Framtidens mediehus byggs med digital verktygslåda. En kvalitativ studie över hur digitala verktyg påverkat sportjournalistiken på lokala tidningsredaktioner

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate how sport journalists who work on local newspaper editorial offices experiences the adaption into use of digital tools in the journalistic work, and find out what factors that affects the extent to which digital tools are used. Furthermore, the aim was also to find out which digital tools that are used most frequently by the selection of journalists, and investigate how these tools affects the journalistic work process. The study is based on a theoretical framework consisting of theories. One of the theories for the study was technological affordances, which describes the relationship between a technological tool and the person who uses it, and is used to explain the benefits that the user can derive from being in the relationship (Anderson & Robey, 2017). We used the theory to explain the results we got from talking to sports journalists about their relationship with digital tools. The second theory that was used is the profession theory, which we used to explain how the connection between sports journalists and their knowledge results in better journalism, and thus that journalism itself as a profession is getting stronger. The method used for this study was a qualitative interviewing method including ten different sport journalists working around in Swedish local newspaper editorial offices. To secure the most correct and representative result, the chosen journalists were based on different factors as age, gender, experience, working title, geographical position and media concern. Before the interviews were held, a semi structured interview guide was constructed based on the theoretical framework and previous research as mentioned above. The result of this study shows that social media is the most valuable tool for the selection of journalists. The impact that digital tools have made has resulted in that the selection of journalists experiences that the working process is much faster today than it was before, and that they are required to master more parts of the journalistic process. The factor that has proven to be the most decisive regarding the extent to which one feels that one meets the requirements set for the use of digital tools is age. In addition, the results shows also that the younger journalists feel the most comfortable with their use as they entered the working life with different prior knowledge than the older journalists.