7 April 2026 - ECHO Seminar
Adaptation in news
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Abstract: Adaptation is an essential human skill. We cannot often predict how we will need to adapt, but we can say with certainty that we will need to. Yet we know organizations struggle to navigate change. Journalism is a field often begrudgingly on the cutting edge of change, engaging in processes that reshape work life and workplaces. Nowhere is this more evident than in the AI turn in news, which has seen journalism considering the potential applications for generative AI in professional work.
Adaptation, as conceived in evolutionary biology, involves two processes: adoption—in which we take on promising new processes—and selection—in which we remove processes that have failed to serve us as they should. News is often accused of being slow in adaptation, but it is also true that the news industry is characterized by a strong commitment to a public service normative mission. Has journalism been slow to adapt, or has it been intentional in its adaptation? Given that inevitability of change, this presentation will consider a range of changes thrust upon and engaged by the news industry in order to consider the labor expectations engaged to make news adaptable.
Bio: Gregory P. Perreault is a scholar of adaptation in journalism. His work focuses on journalistic epistemology, hostility in journalism and managing labor expectations. He currently serves as associate editor for Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. He served as Fulbright-Botstiber Professor of Austrian-American Studies at the University of Vienna Journalism Studies Center (2020-2021), is communications officer for the European Communication Research and Education Association’s (ECREA) Journalism Studies section and is past chair for the standing committee on research for the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). His work appears in New Media & Society, Digital Journalism, Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice and Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. His book Digital Journalism and the Facilitation of Hate (Routledge) was published in 2023.
Perreault is associate professor of media literacy & analytics at the Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications and associate director of the Center for Sustainable Democracy at the University of South Florida in Tampa Bay, USA.
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