Organizational studies
Sociology of media organizations
Why study media organizations?
• Many organizational sociologists or media
studies scholars argue that the source of
mass culture within a society (and, to a
lesser extent, high or folk culture) is not
mad individual geniuses but, in fact,
organizations that resemble producers of
any mass commodity
Why study media organizations?
• Media organizations have a set of ‘functions’ to
perform in any society
– Lasswell; Lazarsfeld & Merton; Wright
• Highly public organizations creating works that
draw widespread attention
• Significant economic impact
• Time spent, other social effects
• Cultural products have a number of unusual
characteristics, calling for unusual structures
– Uniqueness of ‘creative’ organizations
Press organizations are
considered crucial
• The press, especially, is thought to be
crucial to a working democracy
– Inform the electorate
– Spark debate
– Provide a channel for communication between
the public and the elite
– Serve as a watchdog on government
Press myths
• Crusading journalist, loner fighting
corruption
• Fourth estate, acting as gadfly
– Watchdog on government
– Conflictual relationship
• Holding up a mirror to society
– Simply reacting to, and transcribing, the
important events of the day
Press myths
• Hard-bitten, fiercely independent editors
standing up for the downtrodden against the
powerful of society
– “Comfort the afflicted and afflict the
comfortable”
Film, entertainment myths
• Talented, wild and crazy individuals giving
expression to unique and innovative ideas
– Mad geniuses driven by an inner need to
express themselves through their art
• Social self-examination through cultural
expression
• Powerful studio system controlling talent
and money, producing a “star system”
Entertainment myths
• Shallow, narcissistic, deviant stars caught
up in a world of mirrors and adoration
– “Sex, drugs, and Rock & Roll”
Organizational sociologists look
at the culture industry
• Scholars attempt to determine how a
“product” that is supposedly based on
unique, uncertain and occasional leaps of
inspiration or else the unpredictable ebb and
flow of social events can be produced and
disseminated on a regular schedule, with the
same format, hour after hour, day after day,
week after week
Common characteristics of all
organizations apply to media
• Goal-directed
– Survival
– Profit-oriented
– Seek control over suppliers, clients
• Bureaucratized, routinized behaviors
– Hierarchical structure
• Complex set of functions
• Role positions
• Departmentalization
Additional concerns
• How do organizations control, allow, support the
development of creative products?
– Highly uncertain audience response to products
• Blockbusters v. ‘art’
• What organizational structures and routines are
developed in order to meet the demands of content
production?
– “routinizing the unexpected”
• What is the influence of organizational structure on
the content ultimately produced and disseminated?
• How are interorganizational/institutional
relationships developed and maintained?
How do these relationships influence the
content generated and distributed?
• How do media organizations stand in
relation to the state and the public? The
powerful?
Press organizations
• The most heavily-studied of creative organizations
• Blossoming of organizational studies in the 1970s
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Tuchman
Gans
Fishman
Roshco
Epstein
Sigal
Sigelman
Schudson
Schiller
Influences on the news product
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Individual journalist
News department
News organization
Corporation
Technology
Profession
Industry
Inter-institutional influences
Nation/culture
• The daily agenda of reports produced
by the media and called "news" is not
the inevitable product of chance events;
it is the result of decisions made within
a news organization. (Epstein, 1981)
Let’s look at a given ‘event’
• A J-walker in a run-down area of town is hit by an
SUV driving too fast late at night.
• Is this ‘news’?
– From the standpoint of the individual journalists it may
be hard to predict
– However, organizational and professional norms for
content make the call easier
• WLEX
• WUKY
• Herald-Leader
If the event is picked up by a news
organization it is “news”
• How much play does it get?
– Front page/top story?
• Who is a source for the story?
• What information is included in the story?
– Photos/video?
• What is the actual verbal construction of the
story?
– Adjective/metaphor
– Framing
– Headline/subheads
What then?
• Is there a follow-up?
• Is there another piece meant to give context
to the story?
• Are subjects allowed a response to the
presentation?
– I was NOT drunk!
