Books by Josh Braun
This Program is Brought to You By… : Distributing Television News Online
Papers by Josh Braun
Digital Journalism, 2019
Following the viral spread of hoax political news in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential elec... more Following the viral spread of hoax political news in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election, it's been reported that at least some of the individuals publishing these stories made substantial sums of money—tens of thousands of US dollars—from their efforts. Whether or not such hoax stories are ultimately revealed to have had a persuasive impact on the electorate, they raise important normative questions about the underlying media infrastructures and industries—ad tech firms, programmatic advertising exchanges, etc.—that apparently created a lucrative incentive structure for "fake news" publishers. Legitimate ad-supported news organizations rely on the same infrastructure and industries for their livelihood. Thus, as traditional advertising subsidies for news have begun to collapse in the era of online advertising, it's important to understand how attempts to deal with for-profit hoaxes might simultaneously impact legitimate news organizations. Through 20 interviews with stakeholders in online advertising, this study looks at how the programmatic advertising industry understands “fake news,” how it conceptualizes and grapples with the use of its tools by hoax publishers to generate revenue, and how its approach to the issue may ultimately contribute to reshaping the financial underpinnings of the digital journalism industry that depends on the same economic infrastructure.
Mass Reach After Mass Media
Flow, 2018
“Freedom Edition”: Considering Sony Pictures and ‘The Interview’
Social Media and Distribution Studies
Social Media + Society, 2015
“Freedom Edition”: Considering Sony Pictures and The Interview
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2016
We tackle the meaning of the Sony Pictures hack in the context of digital distribution, cybersecu... more We tackle the meaning of the Sony Pictures hack in the context of digital distribution, cybersecurity, North Korea, and the changing media industries.
Book Review: Mark Deuze, Media Work. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007. xiii 1 278 pp. ISBN 9780745639253, $22.95 (pbk)
New Media & Society, 2008
Journalism Practice, 2011
In this paper, we will examine the inverse and converging movement of two sets of institutions: n... more In this paper, we will examine the inverse and converging movement of two sets of institutions: news organizations, as they find that part of their mission necessarily includes hosting an unruly user community that doesn’t always play by the norms of journalism; and online media platforms and social networks designed for users to share content, as they find that the content being shared is often much like news, some of which challenges their established user guidelines. We draw on in-depth interviews to understand how each industry is finding itself increasingly on the other’s turf and facing the challenges and tensions the other has long coped with, but from its own distinct vantage point. From this we will explore the ways in which the roles of news provision and community management are increasingly intermingled—in ways that will continue to have an impact on both news organizations and social media platforms, along with their audiences and users.
“Freedom Edition”: Considering Sony Pictures and ‘The Interview’ - See more at: http://culturedigitally.org/2015/02/freedom-edition-considering-sony-pictures-and-the-interview/#sthash.VLy5mXoq.dpuf
The panelists in this dialogue are among the best qualified I can imagine to discuss the recent s... more The panelists in this dialogue are among the best qualified I can imagine to discuss the recent security breach at Sony Pictures Entertainment and the ensuing cultural moment surrounding The Interview. Hugh Gusterson is an anthropologist who has spent several decades studying national security, including how the United States’ policymakers, security establishment, and media frame security issues involving “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea. Chuck Tryon is an accomplished media studies scholar whose recent book, On-Demand Culture, is one of the first major texts on digital distribution of Hollywood films. And Aynne Kokas is a media scholar with a background in Chinese and Korean Studies, who has written on international cybersecurity issues and whose dissertation recently won the ICA Global Studies Division’s top prize. I will leave much of the explication of the Sony Pictures case in the very capable hands of these individuals. In introducing the dialogue I thought it better to say a few words about the challenges of considering the topic and what they augur for future considerations of media and culture. - See more at: http://culturedigitally.org/2015/02/freedom-edition-considering-sony-pictures-and-the-interview/#sthash.VLy5mXoq.dpuf
In this essay, I use Law's framework of heterogeneous engineering in tandem with insights from ot... more In this essay, I use Law's framework of heterogeneous engineering in tandem with insights from other sociologists of systems and scholarship on organizations, as a springboard to examine a number of digital artifacts assembled by the MSNBC Digital Network over the period 2007 through 2010 and to explore the manner in which a wide variety of values, interests, and concerns became 'invested and contested' in their design. Specifically, this article, the result of 5 weeks of interviewing and field observation at MSNBC.com, MSNBC TV, and National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) News' various online offices, explores the backstories of two seemingly mundane interfaces used by NBC News' Web properties during that period, both of which are revealed to be particularly dynamic, heterogeneous, contingent, and consequential.
Transparent Intermediaries: Building the Infrastructures of Connected Viewing
Connected Viewing: Selling, Sharing, and Streaming Media in a Digital Age, 2014
This paper examines emerging tensions surrounding the way television content is distributed onlin... more This paper examines emerging tensions surrounding the way television content is distributed online, introduces several of the increasingly diverse players in this field, and attempts to cultivate theoretical contributions from outside the standard communication literature as a means of capturing additional nuances of evolving television distribution practices. Specifically, I have chosen to chronicle the period between 2007 and 2009 in the development of two successful television startups whose visions for online distribution were frequently at odds. The first of these is the popular online television portal, Hulu, owned by a number of the U.S.' largest media companies. The second is Boxee, a startup producing software that today runs a variety of Internet-connected set-top boxes for televisions.
In this article, we highlight 3 limitations of the risk information seeking and processing (RISP)... more In this article, we highlight 3 limitations of the risk information seeking and processing (RISP) model and related information-seeking models, with particular focus on the importance of identity maintenance in shaping what information the public is likely to look for in response to risk. We propose the disruption information seeking and processing (DISP) model as an augment to the RISP. In doing so, we add 3 constructs to the model and explicate them: disruption, norm trumping, and self-relevant information sufficiency. We close by summarizing the main theoretical contributions of the article, outlining practical applications for the DISP, and identifying promising avenues for further research and theoretical development.
A Response to Commentators on “The Imperatives of Narrative: Health Interest Groups and Morality in Network News”
... A Response to Commentators on The Imperatives of Narrative: Health Interest Groups and Moral... more ... A Response to Commentators on The Imperatives of Narrative: Health Interest Groups and Morality in Network News. ... are increasingly indefensible. At the same time, I also wish to refute some of the criticisms leveled at my piece in the open peer commentariesin particular ...
The Imperatives of Narrative: Health Interest Groups and Morality in Network News
This article examines some of the story conventions of network television news to explain the way... more This article examines some of the story conventions of network television news to explain the ways in which healthcare interest groups develop and maintain their presence in this medium - a process that has significant implications for public understanding of healthcare issues, and therefore to bioethics. The article is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on three major normative conventions of television news: adherence to a simple narrative structure, the balance ethic, and avoidance of the "think-piece" and outlines the basic strategies available to interest groups for exploiting these normative conventions. Section two introduces three case studies of organizations and individuals who have run high-profile media campaigns. Section three explores the implications for bioethics of the observations made in this article.
Conference Presentations by Josh Braun
On Distribution Platforms: Studying and Thinking About News Distribution in the “Digital Age”
Transparent Intermediaries and Visible Audiences
The Traces on the Map: Heterogeneous Engineering and the Path of Content.
'Bypassing the Web:’ Shell Users and Alternative Experiences of the Internet
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Books by Josh Braun
Papers by Josh Braun
Conference Presentations by Josh Braun