Journalists adopt the practices of youtubers and TikTok creators (mostly) - PhD Conference presentation
I presented some of my research at the AANZCA 2025 conference. This conference brings together media and communication scholars from Australia & New Zealand, and sometimes from further afield.
Opening slide
My presentation was based on one of my PhD chapters where I interviewed journalists from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) about their platform journalism publications.
The main findings from these interviews are:
Platform journalism at the ABC is exploratory and experimental
Norms and practices (mostly aesthetic) of youtubers and TikTok creators are consciously adopted so that their journalism matches audience expectations on specific platforms
Creator practices and traditional newsroom practices are used together. ABC journalists maintain their story meetings and check with the legal department. This kind of organisational journalism knowledge and support is noticeably absent from independent youtubers who are moving into the platform journalism space.
The three ABC teams involved in my research produce content that is highly successful and outperforms much of what the non-platform journalism the ABC does, especially on digital platforms.
I seem to walk around a lot when presenting.
I got some great questions, comments and feedback after my talk. And what was great about this session was just how each of the presentations complemented each other. Edward Hurcombe was in the session presenting on his new research that analyses the TikTok videos of journalists from around the English-speaking world. And Lydia Cheng presented on her audience-focused project that compares perceptions of lifestyle journalists vs lifestyle influencers. A common thread running through our session is how “traditional” journalists are trying to evolve their publications for digital platforms.
Attending the conference was also great because I got to listen to a lot of talks from leading scholars about their latest research. And I was able to meet and chat with great people in the breaks, as well as at the social events. As a more senior colleague put it, “conferences are 75% about the conversations in the breaks between presentation sessions”.
Social networking at AANZCA