Journalists and Job Loss Routledge Research in Journalism Series

Journalists and Job Loss explores the profound disruption of journalism work in the 21st century?s networked digital media environment.

The chapters analyse how journalists have experienced and navigated job loss, re-employment, career change and career re-invention as traditional patterns of newsroom employment give way to occupational change, income insecurity and precarious work in journalism globally. The authors showcase the design, methodology and results of the New Beats project, a ground-breaking longitudinal study of change in the work of Australian journalists, as well as related case studies of job loss and career change in journalism based on research in different national settings across the global North and global South. The book also considers the wider implications of changes in journalism work for media sustainability, gender equity, and journalism work futures.

The book provides a theoretically informed and empirically grounded analysis of job loss and the new contours of journalistic work in a critical political, cultural, economic, and social industry. It will be an important resource for researchers and students in disciplines including journalism, media and communication studies, business, and the social sciences in general.

List of Contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction: Understanding Job Loss Among Journalists; 1. Understanding Job Loss Among Journalists; Part I. A New Field of Study: What Happens Next After Job Loss in Journalism; 2. Australian Journalists: Adapting to Redundancy Over Time; 3. Passion and Precarity: Producing Public Interest Journalism After Job Loss; 4. Newly Branded: The Experiences of Post-Redundancy Journalists Who Go on to Work in Public Relations; 5. Understanding Loss in Legacy Newsrooms; 6. Job Loss and Unionism in Australian Journalism; Part II. Towards World-Wide Understanding: Case Studies of the Aftermath of Job Loss in the Global North and South; 7. Living on the Edge: U.S. Newspaper Journalism Following the Great Exodus; 8. Finland: Shock and Relief; 9. The Netherlands: Making it Work; 10. Not ‘Just Another Job’: Journalism as Public Service; 11. Indonesian Women Journalists and Precarious Work; 12. Traumatic Transitions and Loss: How Journalists in South Africa Experience Job Loss; 13. Plan B: The Abandonment of Journalism in Portugal; Part III. Beyond Newsrooms: Job Loss, Media Sustainability, and Work Futures; 14. Down, But Not Out: Journalism Jobs and Media Sustainability in the UK; 15. The Job is Only Part of the Story: Understanding Job Loss in Journalism Through Livelihood; 16. Freelance Journalists in Australia at a Time of Industry Contraction and COVID-19

Timothy Marjoribanks is Professor of Management at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Lawrie Zion is Professor of Journalism at La Trobe University, Australia

Penny O’Donnell is Senior Lecturer in International Media and Journalism at The University of Sydney, Australia

Merryn Sherwood is Senior Lecturer in Journalism at La Trobe University, Australia