Conceptualizing embeddedness as a key dimension for analyzing journalistic cultures

The study of journalistic cultures has a long history in communication research. Yet, much scholarship has been criticized for emanating too much from normative and—particularly in the case of comparative work—ethnocentric assumptions. While much progress has been made, the field arguably still suffers from these imbalances, restricting a more holistic understanding of journalistic cultures. This article aims to address this gap by proposing a repurposed concept for the study of journalistic cultures that focuses on the extent to which journalists are embedded in communities’ experiences, values, histories, places, and languages. Following an overview and explication of how embeddedness has been used in journalism scholarship, but also in other disciplines, we argue that the term provides an opportunity to better contextualize journalistic cultures, contributing to a less normatively dismissive and more explanatory approach to analyzing journalism and comparing journalistic cultures.