activities and professional role concepts and affirms the question, if professional identity can serve as a resource to cope with uncertainty.

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Metaphors of Occupational Identity: Traces of a Changeable Workplace in Journalism

2014-08-04 , Grubenmann, Stephanie , Meckel, Miriam

According to Social Identity Theory individuals' identity consists of a personal identity and (several) social identities. Social identities often manifest themselves in jobs and occupations (i.e. occupational identities). When organizations or industries change, employees face new requirements and unknown situations. In identity negotiation occupational identity and specific situations influence each other. This co-constitutive interdependency allows employees to make sense of a changeable work environment. In this paper we propose the approach to work with metaphors to investigate occupational identity. We develop a methodic approach and explore the question how metaphors named by journalists reflect their occupational identity in a changeable work environment.

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