“Scooped by the Town Drunk”: Unpacking the Effects of COVID-19 on Rural Journalism Work
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Keywords
Actor-network theory, social identity theory, rural journalism, identity, COVID-19
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2024.2344125
Abstract
Journalists serving rural communities are crucial sources of information across the U.S.; they also face challenges and opportunities unlike those of their peers at large urban outlets. In this study, we take the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to examine how these journalists define their group identities. We focus on local news creators to ask: How has COVID-19 influenced the identities of small-town and rural journalists in the U.S.? Using an approach informed by actor-network theory and social identity theory, we analyze interviews conducted during the height of the pandemic with 35 rural and small-town journalists across the Midwest, Appalachia, and Gulf South regions to understand the effects of COVID-19 on journalistic identities. We find that the pandemic disrupted the newsgathering process, depunctualizing it in a way that highlighted the centrality of relationships to the rural journalist’s identity. First, by physically distancing journalists from their sources, COVID-19 highlighted the importance of in-person connections. Second, by increasing the amount of contentious news available to report on, COVID-19 highlighted the tension between preserving news values and protecting community relationships. Our findings highlight the far-reaching effects of one actant in a network and the ways journalists in crisis situations negotiate conflicting pressures.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Digital Journalism, in press
Scholar Commons Citation
Moon, Ruth; Perreault, Mildred F.; Walsh, Jessica; Perreault, Gregory; and Lincoln, Louisa, "“Scooped by the Town Drunk”: Unpacking the Effects of COVID-19 on Rural Journalism Work" (2024). School of Advertising & Mass Communications Faculty Publications. 90.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/com_facpub/90
