A New Form of Precarity (of Practice)? Professional Deskilling at the Centre of the Hijacking of Quality in Journalism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17231/comsoc.44(2023).4622Keywords:
journalism, profession, deskilling, quality of journalismAbstract
This article seeks to fill in one of the main identifiable gaps in the debate on professional deskilling in journalism. This gap consists of the difficulty in isolating this concept from other multiple meanings that is critical when interpreting the challenges imposed on journalism, which are multiple and range from the erosion of professional domination to crises of values, including the instability of business models with a marked impact on the reconfiguration of the division of journalistic labour.
To that end, the literature on professional deskilling was used as a resource and systematically analysed to produce a structured and maximalist definition of this concept in journalism. A definition that essentially results from the arrangement of multiple meanings within two main aspects: the destandardisation of journalistic work and the immediacy of journalistic production. It is concluded that a deskilling of the journalist profession constitutes a new type of precarity of practice, able to capture journalistic quality and which goes beyond the traditional and well-documented precarity of employment and labour.
Finally, we suggest future avenues to continue monitoring the pace of professional transformation and how it will continue to affect journalistic skills and the quality of professional practice, in particular the phenomenon of digital automation in journalism, which has the capacity to dictate a return to the debate on professional deskilling in journalism.
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