约束与赋能:作为结构的新闻条线--基于国际新闻生产的考察

Constraints and Empowerment:News Beats as Structures--Based on the Investigation of International News Production

本文以吉登斯的结构化理论为框架,通过在澎湃新闻国际部的田野考察以及对供职于30家媒体的70位国际新闻记者和编辑的深度访谈,考察条线分工在国际新闻生产中的作用。研究发现,条线是新闻生产中规则和资源的特定组合安排。媒体机构会从自身定位和团队规模出发,根据记者的专业背景和生活经历来划分条线,区域和主题交织成国际新闻条线的边界,奠定了记者日常实践的基本结构。根据日常实践中制度化程度的高低,条线可以分为强弱两类,强条线有着明确的空间、职责和权力归属,条线之间界限分明;弱条线的划分则相对松散,记者会根据实际需要而灵活处理。条线一方面确定了新闻生产的行动规则,限制着记者的报道主题和工作常规,另一方面使记者得以长期关注细分领域的报道,为记者提供了积累职业技能和职业权威所需的各类资源,拓展了记者的行动能力和自主空间。通过约束与赋能两种机制的交互作用,条线构成了记者个体与媒体机构之间的中介地带,组织权力与个人意志共同协商报道条线的分配与变迁。

Based on Giddens’ structuration theory, this paper investigates the role of news beat in international news production through fieldwork in the international department of Thepaper.cn and in-depth interviews with 70 journalists and editors working in 30 media organizations. It is found that beat is a special arrangement of rules and resources in news production. Media organizations will assign the beat according to the professional background and life experience of journalists. Regions and themes make up the boundary of beats in international news production, laying the basic structure of journalists’ daily practice. Based on the degree of institutionalization in daily practice, news beats could be divided into strong and weak. Strong beats have clear boundaries of space, responsibility and power, while weak beats are relatively loose and flexible. On one hand, news beats determine the action rules of news production and restrict journalists’ reporting topics and work routines. On the other hand, news beats enable journalists to pay long-term attention to topics in special fields, provides them with various resources to accumulate their professional skills and authority, and expands journalists’ action ability and space. Through the interaction of constraints and empowerment,news beats constitute an intermediary zone between journalists and media organizations, while the organizational power and individual will negotiate the distribution of news beats continuously.