ABSTRACT
Digital journalism scholarship has been, and still is, often normatively framed within a discourse of crises or a discourse of technological optimism. This normativity is often hidden or taken-for-granted, in statements like “journalism is in crises” or “technology has much to offer journalism”, which build on assumptions of external influences or opportunities affecting journalism and oftentimes fail to recognise the agency of journalism and its practitioners. This chapter argues that such assumptions should be avoided, and that scholars should develop a greater sensitivity towards, and transparency about, normativity. Moreover, a pro-innovation bias dominates the field, promoted by the discourse of change and innovation so salient in both the journalism sector and scholarship. This bias can make research blind to the things that do not change, while at the same time overestimating the things that do change. However, the chapter does not argue that all normativity should be avoided. It argues that it is about time scholars dare to approach questions related to digital journalism’s societal role in more normative fashions, related, for instance, to how digital journalism can contribute to counter disinformation, political polarisation and other processes of de-democratisation, and how digital journalism can contribute to solve problems like climate change and pandemics.
