Online Newspapers and the Labyrinths of Access

1
Online Newspapers and the Labyrinths of Access

• Edgardo Garcia
• Communication and Media Research Institute
• University of Westminster
• ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PANEL

2
Introduction

• A study on online news production process at two
  Argentinean newspapers
• First section
• Historical and social conditions of Argentinean
  society and its institutions
• Personal features of this researcher
• Second section
• Several stage of access process/ Organizational
  structures, negotiation levels and problems with
  gatekeepers

3
Starting conditions

• Researchers instrument of inquiry,
  interpretative subject, immersed in their
  social world
• Authoritarianism, opacity, weak individual
  social rights
• Newspaper company closely related in ideological
  and economic terms with last dictatorship
• A researcher with an ambiguous background
• No other way than an open investigation,
  stating my methods and topics of study but not
  hypothesis
• Just one brief ethnographic study in newsrooms

4
Diplomacy of access I

• 1st step make yourself reliable
• (endorsements and make-up)
• 2nd step know the company structure
• (business units and newsrooms)
• 3rd step offer your gatekeeper all possible
  guarantees
• (confidentiality agreements)

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Diplomacy of access II

• Problems knocking on your door
• High rank gatekeeper send you to HR area
• Online newsroom in crisis
• Open new negotiations with second gatekeeper
• (hierarchical chains of command and hidden
  conflicts)
• Critic, expert or novice role

6
Conclusions

• Historical, social and personal features provide
  a framework to define access strategy and the
  premises for research report readers
• Gatekeepers authority not always coincide with
  organizational structures in commercial and
  editorial terms
• Field decisions open to negotiations and power
  relationships, where researchers are, always, the
  powerless
• Ethical considerations not universal but closely
  related to specific social and institutional
  conditions