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Research Article
International Journal of Qualitative Methods
Volume 24: 1–11
© The Author(s) 2025
DOI: 10.1177/16094069241309274
journals.sagepub.com/home/ijq
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(IPA) for Journalism Studies: Making Sense
of Journalists’Sense-Making of Digital
Disruptions
Amira Firdaus
1
, Iffat Ali Aksar
2
, Jiankun Gong
1
, Muhammad Zaiamri Zainal Abidin
1
,
Haroon ur Rasheed Baloch
1
, and Edward Gomez
1
Abstract
Despite the field’s interdisciplinary nature, academic specialization and the academic norm of in-field referencing have limited
the scope of possibility that journalism studies may draw upon fields not part of its interdisciplinary repertoire. This paper
invites readers to explore Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), a rich analytical tradition from qualitative psychology
and health studies and demonstrates its applicability in journalism research. By analyzing in-depth interviews with journalists at
the cusps of two epochal ages of digital disruption in journalism—the rise of user-generated content (UGC) and social network
sites around 2010, and the current explosion of generative AI—we show how IPA can serve as a powerful approach for
journalism researchers. Paying tribute to the journalist as ‘expert’of their own occupational lived experience, IPA provides a
nuanced understanding of how journalists negotiate technological transformations in their occupational spaces. Through a triple
hermeneutic analysis, where researchers attempt to make sense of journalists critically making sense of UGC and AI as a
journalistic tool while reflectively engaging in sense-making of what it means to be a journalist in the age of social media and the
age of AI, we explore the profound implications of these digital disruptions. Thematic findings reveal occupational identity crises,
ethical dilemmas, and organizational challenges, all within the context of methodological reflection. This study underscores the
value of IPA in capturing the depth and reflexivity of journalists’sense-making during significant technological transformations,
advocating for a reflective turn in journalism research.
Keywords
interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), journalism studies, digital disruptions, social media, generative AI (GAI),
journalist lived experience
Introduction
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is an estab-
lished research approach for qualitative inquiry of lived ex-
perience as it relates to a particular phenomena of interest,
whether making sense of the existential, or meaning making of
mundane daily life. IPA as a qualitative approach is concerned
with the detailed examination of individual lived experience,
involving multiple stages from research question formulation
to data interpretation. Each stage of IPA keeps record through
note making, revealing emergent themes, and grouping or
ungrouping themes for the final write up. IPA mainly focus on
themes making sense of a research participant’s sense of self
(Nizza et al., 2021).
1
Department of Media and Communication Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
2
School of Communication, Xiamen University Malaysia
Corresponding Author:
Jiankun Gong, Department of Media and Communication Studies, Faculty of
Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Email: jk_gong@um.edu.my
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IPA is largely used in the health sciences, particularly
psychology and nursing. In the recent decade, qualitative
studies in education with its appreciation for reflective inquiry
has also begun to embrace IPA for its double hermeneutic
reflections. Research in journalism studies, however, has been
slower in realizing the interpretive potentials of IPA in
drawing out nuances of social reality and lived experience.
(Larkin & Flowers, 2021;Tuchman, 1978)
Research and inquiry in the field of journalism traditionally
focused on quantitative research on mass communication,
politics, and society (see Journalism and Mass Communi-
cation Quarterly). In the last two decades the leading aca-
demic journals in the field of journalism has largely been
focused on “critical discussion of journalism”(Journalism
Studies), “social, economic, political, cultural and practical
understanding of journalism”and “current developments and
historical within in journalism”(Journalism), and more re-
cently, focusing on technology and journalism (Digital
Journalism)aswellasreflective and critical studies on the
professional practice of journalism (Journalism Practice).
As such, journalism studies thus far has been well-served
by post-positivist quantitative methods and statistical ana-
lyses, as well as textbook qualitative methods such as focus
group discussions (FGDs), in-depth interviews, and ethno-
graphic studies, occasionally. Discourse analysis, thematic
analysis and other textual analyses methods are most com-
monly employed for interpreting and analyzing qualitative
data in journalism studies. The work of making sense of
qualitative interview data is a highly iterative and subjective
process (Church et al., 2019;D¨
oringer, 2021). The field of
media and communication in general, and journalism studies
in particular, have employed numerous ways to make sense of
findings from qualitative interviews (Gabor, 2017), most often
through thematic analysis (Brennen, 2021;Kazmer & Xie,
2008).
