Sašo Slaček Brlek

Engineering Technologies for Journalism In the Digital Age

Although technological innovations in journalism have recently received growing scholarly attention, studies have hardly questioned or explored the naturalised dominance of technology over newswork. By drawing on critical scholarship, the study aims to explore how articulations between technology and journalism are negotiated by actors engineering technological innovations for and implementing them as part of newswork. Adopting the qualitative methods of interviews and document analysis, the study explores the XLike project (Seventh Framework Programme) co-ordinated by the Jožef Stefan Institute, a Slovenian public research institution for natural sciences and, among others, partnered with the New York Times, Bloomberg Media and the Slovenian Press Agency. One of its main results is a technology that is able to extract formal knowledge from texts in different languages scattered online in a structured way. While the study indicates journalists and editors are seen as conservative and hesitant to adopt what is understood as progressive technology, the project chiefly focuses on journalism as a business by pursuing a better understanding of audience behaviour, tracking online traffic and customised advertising. Additionally, newsrooms played at best a marginal role in defining the project’s goals and implementing the technology, and that these were driven foremost by business concerns.

35 Let pozneje: macbridovo poročilo v zgodovinskem in intelektualnem kontekstu

Namen prispevka je umestitev poročila Mednarodne komisije za proučevanje komunikacijskih problemov Mnogo glasov, en svet (bolj znano kot MacBridovo poročilo), v zgodovinski, družbeni, političnoekonomski in intelektualni kontekst njegovega nastanka. Poročilo velja za eno najpomembnejših intervencij na področju mednarodnega komuniciranja, ki si je za cilj zastavilo zmanjševanje neenakosti v dostopu do komunikacijskih sredstev tako med državami kot znotraj držav. Prispevek izhaja iz predpostavke, da sta kritična misel in poizkus njenega prenosa v praktične rešitve neizogibno pogojena s širšim družbenim kontekstom. To se kaže tako v primeru MacBridovega poročila kot tudi v razvoju politične ekonomije komuniciranja, ki je tvorila temelje za pobudo za novo svetovno informacijsko in komunikacijsko ureditev, katere najpomembnejši dokument je prav MacBridovo poročilo. The aim of this article is to situate the report of the International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems Many Voices, One World (more commonly known as the MacBride report) within its historic, social, political-economic and intellectual context. The report is regarded as one of the seminal interventions in the field of international communication, and aimed to reduce inequalities in the access to means of communication between countries as well as within them. The article argues that critical thought and its practical application are necessarily conditioned by the wider social context. This is evident in the case of the MacBride report as well as in the development of political economy of communication, which formed the basis of the call for a New World Information and Communication Order and of its most important document, the MacBride report.

Novinarstvo kot delo v kapitalizmu: transformacije novinarstva skozi transformacije proizvodnih režimov

Članek izhaja iz študij sprememb novinarstva kot dela, ki jih spremljajo razprave o njegovi sodobni politični, ekonomski in socialni krizi, in jih s pomočjo teorije delovnega proce-sa postavlja v zgodovinsko perspektivo. Koncept proizvodnega režima, kot ga je postavil kritični sociolog Michael Burawoy, in njegova aktualizacija predstavljata temelja teorets-ko-zgodovinske analize razvoja novinarstva v kapitalističnih družbah – od vzpostavitve hegemonskega režima po drugi svetovni vojni do prehoda v hegemonski despotizem z uveljavitvijo neoliberalizma. Članek ne proučuje le vprašanja, kako se spremembe v proiz-vodnem režimu odražajo v novinarskem delovnem procesu, temveč razgrinja implikacije teh ideoloških in političnih procesov za novinarje kot delavce, njihov socialni status in politično veljavo, ter novinarstvo kot družbeno institucijo, ki naj bi državljane povezovala s političnim življenjem in jim omogočala dejavno vključitev vanj.