“Like in a cathedral”: how novice journalists embrace silence and emptiness in the digitalized newsroom

Purpose Through a knowing-in-practice lens and drawing on the literature on embodied learning, the article aims to unpack how novice journalists learn in a digitalized newsroom that is increasingly dominated by silence and emptiness. Design/methodology/approach The article is based on an organizational ethnography carried out in a newsroom in Québec, Canada, comprising 200 h of participant observation and 28 interviews. Findings The findings indicate that, contrary to the researcher's own sensory experience in the digitalized newsroom, novices embraced silence and emptiness to create new opportunities for embodied learning. Concretely, they reclaimed the physical space by enacting three moves: seeking validation, pricking up their ears and welding peer ties. Originality/value The article offers three theoretical implications for the literature on embodied learning and organizational ethnography. It highlights the role of silence and emptiness as performative, sensory and affective resources for learning, renews the importance of physical spaces for novice journalists and discusses the implications of autonomous embodied learning in digitalized newsrooms.