"Production Culture" Working Definition

Schein’s (2004) concept of culture:

- a pattern of shared basic assumptions
- that a group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration,
- that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and
- therefore is taught to new members of the group
- as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems. (Schein, 2004: 17).

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Cross-Media (Re)Production Cultures
Ivar John Erdal
Convergence 2009; 15; 215
DOI: 10.1177/1354856508105231

(Excerpt)

A stronger focus on organizational culture and news organizations as social institutions is found in the social constructivist studies of news culture. A number of news organization studies that flourished in the 1970s and early 1980s emphasized that the news is indeed made, not merely a more-or-less distorted reflection of reality. At the end of the 1970s, several studies of news production were published, among these Epstein (1973), Tuchman (1978), Schlesinger (1978), Golding and Elliott (1979) and Gans (1979). As Syvertsen (1999: 25) argues, these studies strived to show how, and in what way, the news is made, or produced, and that the news is not simply a mirror held up to the world. A tendency in media research from the mid 1990s has been a focus on just that: actual, institutional practices. 

Production processes have emerged as a major point of interest in news organization studies (Boczkowski, 2004; Cottle and Ashton, 1999; Helland, 1995;Hemmingway, 2004, 2008; Küng-Shankleman, 2000; Sand and Helland, 1998; Schultz, 2006; Ursell, 2001; Ytreberg, 1999).

Existing research on this topic can be identified along two main lines: 

• that of newsroom convergence, and 
• that of journalistic professionalization and organizational culture. 

In her study of the BBC and CNN, Küng-Shankleman (2000) looks at the organizations through

the theoretical and methodological ‘lens’ of culture (2000:3). More precisely, she uses Schein’s (2004) concept of culture:

• a pattern of shared basic assumptions
• that a group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration,
• that has worked well enough to be considered valid, and
• therefore is taught to new members of the group
• as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems.
  (Schein, 2004: 17).

Culture within an organization does not, however, need to be a homogenous corporate culture (Schein, 2004), but can also consist of several distinct cultures (Singer, 2004: 14). 

Küng-Shankleman calls this phenomenon cultural pluralities, as the members of an organization can
belong to several different institutions: 

• professional cultures (groups of practitioners who share a common base of knowledge, a common jargon and similar background and training), 
• industry cultures (value orientations common to those working in a certain industry) and
• inter-organizational subcultures (based around cultural groupings such as hierarchical level, function departments, gender and ethnic subgroups) (Küng-Shankleman, 2000:13).
  

Cultural factors may encourage or hinder convergence (Quinn, 2005: 36).

Previous studies have shown that cooperation between traditionally separate media operations often results in conflict, misunderstandings and resistance to change (Cottle and Ashton, 1999: 29), ranging from ‘reluctant collaboration’ (Deuze, 2004: 141) to outright ‘cultural clashes’ (Dailey et al., 2005: 13).

Singer (2004: 10) argues that the idea of convergence journalism comes into conflict with traditional newsroom values in two major areas:

• medium-specific culture and
• professional competition.

This relates to the difference between corporate culture (Schein, 2004) and professional culture (Ulijn et al., 2000). While the former describes how the culture of an organization is perceived by its members, and how the organization’s values, language and rituals influence their behaviour, professional culture describes the way in which professionals (doctors, professors, journalists) identify with their profession more than with their organization (Sylvie and Moon, 2007: 92). Thus, a cultural approach to crossmedia news journalism must take into account the tension between the corporate culture of the news organization and the professional culture of news journalists and editors.