Meaning-ful Encounters: Relational Encoding in Pioneer Journalism and the Reimagining of Journalistic Epistemology

Abstract

This dissertation critically examines the epistemic praxes of four “pioneer journalism” communities (Hepp & Loosen, 2021) and sheds light on how they reimagine journalistic epistemology through their knowledge production (encoding). Pioneer journalism communities are loose networks, local-global collectives whose raison d’etre is to transform journalism, its epistemology and its relationship with communities and audiences. Examining pioneer journalism epistemic praxis, therefore, is important as it can sensitize us to shifts in journalistic epistemology and its possible futures. Grounded in Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory (1973, 1980) and the monist, relational ontology of new materialism, this doctoral study explores the process, discourse and material products of encoding in four pioneer journalism startups operating in different journalistic cultures – The Current (Pakistan), New Naratif (Malaysia), DoR (Romania), and Bureau Local (UK). Through a multiple case study design and methodological triangulation (braiding metajournalistic discourse analysis, interviews with pioneer journalism actors, and multimodal discourse analysis of story artefacts), this comparative multi-method study builds on Hall’s encoding/decoding model by conceptualising the pioneer journalism knowledge production process as 'relational encoding'. Through a cross-case synthesis, it contributes to theory-building by proposing a three-dimensional conceptual framework of 'meaning-ful encounters', an enactive, relational framework that could be extrapolated both theoretically and methodologically to examine journalistic knowledge production in various contexts and illuminate journalistic epistemology more broadly, by connecting the moments of encoding and decoding through the critical analysis of story interfaces and their encoded agentic capacities vis-à-vis audiences and wider world. This doctoral study also has strong normative potential as it offers seven epistemic recommendations for a meaningful and relational industry practice, thus feeding into both academic and practice debates on journalism’s changing epistemologies (Callison & Young, 2019). Beyond that, through its cross-border focus, the study contributes to ongoing efforts to develop transnational, global-comparative understandings of journalism (Berglez, 2008; Ward, 2008, 2018).