News is a constructed product
• Organizations construct several routines and
controls put in place to see that the ultimate ‘story’
and show conform to accepted practice
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Inverted pyramid
Story types
Objectivity (both sides)
Editing system
Meeting at beginning of day to determine stories to
cover, conflicts among ‘desks’ about what should be
covered, etc.
How are organizational approaches
to news maintained?
• Socialization of new journalists to ‘editorial
policy’
– Breed
• Hiring practices
– Sigelman
• Professional training
How are views of news/professional
norms maintained over distance?
• Elite media serve as models for those
further down the status totem, with those
yet lower looking to dailies/affiliates in the
larger regional cities, etc.
• Journalists prepare themselves to move
upmarket by pre-socializing themselves
• Journalism schools with curricula and texts
that are developed based on national models
Organizational practices
• Television—the role of the anchor
– Story structure wrapped by anchor (intro,
questioning, extro)
– Popularity is critical to success of show
• National anchors have great power in determining
structure of news show
– Movement toward “on-air personalities” and
away from seasoned journalists
Organizational practices
• Commitment to enterprise journalism
– Usually quite low (Gans, Sigelman)
– Declining due to economics
• Acceptance, use of, publicity from PR
sources
– Widespread, though there are limits imposed by
professional norms
– Significantly reduces costs of production
• Sex, drugs and mayhem in February (ratings
hypo)
• National news focuses on geography near to
network headquarters
– May be less so due to technological change
Reduction of uncertainty
• Routines
– Beat system (“newsnet”) (Tuchman)
• Regular features
– Weather
– Sports
• Maintenance of material for slow days
– “Feature stories”
– PR content
– Enterprise stories
• Newswires, content sources
Journalism as a profession
• Institutionalization (university departments)
• Development of organizations
• Publications critiquing practice
– Columbia Journalism Review
• Awards/ceremonies
• Professional “ideology”
– News values
– Objectivity
– Watchdog role (on government)
Professional culture
• “Public’s right to know”
– Pictures of victims
– Rape stories, etc.
– Demand for access to official information,
access to private individuals involved in public
issues, events
• First Amendment philosophy
Professional expertise
• “Nose for news”
• What are news values?
– Characteristics of events that make them
appropriate for construction as news
Professional culture v.
organizational demands
• At times in conflict—profit v. public service
– “When MBAs rule the newsroom”
• Most often complementary or mutually
supportive
– “Public’s right to know” how a woman whose
child was just found dead feels
Newsworker explanations
• Objectivity
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Separation of editorial from hard news
Balancing
Facticity
Neutrality
Reliance on official sources
• Typifications (Tuchman)
Influence of the owner
• Socialization of newsworkers
– Breed
• Ability to fire employees
– Rarely exercised
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Budgeting
Choice of management
Public persona
Ideology--belief in rights of ownership
Influence of owner
(counterbalance)
• Professional norms
• Independence of management
– Professional revolution in management philosophy
• Public demands for objective news coverage
– Organized groups
– Politicians
• Market influences
Influence of powerful
(government)
• Source of news
– News, by definition, about government action
– Expectations of readers/viewers
– Provide regular content that can be processed
• Newsnet
• Can influence news play
– “Scoops”
– Access
– “Background”
Influence of the powerful
• Interpersonal influence
– Friendship, “capture”
– Stroking, personal access to parties, etc.
• Journalists no longer represent working class—high
paid, privileged group
• Professionalization of press relations
– PR professionals
– College courses, curriculum development,
ethics
Influence of the economic system
• Information products
• “Natural monopoly”
Public goods
Underproduction
Government subsidy
Advertising
Substitution of “audience attention” sold for enduser sales of content
Impact of cable (end-user) substitution for broadcast
Press organizations react to the
economic system
• Do not act as a “quasi-public service”
– Profit-oriented organization
• Budgeting for various activities
– Low budget for foreign news, correspondents
– Washington bureau seen as a sign of quality
– “Metro pull-back”
• Need to generate advertising
– Acceptance of PR content
• Positive relations with advertisers
• Cheap content
– Topical determination according to advertiser demands
• “Auto section”