The professional boundaries of journalists in Hong Kong: Strategies of accepting and dismissing citizen journalists

This study investigates the impact of public participation on the journalistic field in Hong Kong and the response of legacy and digital-only newsrooms to this process. Relying on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory and on Thomas Gieryn’s concept of boundary work, this article examines the strategies used by journalists to patrol and maintain the boundaries of their field. In-depth interviews collected from 24 journalists working for both legacy and digital-only media show that journalists do not fully dismiss the work of public participation. Instead, they do their best to incorporate such practices into their daily work, while aiming to keep their professional standards high. Nevertheless, there are differences between legacy and digital-only journalists when it comes to their use of user-generated content. Legacy journalists tend to avoid using newsworthy content they find online in isolation. They try to use UGC as a starting point, to provide context, and to verify the source of the material. On the other hand, digital-only journalists tend to rush publishing their stories and only add context at a later stage.