Reworking Journalism at the Digital Periphery: Role Work among Political Creators

Political creators have become central actors in contemporary public communication and increasingly perform functions traditionally associated with journalism. Their growing presence has blurred the boundaries between journalism and its environment, raising questions about how journalistic roles are reworked beyond institutional newsrooms. Journalism studies have responded to these blurred boundaries through research on boundary negotiations, professional norms, and journalistic authority, largely from the perspective of the journalistic center. This article shifts the focus toward the periphery and examines how digitally enabled actors position themselves in relation to journalism and create their roles vis-à-vis the journalistic center. To conceptualize these peripheral perspectives, the article introduces the concept of role work and explores the concept in an exploratory empirical study. Drawing on 22 qualitative interviews with German political creators, the study shows that creators neither fully adopt nor categorically reject journalistic role models. Instead, they engage in selective, hybrid, and context-sensitive reinterpretations of journalistic values, goals, and practices. These processes of role work are shaped by platform affordances, small-scale production outside newsroom structures, the experienced boundary work of the journalistic center, and close, interactive relationships with audiences.