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Croteau, Media/Society, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
Chapter Outlines
Chapter 5: Media Organizations and Professionals
Purpose and Goals of the Chapter
Media organizations and professionals work with broad structural constraints that will
influence behavior by making some choices more attractive, some more risky, and some
almost unthinkable. Despite working within certain social constraints, professionals who help
create media products make a series of choices about what to make and how to produce and
distribute those results.
In this chapter, we begin to make sense of the dynamic tension between the forces
of structure, which shape but do not determine behavior, and the actions of human
beings, who make choices but are not fully autonomous. This chapter’s trajectory
explores the structure–agency dynamic within media organizations to explore how
professionals create media products, the ways in which media work is organized, the
norms and practices of several media professions, the social and personal networks that
media professionals cultivate, and the ways the organizational structure of media outlets
shape the methods of media work.
Outline of Key Chapter Themes
• Media professionals respond to economic and political constraints; these constraints do
not simply determine action within media organizations.
• Media professionals use widely shared conventions, adopt specific roles, and establish
work routines that are disseminated through processes of professional socialization.
• Organizational premises serve as a kind of social structure within media organizations.
• New professional norms develop as new forms of media and new media occupations
develop.
• Media work is fraught with uncertainty, particularly about the route to “success”; media
professionals seek formulas that will enhance the likelihood of success and/or decrease
the perceived risk.
• How professionals are responding to new media, reemergent conglomerates, and digital
social norms.
Chapter Outline
• The Limits of Economic and Political Constraints
o Working within Economic Constraints
o Responding to Political Constraints
• Decision-Making for Profit: Imitation, Hits, and Stars
o High Costs and Unpredictable Tastes
o Art Imitating Art
o Stars and the “Hit System”
o Creating Hits and Producing Stars
Croteau, Media/Society, 6e
SAGE Publishing, 2019
o Using Stars to Combat Uncertainty
o Beyond Stars to a Universe of Products
• The Organization of Media Work
o Conventions
o New Routines and Their Consequences
o Technology and the New News Routines
▪ Increased Economic Pressure
▪ Expanded Volume and Diversified Sourcing
▪ Increased Speed
▪ Presentation and Engagement to Promote Traffic
▪ Newsroom Automation
o Objectivity
▪ The Origins of Objectivity
▪ Objectivity as Routine Practices and Their Political Consequences
▪ Rejecting Objectivity: Alternative Journalism
• Occupational Roles and Professional Socialization
o Roles
o Photography
▪ Socialization of Photographers
▪ Photographers’ Work Roles and Organizational Goals
o Editorial Decision-Making
▪ The Work of the Book Editor
▪ Scholarly Publishing
• Norms on the Internet, New Media, and New Organizations
• Conclusion
