Decoding Internet Culture: A Journalist's Guide to Comprehensive Coverage
Journalism is inextricably intertwined with internet culture, which is ever-evolving. In 2023, viral videos, online communities, and social media trends serve as vital sources for breaking news. However, navigating this dynamic terrain and understanding what exactly constitutes "internet culture" can be challenging for journalists.
Internet culture is a vibrant ecosystem where memes, trends, and communities thrive. It encompasses everything from viral challenges and TikTok sensations to fandoms, subreddits, and digital art movements. It reflects how people interact, communicate, and express themselves in the digital realm. Internet culture is an intricate language of emojis, gifs, hashtags, memes, videos, influencers, and online subcultures.
NBC News' Digital Culture & Trends team is trying to hone in on this connection. This dedicated group of journalists immerses itself in the digital world, scrutinizing social media trends and online conversations, recognizing that the internet is more than just a platform; it's a living, breathing entity that shapes public discourse and global narratives.
Daysia Tolentino, an NBC News reporter who covers culture and trends, describes her role as a dream come true. “It’s kind of a dream role… I get to scroll through social media all day, looking for what people are talking about and what people are interested in.” For her, and many like her, internet culture isn't merely a source of entertainment; it's a lens through which we can understand the world's changing dynamics.
The journey to cover internet culture, however, is very muddy. Taylor Lorenz, a journalist writing about her experiences via her personal blog, recalled that “media reporters used to joke about editors hiring for beats at the ‘intersection’ as in, at the ‘intersection of tech and media’ or the ‘intersection of politics and culture.’ These were ham handed ways of trying to express how intertwined our world is becoming. It’s clear that the old school way of thinking about coverage areas isn’t going to cut it.” The prevailing notion of "serious" tech journalism often excluded the exploration of internet culture. The struggle to convince powerful figures in newsrooms that the coverage of influencers, online communities, and internet trends deserved a prominent place in tech journalism persisted for years.
But internet culture reporting has gained newfound relevance as the media landscape continues to shift. Newsrooms recognize the need for dedicated coverage of the ways technology shapes our world, leading to the emergence of roles like "internet culture reporter, an evolution that reflects the growing interdependence of technology and culture.
The label "internet culture reporter" may be new, but it holds immense weight. Sometimes the term seems to categorize work by women and people of color pejoratively, who have historically been excluded from core areas of newsrooms. It raises questions about why internet culture reporting is often distinguished from technology or culture reporting and bias and gatekeeping in newsroom culture in general. In the early days of digital media, there was a debate about whether reporters who wrote for websites were real journalists. Digital culture is now true culture—technology reporting encompasses far more than gadgets and earnings reports, a marked difference from 20 (or even 10) years ago in the tech sector.
Diverse voices—women, people of color, individuals from various socioeconomic backgrounds—need to have equal opportunities and platforms within newsrooms. If digital culture is just mainstream culture, then the need for “digital culture” journalists is moot. The interests of these communities must not be dismissed as "niche" stories, but recognized as integral to the broader narrative of our digital age.
As journalists continue to redefine their roles, they must embrace the interconnectedness of technology and culture, recognizing that digital culture is, indeed, just culture in the 21st century. Newsrooms have a responsibility as well to elevate digital culture reporting and reduce negative stereotypes against digital writers, which have persisted in the field despite clear change in contemporary intersections of culture and technology.
