This book’s first strength is its structure, which allows for easy incorporation into any journalism course. After Chapter 1’s The Introduction, which gives an overview of the journalism field, authors Steen Steensen and Oscar Westlund divide chapters into logical categories with parallel titles and structure: The Definitions, The Technologies, The Platforms, The Theories, The Assumptions, The Methodologies, The Futures.
Chapter 2 simplifies complicated terminology by acknowledging context- and audience-based subcategories that shape terms’ meanings: society (users/the public), sector (journalists), and scholarship (academics) (19). A few chapter subsections, such as 2.2.1, are too philosophically complex for an undergraduate survey course, but because the book is structured so clearly, instructors can easily skip those sections and still use the vast majority of the book.
The book’s second strength is its opening pages, where the authors describe Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress about what Facebook is: media company or technology company. The answer to that question lies at the crux of current debates about free speech, digital journalism, regulation, and government’s role in all of those fields (1-3). The government regulates media companies and their users more stringently than tech companies and their users, especially when it comes to freedom of expression. Social media platforms are currently treated like tech companies, such as Microsoft or Twitter. Zuckerberg and other platform owners are lobbying to keep that classification while journalists, scholars, and free speech advocates urge Congress to treat platforms like media. In the context of that debate, this book's authors introduce digital journalism and the questions that define it: “What is a media company? Who is responsible for what is published in a public sphere? What is the difference between those who produce, those who distribute, and those who consume media content, including journalism? And indeed who is a journalist and what is journalism in this complex media and information ecosystem of the 21st century?” (3)
As part of their introduction, the authors highlight four trends marking the shift from traditional to digital journalism:
the collapse of traditional revenue models, such as subscriptions
the increased dependence on user data to shape content, determine publication format, and drive revenue
the sharing of journalism content on platforms that don't generate original content or own the rights to the content they share (e.g., a user posting Minneapolis Star-Tribune articles on Facebook)
the increased vulnerability of journalism “to manipulation [and] disinformation," along with a "consequent lack of public trust” (5).
The authors also discuss a fifth trend linked directly to Zuckerberg’s testimony: disassociation of news from journalism (7). Social media has allowed anyone to break stories, report news, or share published news. Reporting is no longer dependent on trained journalists steeped in the field's ethics and produced by rising through the ranks at a recognized publication, whether hyperlocal community newspaper like St. Paul's Midway Monitor, which covers the Hamline, Frogtown, and University Avenue areas, or an international news giant like the New York Times.
The book’s third strength is its use of figures to illustrate data, such as the interdisciplinary nature of digital journalism (10) and Google scholar search results for “journalism” (82).
Another attribute unique to this textbook is its section on platforms. This section analyzes various platforms’ strengths and weaknesses according to visibility, accuracy, format, and other characteristics. It even touches briefly on differences between Apple and Android devices (40-42) and examines lesser-known platforms like WhatsApp, which I haven’t seen mentioned in other textbooks (46-47). This section's technical analysis goes beyond what’s necessary for an undergraduate survey course, such as explaining how SEO (search engine optimization) and SMO (social media optimization) can increase a report’s visibility, but those very brief sections are easy for an instructor to identify and skip (48-50).
Chapter 7’s discussion of research methodologies is ideal for graduate courses in journalism and other fields. It uses data analysis terminology undergraduate students in introductory courses won’t recognize, so it is the least useful portion of the book for my project’s purposes, but it’s an excellent overview of how to conduct research that could be suitable for upper-level undergraduate students deciding whether they want to further their studies or completing an honors project.
Chapter 8, the book’s final chapter, gives a succinct glimpse into the future of digital journalism based on current trends. Its best feature is a series of recommendations that hold true across time but are particularly relevant for the digital age. Most significant among them are
#1: “slowing down and improving overall research activity” (110)
#2: lessening dependence on data, especially through the use of automation and algorithms, and returning to more traditional information-gathering methods, such as interviews and observations (111-112)
#4: increasing diversity throughout the field (114).
Because this book’s strengths far outweigh its deficits, I highly recommend it as background reading for faculty in almost any field and for use as a textbook in most undergraduate journalism courses. Currently, I teach an introduction to journalism course and will continue to use Inside Reporting by Tim Harrower because its format (a layout like a newspaper) and brief overview of each aspect of journalism are ideal for undergraduates brand new to the field. However, if I teach a subsequent course, I would definitely consider using Steen Steensen and Oscar Westlund's What Is Digital Journalism?