Expanding the concept of journalistic ecosystem

Abstract

The use of the term “ecosystem” to describe communication environments has been recent in journalism literature and has become more sophisticated with digitalization and online communication technologies in recent decades, but it still has shortcomings. The objective of this article is to expand the definition of the journalistic ecosystem, implementing three investigative steps: the presence of the term in scientific articles available on the Web of Science platform; an analysis of 38 reports with empirical diagnoses of contemporary transformations in journalism produced by three internationally recognized journalism research institutes: the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (University of Oxford), the Tow Center for Digital Journalism (Columbia University), and the Pew Research Center over a 20-year period (2004 to 2023); and a search of reference bibliographies linking works from an ecological perspective and journalism studies to understand these environments. The study identified weaknesses in the notions of the journalistic ecosystem applied in the reports and offered a set of six characteristics for its delimitation: interactions and interdependencies; spatiality and territoriality; permeability of ecosystems to digital technologies; dynamics and power relations; fragmentation, resistance, dissent and insurgencies; and continuous mutation, hybridity, and fluidity.