Earlier research has higlighted instances of ‘paradigm repair’, moments when journalists deploy discursive strategies to defend the paradigmatic status quo from a perceived internal threat. These threats have included different acts, such as journalists engaging in plagiarism.

A new essay by Tim P. Vos and Joseph Moore, of the University of Missouri, seeks to historicize paradigm repair, showing that it might be but one moment in the longer history of paradigm work. If paradigm repair hasn’t always been done, when did it start? the paper asks.

The authors argue that there have been five periods of activities of paradigm building: paradigm experimentation, inception, formalization, normalization, and reconsideration. Paradigm repair is a phenomenon of paradigm normalization, Vos and Moore state. It is situated in a relatively brief period of high modernism.

The essay concludes with suggestions for future research on the topic of journalistic paradigms.

The article “Building the journalistic paradigm” was published in Journalism and is available on the publisher’s website (free abstract).

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