Journalism's fortune tellers: Constructing the future of news. (February 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lowrey, Wilson; Shan, Zhou
• Is Part Of: Journalism. Volume 19:Number 2(2018)
• Page Start: 129
• Page End: 145
• Publication Date: 2018-02
• Subjects: Future of journalism -- journalism profession -- legitimacy -- social construction of news -- sociology of news; Journalism -- Periodicals; Journalism -- Social aspects -- Periodicals; 070.405
• DOI: 10.1177/1464884916670931
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1464-8849

Abstract

How do future-of-news experts construct accounts of the future of journalism and on what do they base these accounts? What do their methods imply about manifest and latent reasons for constructing these accounts in the first place? This exploratory study adapts a model from the sociology of work, which provides a typology of strategies that guide decision-making in 'future work' – that is, work that involves collective and systematic efforts to predict and legitimize predictive claims. We first examine economic literature on uncertainty and risk, which explains the extreme difficulty of making predictions in an environment of high uncertainty. We then situate journalism 'future work' within the literature on the social construction of the future, and using Fine's model, outline strategies pursued in this construction. We conduct an exploratory qualitative content analysis of published predictions written by 'future of news' experts, examining the strategies they use to legitimize their predictive claims. Findings show mixed support for Fine's model and some support for rival strategies for supporting claims about the future, for example, a path-dependence strategy of extending the known present into the future.