Epilogue: Situating Journalism in the Digital: A plea for studying news flows, users, and materiality

This chapter discusses the rise of a decentralized informational ecology in which journalism is only one cultural form among many others. It considers increasingly less sense to study journalism as an isolated object. The chapter illustrates three research venues that might be helpful to situate journalism firmly in the digital but also to reconnect it to the social structures it simultaneously thrives on and produces. It suggests that focus on news use and the practices of those who engage with news and journalism offer novel perspectives on the role and function journalism does fulfill in society. The chapter argues that parallel to the 'turn to digital' in journalism, or even as a result of this, the medium and the material deserve more attention in journalism studies. It suggests to shift gaze to news as a cultural form and how this is renegotiated by users, journalists, and other institutional agents alike, instead of focusing research on journalism that produces journalism.