Innovation processes in online newsrooms as actor-networks and communities of practice

This article explores two different but complementary theoretical approaches to frame innovation in online media: actor-network theory and community of practice. The principles and key concepts of each are presented and their suitability to the analysis of innovation in journalism is discussed through four newsroom cases. The findings demonstrate that these theories are efficient tools to understand and analyze the actors involved in innovation decisions in the newsroom, the dynamics of the negotiation and learning processes among the journalists and the factors constraining and fostering evolution when innovations are implemented or disregarded in the newsroom.