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Over the past two decades, innovations in journalism, which require new skillsets and multidisciplinary collaboration, have significantly reshaped the practice of journalism. The embrace and execution of these innovations are shaped by both personal and institutional variables. This study investigated how friendship networks, at the meso level, influence the extent to which journalists participate in collaborative digital journalism projects within a 67-staffed newsroom in a Chinese partisan media outlet. Network closure and structural holes’ influences were examined using Poisson and negative binomial regression modeling. Results showed that greater network closure was linked to less frequent participation in collaborative digital journalism projects, while structural holes positively predicted the frequency and variety of participation. Findings highlight a nuanced picture of how different network structures impact innovation adoption in the practice of journalism. Despite limitations, this research makes empirical and theoretical contributions by analyzing friendship networks’ impacts on collaborative digital journalism engagement. It provides practical insights into optimizing connections to accelerate innovation diffusion in journalism.
Zhang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.