Insularized Connectedness: Mobile Chat Applications and News Production

• DOI: 10.17645/mac.v7i1.1802
• Publication Date: 2019-02-20T02:00:51Z
• Authors: Colin Agur
• Keywords: Social Connectedness; Mobile media; Unrest

Focusing on recent political unrest in Hong Kong, this article examines how mobile chat applications (e.g., WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, Facebook Messenger and others) have permeated journalism. In apps served as tools for foreign correspondents to follow stories, identify sources, verify facts; they also helped reporting teams manage large flows of multimedia information real-time. To understand the institutional, technological, cultural factors at play, draws 34 interviews author conducted with journalists who use their reporting. Building concept media logic, explores technology-involved social interactions impact work, while acknowledging agency users audiences within a context. It argues that become hosts logic connectedness insularity has led new forms co-production