The relational UX: Constructing repertoires of audience agency in pioneer journalism practice

Abstract

This article examines how “pioneer journalists” (Hepp & Loosen, 2021) in legacy newsrooms create preferred audience experiences through their UX practices in a networked media ecosystem where journalism’s epistemic authority is increasingly contested. Grounded in the encoding/decoding paradigm (Hall, 1973, 1980), this study combines semi-structured interviews with 12 journalism pioneers in London-based legacy newsrooms, with the in-depth analysis of the multimodal/interactivity features of two example stories. The findings suggest that audiences are interpellated through the the construction of repertoires of agency, grounded in empathy, for a closer, more immediate, and active involvement in the story. By creating ‘relational UXs’ that try to control the travel of meanings and the production of emotions, pioneers in legacy news organisations place a stronger emphasis on the relational negotiation of epistemic authority, a strategy to simultaneously embrace active audiences and sustain journalism’s traditional raison d’etre – making sense of the world for the public.