News Ecosystems

This chapter discusses the notion of “getting outside” the newsroom in the digital age, inspired by Zelizer’s argument that much of what matters about journalism today does not take place in the newsroom itself (Zelizer 2004). It begins with a brief overview of the different ways that scholars have understood this process of getting inside and outside newsrooms. The second part of the chapter argues that we must also consider an additional road forward—the ecosystemic approach to journalism research. It begins with a general overview of the increasing prevalence of the phrase “news ecosystem” in the digital era. It then discusses two uses of the term “ecosystem” in the media studies literature, before outlining several examples of research on emerging news ecosystems, each which draws upon a different, if unacknowledged, theoretical tradition.