ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the collective reference practice of China correspondents, who in effect form an ‘interpretative community,’ and how this community is going ambient thanks to the prevalence of digital technology (social media) and inter-media mutual validation of a shared discourse. It weighs on the practice of collective reference as the unavoidable product of positional pressure. Journalists in different positions negotiate their autonomy with external pressures, and either differentiate or de-differentiate themselves from peer journalists as their important reference group. This chapter argues that the routine practice of press review as collective reference is a professional necessity, largely defined by colocation and nationality. But ‘collective reference practice’ is not necessarily ‘pack journalism,’ this chapter argues, as the former is a journalistic professional necessity due to positional pressure in the journalistic field, whereas the latter, as in its widely employed critical connotation, is the negative yet unnecessary result of the former.
