Jaan Grünberg

Beyond the news desk – the embeddedness of business news

The relations between the media and their corporate sources have become increasingly routinized and organized. In contrast to traditional perspectives on news making this article introduces an embeddedness perspective on business journalism and reports on the findings from a study of the way the major Swedish corporations and financial analysts contribute to and participate in the production of business news. Through a qualitative analysis of two cases we show that such production is organized and carried out in a stream of continuous and well-coordinated activities and structured interaction settings – that is, in a system of recursive mediation. Our analysis further illustrates how this system is maintained through the technological, relational and situational embeddedness of the activities and settings. Through our studies we show how news production has developed outside the journalistic domain. One implication of our findings is that the possibility of individual actors influencing the content of the news is likely to be limited. Instead, it is the actors’ ability to join the organizational and technological settings in which news material is generated that gives them the opportunity to actively participate in news production.

Organizations, Prizes and Media

Purpose This paper circulates around two major questions: what is the character of prizes as a media product? And how do the specifics of media prizes relate to the understanding of organizations with respect to a given aspect of their activities? The purpose of this paper is to bring forward theoretical arguments that show the significance of media preferences and values as central in how media prizes and awards are created and operated by discussing these questions. Design/methodology/approach The paper draws on a variety of literature – mainly within management and media/communication studies – that is interested in the construction of different assessment tools such as prizes and rankings. Findings The paper addresses three particular characteristics of media prizes relevant for the understanding of how media evaluate organizations: the forming and spreading of stereotypical representative or behavior within a specific category or field; the simplification of status through the creation of “winners”; and the popularization of public measures for success in business life. Research limitations/implications This is a conceptual paper and as such it needs more systematic empirical testing to validate the findings. Practical implications The paper suggests three different roles media prizes have in evaluating organizations’ performance and their social status. The findings suggest that the qualities/aspects emphasized by the prizes are framed in such a way that they follow the rational or logic of media, and that they as such bear witness should be regarded with certain critical scrutiny. Social implications The paper discusses an expanding area of journalistic practice – i.e. production and proliferation of media prizes. These prizes have a significant effect on how the authors conceptualize and understand different aspects of the life – in the case business practices such as entrepreneurship. The authors suggest here how media prizes can come to shape the perceptions of reality through processes of simplification, stereotypification and popularization. Originality/value Up to now there are few studies focusing on media as a producer of assessments central for building normative and cognitive bases on which organizations are evaluated. The conceptual arguments in this paper highlight a number of areas that can serve as a starting point for future inquiry.