Introduction
In George Ritzer’s The McDonaldization of Society: Into the Digital Age, he outlines four areas in which industries and occupations have become rationalized through efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. As the role of a newspaper reporter, this occupation has been drastically altered due to rationalization. Three of these dimensions, efficiency, calculability and control, have played more prominent roles in the advancements of the occupation than predictability. This is largely due to the heavy use of digital technology in the field now and the decrease in advertising revenue in comparison to journalism in the 1950s (Fink & Schudson, 2014).
History of Journalism
The history of journalism has been greatly impacted by rationalization and the role of digital technology. Despite its initial large change from political scandals in the 1960s-70s and then large layoffs during the early 2000s and later the COVID-19 pandemic, most alterations have resulted from digital technology and its role under rationalization. This influence has since caused most companies to have an online platform, which increases audience visibility but also requires the company to hire the work of online advertisers for revenue. Additionally, the rationalization throughout the history of journalism has changed the role of a journalist and the duties that are required for the job. These changing factors have resulted in events like the severe decrease in the amount of journalists in a newsroom due to a large number of layoffs both in the early 2000s and in 2020, changed how they communicate with other journalists in the newsroom via online, and what stories are being covered and published either on a website or in print if the company can do so depending on funds and location of the newsroom.
The Rationalization of Journalism
Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argued that the journalism field is losing its cultural power because of economic reliance on advertising and corporate ownership. In addition, he argues it is also losing its cultural power through political constraints such as public relations and political criticism. These concepts impinge on the production of journalism. In regard to its effect on the journalism field, Ritzer’s dimensions of rationalization overlap in their varying consequences to how the journalism field and occupation has changed through rationalization. It is through these overlapping concepts, that results in the changing of the journalism field and occupation of journalists.
Efficiency
As journalists transitioned mediums by publishing articles more online than in print, this allows for a more “reader friendly” article (Berry, 1994). This includes more fact listing with the use of bullet points information and the main ideas rather than writing in the traditional narrative storytelling structure which presents the idea and goes into an in-depth discussion of the topic that outlines other aspects of the story that affect the main idea. In contrast to the narrative structure, journalists are now including more pictures, videos, audio and graphics like tables, charts, graphs, etc. in their articles as well to provide a visual aid for the reader and decrease the amount of words. This formatting, allows for an easier job on the journalist to present information in as simple terms as possible while als broadening the availability of the audience to understand the information presented in the article.
As Ritzer coined “prosumers”, individuals who both produce and consume media, the prosumer’s use of social media contributes to people’s ability to engage in a collective conversation via online without the role of a journalist (Ritzer, 2021, pg. 28). People can now post and share any content they choose without having to go through a news organization or have the topic fully covered in an article. This group, named citizen journalists, take over the job of a journalist by sharing information they consider newsworthy rather than a journalist finding news, reporting on it, and then publishing it.
Calculability
As journalists now exist in the digital age, calculability in journalism has been measured by both the amount of employees working on a paper and the interaction of the community on an online article and website. As presented in the history of journalism, the calculability of the amount of news reporters in a newsroom has greatly decreased due to budget cuts, large layoffs, and the increased role technology has over the duties a journalist performs. The interaction of a community online is calculated through analytics such as the number of clicks a story receives, the scroll depth, and the time spent on a page (Caitlin Petre, 2018). The more news that is produced, the more audience engagement a website receives because it takes the reader longer to get through the website and read different articles.
Predictability
Out of Ritzer’s four dimensions, predictability has remained the least affected by rationalization, largely due to the need for journalistic skills in capturing an audience’s attention. Researchers attempted a study on creating a predictable headline model for journalists to follow to increase the efficiency of the writing process for journalists and the rendering of information for the audience (Hagar, Diakopoulos & DeWilde, 2022). This formulated headline largely focused on the textual features of the story to draw readers in. However, the researchers came to the consensus that there are external factors that play into audiences' engagement to reading the story based on the headline, creating limitations to content-based predictions. The study discusses the relationship between headline writing and performance. Because audiences are diverse and dynamic, getting their attention takes more than just a formula-based headline. Therefore, the job of a journalist is still needed despite the forces of rationalization on predictability. These external factors play into why or why not a person might click on a story and a journalist’s decision and writing strategies of what to or not to include in the story also plays a role in audience engagement, highlighting the use of a journalist.
Control
The control of the newsroom today resembles that of scientific management. Frederick Wilson Taylor came up with the idea of scientific management in which the roles of management are divided among people to focus on only one aspect of creating a product or idea. In journalism, editors, or what can be compared to managers, are more and more telling reporters what to write either by assigning stories or largely editing a story. Through this, the role of scientific management has increased as managers and news organizations are seeking reporters and editors with prior experience and training in these roles.
The Future of Journalists
All of the dimensions of the rationalization of journalism ultimately influence the amount of journalists there are, thus the large numbers of layoffs, and the importance of advertisers buying advertising space on a news organization’s website to have revenue for the news agency. These factors also affect the role a journalist has on the quality of the news, who the news is accessible to, and how much is produced.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence, like ChatGPT, has begun to find its way into newsrooms. While AI currently works as more of an addition to a journalist’s work rather than a replacement such as providing a different way to start writing a story or rephrasing a sentence, Katie Brown, a freelancer, who recently used an AI named Grantable, which writes grants for you as a way to get an organization funded, thinks that it is a threat to both her job and the industry. She said that through a person using an AI like Grantable, a news company is more likely to hire someone with AI that receives no benefits than a person working full-time with benefits included. Additionally, Shakked Noy and Whitney Zhang, doctoral students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), conducted a randomized and controlled study on the use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. Participants were given 20 to 30 minutes to write news releases and brief reports. Those who used ChatGPT completed the assignments 37 percent faster on average than those who didn’t and found a 20 percent increase in job satisfaction (DePillis & Lohr, 2023).
The benefit of using artificial intelligence in the newsroom is that it could greatly increase the efficiency of a news reporter being able to produce content quickly, as already seen given the rationalization of the formatting of a news article. This would also bring news agencies more profit because more news is being produced, therefore more audience engagement, and ultimately influence advertisers to pay for space for the audience to see their advertisements. However, as each worker increases productivity there is a less need for workers, which in turn could lead to an even greater decrease in jobs than already had in the early 2000s and during the pandemic. This brings into question the idea of where the happy medium is between producing enough news to bring revenue, with the right amount of journalists to do so, all without decreasing the quality of the news and fully covering the topic.
Local Journalism
Although the use of artificial intelligence could provide benefits for journalists and the journalism industry, the increase in rationalization and digital technology will ultimately lead to the elimination of local journalism. Local news operations are struggling for ideas to make business sustainable, due to the decrease in printing and thus, advertising revenue. Even on online platforms these sites do not receive as much audience engagement as large news organizations like The New York Times or The Washington Post because their audience engagement and public accessibility to the information is significantly smaller than large organizations. This not only puts local journalists out of a job, but largely affects local communities. Local newspapers promote democratic engagement, hold locals in positions of power accountable, and cover issues relevant to population and may help build social capital. Without the implementation of local journalism in communities, it will put local journalists out of jobs and greatly decrease the ability for the community to be updated on the events and opportunities going on around them.
Conclusion
In turn, a journalist’s occupation and the journalism industry as a whole has been greatly influenced and altered as a result of digital technology’s role in rationalization. This can be seen through its effects ranging from the miniscule duties performed day-to-day by a journalist versus their job’s effect on society through the quality and quantity of news produced. Thus, this has been greatly influenced by technology through rationalization and will continue to do so with the increased role technology plays in society and in the journalism field.
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