The Open-Source Ethos of Journalism Innovation: Between Professional Control and Open Participation

The Open-Source Ethos of Journalism Innovation
Seth C. Lewis, Ph.D.
University of Minnesota (USA)
@sethclewis

Organizing premise
How is the journalism field (and its ideology) to accommodate open participation — both in code and in culture?
The intersection of open source and news innovation can help illuminate this question

Intersection of literatures

Differences in assumptions / norms

Empirical case: Knight News Challenge

Guiding question
How do ‘news innovators’ negotiate the tension between professional control and open participation?

from profession to practice

open-source vs.proprietary software

Key finding
News innovators speak of journalism as an open-source practice to be shared broadly, rather than a proprietary profession to be protected.
This emphasis gives shape to both the technological and cultural “software” of news.

Example: Village Soup and its CMS

“You get open access to businesses, and to citizen journalists, and to be able to share content from one site to the other site. These are all things that their legacy systems were never designed to do.”— Richard Anderson,Village Soup

Summary
When journalism is decoupled from its occupational ideology of control …
this renders the tension unproblematic …
and this focus on ‘practice’ opens the door to open source as architecture and philosophy …
thus enabling and encouraging participation within the boundaries of journalism.

My future research
As geeks and journalists (hacks and hackers) increasingly converge, how is this intersection (re)shaping professional boundaries/norms?

The Open-Source Ethos of Journalism Innovation
Seth C. Lewis, Ph.D.
University of Minnesota (USA)
@sethclewis

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The Open-Source Ethos of Journalism Innovation: Between Professional Control and Open Participation

by Seth Lewis

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