Technostress Is the (Re)new(ed) Normal: How Journalists Manage Technological Innovation

Journalism is an inherently fast-paced and pressure-filled profession with features such as industry competition and reporting on traumatic events that can cause mental health issues for journalists. However, little work has examined the extent to which rapid implementation of new technologies might also contribute to the stress that journalists experience. In this study, I carried out qualitative interviews with working journalists to understand how they manage technostress in their work. The journalists’ experiences indicated that they approach technostress based on different levels within the decision-making process to adopt, reinvent, or reject an innovation. At the individual professional level, journalists used the strategies to adapt and alter technology for their needs and implement new tools when meeting timeliness, not just deadlines; at the social connection level, journalists built off educational encouragement through personal experimentation and engaged with mentors, coworkers, and audience for support; and at the foundational meaning level, journalists took breaks from technologies while acknowledging their downsides and kept humanity at the center of journalistic work. These findings contribute to diffusion of innovations theory by focusing on the ongoing decisions made to manage adverse impacts of a new tool being adopted. Further, the findings showcase that humanity remains central to the journalistic enterprise even in the technology-saturated digital age.