Journalism and the Circulation of Communicative Objects

Abstract

Digital infrastructures are increasingly altering the ways in which journalistic content acquires social value. Our key argument here is that processes of digital circulation are merging with the construction of social meaning in new kinds of news flows. Based on recent work in journalism studies, this paper outlines a theoretical perspective on circulation through the concept of “communicative object”. Through this concept we account for the dual technological and cultural constitution of circulation and the processes of meaning-making that it sustains. We argue that the duality of the communicative object as both a digital and an epistemic object allows for a productive conceptualization of journalistic communication as well as for a methodological innovation in journalism studies.