Histories of Digital Journalism

Building on the momentum of the recent “historical turn” in digital media and Internet studies, this volume explores how digital journalism has developed from a historical perspective. With contributions from established and emerging scholars from Europe, Asia, South and North America, the book investigates not only how established journalistic systems transformed in the early days of digital but how the structural, technological, and cultural changes induced by digitization have reconfigured the trajectory of journalism.

The book argues in support of three main claims. The first is that emphasis should be given to the plurality of histories instead of one single digital journalism history, thereby acknowledging the complexities, interactions of social relations, cultural traditions, power configurations, and technological changes that have shaped journalism and digitization. The second is the decentralization and decolonization of digital journalism histories. The third refers to the need to highlight and demonstrate the idea that the evolution of digital journalism should be viewed as the co-construction of the social and technological realms.

With theoretical and methodological reflections on historicizing digital journalism along with original case studies or comparative inquiries into the phenomena over the decades-long digital revolution of journalism, this volume will shape the nascent field of digital journalism history and start a global critical exchange of various approaches to and aspects of historicizing digital journalism. As such, it will interest scholars and students of digital journalism, journalism history, digital media, Internet studies, and technology studies.

Tamas Tofalvy is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Communication at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, where he is the head of the Digital Media MA Programme and the project leader of the Hungarian Online and Digital Media History (MODEM) project. Between 2013 and 2017, he was Secretary General at the Association of Hungarian Content Providers (MTE) and, between 2010 and 2014, co-founding chair of IASPM Hungary. In the period 2012–2013, he was a Fulbright fellow at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His works have been published in academic journals such as New Media & Society, First Monday, Media History, and Internet Histories.

Igor Vobič is professor at the Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Deputy Head at the Social Communication Research Centre at the same institution. His research interests encompass the material and discursive aspects of technological innovations in journalism with a focus on transformations of news-making, the societal roles of journalism, and journalistic identity and ideology. In the last decade, he has published in international journals with a good reputation in communication, media, and journalism research. His works have been published in academic journals such as Javnost–The Public, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Digital Journalism, and Journalism Practice.