I was honoured to visit OsloMet University in Norway as a Digital Journalism Research Fellow in October 2019.
I was a guest of the Digital Journalism Research Group, a talented gathering of scholars headed by Oscar Westlund. The research initiative on digital journalism in Norway invites national and international researchers and experts from the business sector to share their insights.
As well as contributing to a day-long workshop on works in progress by the group, I was also invited to give a keynote at a OsloMet Digital Journalism Focus Seminar.
The talk, Journalism Inside Out, was a personal memoir through journalistic power, authority and identity, drawing on my professional experience at the BBC and my scholarly work on participatory journalism, social media and journalism innovation.
Constant threads through my professional and scholarly work are questions of power, authority and identity in journalism. My perspective is located in my personal narrative. Having been born and brought up in the British territory of Gibraltar, my family roots are Mediterranean, yet I consider myself British.
As a journalist, I was drawn to departments and projects at the periphery of BBC News where there was greater latitude to pursue novel approaches.
As a scholar, my research trajectory has traced the allure of participatory practices and social media to facilitate a more inclusive and open journalism. The talk delves into the institutional power and authority of journalism as a profession through the personal, professional and scholarly lens of 30 years in journalism.