JOURNALISTIC CRITICAL INCIDENTS AS BOUNDARY MAKING AND THE MAKING OF BOUNDARIES AROUND CRITICAL INCIDENTS

This chapter introduces this body of research on journalistic critical incidents with three goals in mind: establishing continuity by conceptualizing the main dimensions found in existing research; identifying the spaces for critical incident research; and addressing methodological issues for doing such research in the contemporary media environment. Taken together, these dimensions present core differences that permeate the research on journalistic critical incidents. The chapter begins by conceptualizing critical incidents broadly and connecting critical incidents to the concepts of metajournalistic discourse and boundary work. The dimension of incident origin pertains to what triggers the elevation of a particular moment into the realm of critical incidents, arrayed from event-based to reporting-based. The digital media environment also provides new sources of data that can help push the scholarship on journalistic critical incidents forward. In sum, the digital media environment complicates the study of journalistic critical incidents.