JOURNALISM IN THE SHADOW OF INVISIBLE NETWORKS: SOCIOTECHNICAL SYSTEMS AND STRUCTURAL CO-OPTATION
Öz
This study aims to explore the theoretical and analytical potential of an infrastructure-oriented approach to journalism within the context of sociotechnical systems and to propose a framework for understanding the continuously evolving media environment. The study adopts an interdisciplinary qualitative conceptual research design that brings together the literatures on infrastructure studies, journalism studies, platform studies, and the political economy of media, analyzing these bodies of literature relationally across the micro, meso, and macro levels. Traditionally grounded in physical and institutional structures, the journalism ecosystem has, with digitalization, evolved into a complex infrastructural network shaped by platforms, data flows, and algorithmic processes. In this study, infrastructure is conceptualized as a dynamic and relational formation constituted through the interaction of material, technical, and social elements. In this context, key characteristics of infrastructures—including their invisibility, evolution over time, multilayered structure, and capacity to reflect power relations among different actors and factors—are examined. Applied to journalism studies, this approach enables analysis at the micro level of technologies, the meso level of organizational structures, and the macro level of platforms and global systems. The study further examines the increasing influence of digital platforms on journalism and the dependencies generated through this process of “infrastructuralization.” Within this framework, new areas of debate emerge concerning journalism’s public role, epistemic authority, and sustainability.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Digital Journalism, Infastructure Works, Technology, Platfroms
Kaynakça
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