Roles and Dynamics of Communities of Practice in a Changing Media Sector: The Case of Brussels-Based Journalists

Plazy, Sylvain
(2016) ECREA 6th European Communication Conference: Mediated (Dis)Continuities: Contesting Pasts, Presents and Futures — Location: Prague, République Tchèque (9.November.2016)

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  • Plazy, SylvainUSL-B
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Abstract
“Communities of practice are everywhere. They are a familiar experience, so familiar perhaps that it often escapes our attention. Yet when it is given a name and brought into focus, it becomes a perspective that can help us understand our world better” (Wenger, 2006). The media landscape is experiencing an on-going evolution, and journalists, in Brussels like in other places, are facing increasing challenges: insecurity, difficult access to the job market, new trans- and multi-media productions (Standaert, 2015), for which they have to find solutions. They need places where to talk to each other, to share about their experiences, to learn new practices and to create useful networks. In these places, what was identified by the literature as communities of practice can emerge and provide an essential response to these challenges. Journalists and other media workers are gathering together, blurring the lines between the different job qualifications (journalists, cameramen, web developers, web designers etc.), in search for new projects, new ideas, and more innovation. This study, which is part of a broader research funded by the Brussels Region on Brussels based media workers and media companies, looks at communities of practice in order to understand this new socio-economic context faced by journalists, and shows how these communities help them to adapt and to cope with these new challenges. Using insights from the literature on media clusters, media workers and communities of practice, the first part of this paper elaborates further on the conceptual framework proposed by Komorowski, Wiard & Plazy (2015) to provide a comprehensive approach on the different dimensions inherent to communities of practice for journalists. Thus the seven conceptual parameters (called the 7P’s) of communities of practice addressed in this study are: Place (locations of communities of practice), Proximity (links between members of these communities), Pertinence (different domains of the communities), Profile (members’ roles), Path-dependency (historical and institutional factors explaining why communities of practice are what they are today), Policies (policy incentives or obstacles towards creating or taking part in communities of practice), and finally Performance (achievements of such communities, workers’ gains from joining them). We argue that this conceptual framework is useful to grasp the changes faced by journalists and helps to understand the evolutions of the identity of journalists, of their practices, of their profession. The second part of this paper presents the results of an ongoing empirical research based on semi-structured interviews and on an online questionnaire addressed to Brussels-based journalists and media workers. This study aims at elucidating the roles and dynamics of communities of practice for journalists and provides insights into the questions stated in the first part of the paper. As a result we hope to demonstrate that communities of practice are a reflection of the evolution of the journalistic profession. In these communities, created by the needs and desires of journalists and media workers, the profession redefines itself both in sociological and economical terms in order to respond to the new challenges it faces.
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Plazy, S. (2016). Roles and Dynamics of Communities of Practice in a Changing Media Sector: The Case of Brussels-Based Journalists. ECREA 6th European Communication Conference: Mediated (Dis)Continuities: Contesting Pasts, Presents and Futures, Prague, République Tchèque. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/258929