Disruptions in Normalization: Reflexive Monitoring in Journalism Adaptation and Audience Collaboration

In the adaptation of innovations, journalists often reflect on areas of concern that can lead to subsequent selection, a strategic process of diminishing the practice of a routine. Through the lens of normalization process theory and structuration theory, this article explores how journalists reflexively monitor innovations. The article also elaborates on the ways journalists evaluate disruptive circumstances that can lead them to select routines for denormalization. Using 44 interviews with journalists from the United States, this study argues that reflexive monitoring occurs through collaborations with audiences: a key to helping re-center journalists on the viability of a routine with existing commitments.