Blogger outrage over plagiarism and identity concealment in the real world brings up an interesting paradox related to authorship, and that is the simultaneous emphasis on a commitment to authorial authenticity seems untroubled by an equally prevalent dependence on intertextual links, citations, and embedded media. Though bloggers are generally very concerned about giving credit where credit is due (the “Bloggers’ Code of Ethics” cited above lists “Never plagiarize” as its very first precept), for many bloggers—especially those who have an interest in commenting on current events—the ability to cut and paste bits of text, images, and video means that one incorporates an unprecedented amount of material by other authors into one’s own writing. Most blogs are at least partially collage texts, bound together by a blogger’s name, but heavily dependent on citations and excerpts that are effectively intertextual.
Breanne Garland on 15 Sep 09A paradox of sociology at the turn of the 21st century was that the discipline had largely abandoned the empirical study of journalistic organizations and news institutions at the moment when the media had gained visibility in political, economic, and cultural spheres; when other academic fields had embraced the study of media and society; and when leading sociological theorists had broken from the disciplinary canon to argue that the media are key actors in modern life. The author examines the point of journalistic production in one major news organization in the late 1990's and shows how reporters and editors managed constraints of time, space, and market pressure under regimes of convergence news making. The study considers the implications of these conditions for the particular forms of intellectual and cultural labor that journalists produce, drawing connections between the political economy of the journalistic field, the organizational structure of multimedia firms, new communications technologies, and the qualities of content created by media workers.
