A doctoral dissertation project (2010-2013) is about citizen journalism of blogs and its impact on news media. The study focuses on the example of Russia where blogging has become an influential mechanism of agenda setting. Institutional media in their publications more and more often refer to original news content of blogs or cite bloggers as credible sources. At the same time, the most prominent bloggers already attract audiences comparable with audiences of the mainstream media. Yet, on a large scale blogging continue, and no doubt will continue, to rely on professional, organized media. All these developments illustrate the complexity of relationships within the field of news production.
What makes citizen journalism a part of the news media system? And how do reportorial principles and professional ideology of news journalism change in connection with this rapid widening of the field? The study combines Laclau’s discourse analytical strategy with Bourdieu’s field theory to answer the questions. While discourse analysis provides a framework to investigate ideological challenges of blogging, the field theory suits to question the integrity of journalistic domain. The realities of Russian journalistic tradition and normative theoretical accounts of media roles make up the contexts of the research.
The complex of journalism-blogging relationships is examined on the level of media content. The empirical data includes a selection of texts from both institutional news media and news-oriented blogs in Russia. The primary method is qualitative content analysis, and the time of the publications is limited by five consecutive years (2007-2011). However, the earlier periods, when blogging was not yet widespread, provide some additional insights.
Researcher: Dmitry Yagodin, dmitry.yagodin at uta.fi, tel: +358 3 3551 7661