Transformations of journalism through the lens of human-dimensionality

 

For citation: Kramer A. Transformations of journalism through the lens of human-dimensionality // Mediascope. 2024. 1. Available at: http://www.mediascope.ru/2854

 

© Alexander Yu. Kramer

PhD in Cultural studies, Associate Professor at the Chair of Journalism and Media Technologies, Higher School of Printing and Media Technologies, Saint Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design (S. Petersburg, Russia), aykramer@gmail.com

 

Abstract

The article examines some aspects of the transformation of journalism as a sociotechnical system (STS) through the optics of human dimensionality (HD), by which we mean a set of irremovable natural restrictions that a person imposes on the practices of journalism (including practices of thinking) and related HD and non-HD artifacts . Since its inception as a social institution, journalism has been and over the course of a century and a half still remains highly dependent on technology, precisely according as journalistic product has become increasingly non-HD (and therefore accessible only through special devices).

Methods of production and delivery of journalistic product (and at the same time ways of thinking about the key concepts of journalism) were finally transformed when journalism became cyber-STS. So, now «informing» means providing «data» (not «knowledge»), «audience» is understood as increasingly «imagined» one (but not exactly known), «journalistic product» generates data traffic, and «journalistic work» actually means producing «influence» and «engagement» that can be sold. However, despite these changes, practices of direct, personal «face-to-face» communication remain significant to journalism, and this is encouraging.

 

Keywords: media, journalism, human-dimensionality, sociotechnical system, journalistic product.

 

Notes

Na puti k ustanovleniyu novogo mezhdunarodnogo ekonomicheskogo poryadka. Doklad General'nogo sekretarya OON [Towards a new international economic order: report of the UN Secretary-General].. 2022. 22 July. (A/77/214) Available at:  https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3985392?ln=en (accessed: 12.12.23) (In Russian)

Vektor innovatsionnoy deyatel'nosti: Doklad o polozhenii v oblasti intellektual'noy sobstvennosti v mire za 2022 (2022). [World Intellectual Property Report 2022: The Direction of Innovation]. Geneva: WIPO. (In Russian)

 

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