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Social News

How Born-Digital Outlets Transformed Journalism

  • Book
  • © 2022

Overview

Authors:
  1. Edward Hurcombe

    1. Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

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  • Explores an innovative genre of news emerging as a response to social media and internet culture
  • Explores the novel audience engagement strategies of social news outlets like BuzzFeed, UpWorthy, and Junkee
  • Provides original critical frameworks for understanding new kinds of born-digital journalism

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Edward Hurcombe
    Pages 1-19

  3. Lineages

    • Edward Hurcombe
    Pages 21-40

  4. Engagement

    • Edward Hurcombe
    Pages 41-73

  5. Sociability

    • Edward Hurcombe
    Pages 75-102

  6. Personalisation

    • Edward Hurcombe
    Pages 103-131

  7. Futures

    • Edward Hurcombe
    Pages 133-155

  8. Conclusion

    • Edward Hurcombe
    Pages 157-164

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 165-167
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Keywords

About this book

This book is the first to define and describe ‘social news’, a new kind of journalism emerging in response to social media. Drawing on the author’s extensive research into news and social media platforms, Social News critically examines the rise of well-known outlets such as BuzzFeed and Mic in the US, and Junkee and Pedestrian in Australia. Hurcombe argues that these outlets became successful by strategically engaging with social media, producing sociable content personalised for millennials. Such outlets have been criticised for violating the rules of ‘quality’ journalism. However, this book shows how social news has provided a platform for marginalised voices and has been able to engage readers neglected by legacy news. While social media is frequently seen as a threat to the news industry, Social News shows that digital platforms have been driving new forms of journalism: ones thatchallenge our understanding of what journalism is, can be, and should be.

Reviews

"Dr. Edward Hurcombe documents the rise (and to some extent, fall) of a journalism genre native to social, digital platforms and, in doing so, shines a bright spotlight on what he calls "social news logics" that reflect the millennial way of storytelling. He successfully moves these "sociable, "millennial news" sites such as Buzzfeed, Mic, Junkee and other platforms from the dismissive "silly" categorizations into the realm of scholarly significance through the examination of "engagement," "sociability," and "personalized" logics in the memes, emojis, videos, listicles, hashtags and other vernacular of these digital sites. Expertly woven, this narrative reveals the socio-cultural, technological, political and economic forces culminating in these news forms directly in contradiction to traditional journalism. The resulting book reads as an evidence-based, historically situated, evolutionary story whose radical challenge to "objective" public information exchange is one we all need to be paying attention to. Truly a wonderful contribution! Read this if you want to stay at the cutting edge of how journalism, its roles, and its values are being challenged, and, as such, the boundaries of what IS journalism, expanding and changing."

— Sue Robinson, Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Authors and Affiliations

  • Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia

    Edward Hurcombe

About the author

Edward Hurcombe is a Research Associate in the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Edward researches how news and journalistic practice are transforming in relation to the technologies, economies, and user cultures of social media platforms. His research has been published in leading journals such as Journalism, Digital Journalism, and New Media & Society. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Social News

  • Book Subtitle: How Born-Digital Outlets Transformed Journalism

  • Authors: Edward Hurcombe

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91712-8

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-91711-1Published: 26 February 2022

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-91714-2Published: 27 February 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-91712-8Published: 25 February 2022

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XI, 167

  • Topics: Journalism, Social Media

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