Affiliations: Department of Business Administration, School of
Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, P.O. Box 610, SE 405 30
Göteborg, Sweden. E-mail: marita.fagerling@handels.gu.se | Media Management and Transformation Centre,
Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping
University, P.O. Box 1026, SE 551 11 Jönköping, Sweden. Tel.: +46 36
157559; Fax: +46 36 161069; E-mail: maria.norback@ihh.hj.se
Note: [] Corresponding author
Abstract: Since the birth of the modern newspaper there has been an inherent
balancing act between the journalistic aim and the commercial imperative. In
the newsrooms of today the boundary between journalistic values and commercial
necessity is as debated as ever. At a daily newspaper in Sweden, the task of
publishing a web edition gave rise to a new way of organizing; something that
highlighted the ongoing construction of social identities and the boundaries
between journalistic and commercial activities. The empirically observed shift
of balance in the web group towards a more market-, as opposed to
content-oriented understanding of the newspaper business, had consequences for
all newsroom actors. When boundaries were transformed and transgressed, the
ongoing reflexive project of the collective and individual identities became
increasingly intensified. This illustrates the dynamics of identity
construction, a process in which issues related to deeply rooted values and
power, together with the need for cognitive order seem to be driving forces.
This is a narrative of how journalists and sales people make sense
of these processes, where the everyday practice of "scrutinizing and cuddling"
(as opposed to scrutinizing or cuddling) is an expression of their
intermingling activities in a new hybrid working field.
Keywords: Social identity, boundaries, dynamic identity processes, hybrid working field, newspaper