The above qualitative research methodologies have un-
doubtedly served the field well as it sought to examine and
understand news and journalism in social, political, economic,
technological and/or cultural contexts. These meso- and macro
sociological contexts have undergone transformations that
impact the institution, the practice and the products of modern
journalism. However, it is only relatively recently in the past
two decades that journalism studies have begun to pay real
attention to the microsociological context of news production
and news consumption, as technological and socioeconomic
transformations begin to impact individual journalists and
news consumers on a large scale. Digital convergence,
newspaper shutdowns, loss of advertising revenue, news al-
gorithms, partisanship, the spread of ‘fake news’,–all have
repercussions on the lived experience of journalists and news
consumers.
Where textbook methods of qualitative textual analyses
may have served journalism studies well for discourse and
debate on meso- and macrosociological social phenomena,
these methods may not allow for deeper sensemaking of
microsociological phenomena shaping the physical-, psy-
chological-, emotional-, and spiritual-selves of individual
journalists and news consumers.
Therein lies the potential and promise of IPA for journalism
studies, as methodological tool of analyses and interpretive
approach well-suited for making sense of the lived experience
of individual persons affected by (or affecting) transforma-
tions and disruptions in journalism.
While technological innovations that gave rise to the daily
newspaper, radio, television, satellite broadcasting, and dig-
itization, all played their own roles in transforming news and
journalism, these earlier forms of ‘new media’did not en-
croach upon the occupational boundaries of journalism.
Journalists’professional role and occupational identity re-
mained intact throughout the first 100 years of modern
journalism. News and journalism was produced by
journalists –namely human persons working for news outlets,
reporting on daily news, current events and issues of the day.
Whether these journalists were national network news an-
chors, international correspondents, small town newspaper
reporters, freelancers or part-time stringers, and whether they
produced Pulitzer-prize worthy reportage, sensationalist
stories, or even bias and polarizing news, news remained the
purview solely of the journalist, at least up until the mid
2000s..
However, the rise of user generated content (UGC), citizen
journalism and social networking sites (i.e. social media) in
the late 2000s and early 2010s, and the current explosion of
generative AI is different from earlier times of technological
transformations (Cools et al., 2022) . These two epochs of
digital disruptions transform not only the journalistic eco-
system, but also challenge the fundamental core of what it
means to be a journalist and even who/what is responsible for
the core task of producing what we call news.
The first decade of the 21
st
century was a poignant period in
the history of journalism when the possibility of using “user
generated content (UGC)”in the news production process was
a novel, new practice whose influence on the journalistic
profession was then yet to be fathomed. It was a time when
non-professional, untrained laypersons bearing “camera-
phones”arose as an existential challenge to the professional
journalists’very identity and purpose in this world. It was a
time when journalists were reluctantly forced to share the
honour and respect associated with “bearing witness”to the
world’s most important events. And it was a time when
journalism and journalists’role in “breaking the news”and
“setting the agenda”began to be challenged by citizen
journalists with no professional training. IPA offers a powerful
way to dive deep into the lived experience of journalists and
their inner world as they negotiated Web 2.0’s intrusion into
their occupational space, and attempted to make sense of the
new norms and structures of their profession (Firdaus, 2018).
The exponential explosion Artificial Intelligence (AI) in
late 2022, may prove to be even more disruptive to journalism
and journalists. AI algorithms, including Large Language
2International Journal of Qualitative Methods
Models (LLMs) (Naveed et al., 2023) and Deep Learning
Models (DLMs) (Goldstein et al., 2022), are increasingly
being incorporated into journalism practice to aid in news
reporting. Additionally, beyond mere AI tools, Generative AL
(GAI) has the potential to automate news operations, increase
productivity, and open new avenues for narrative and content
creation in news organisations (Grimes et al., 2023). While
journalists’own adoption of AI tools gives rise to questions of
ethics and journalistic practice, they do not form an ‘en-
croachment’into journalists’occupational boundaries.
However, newsrooms and other non-journalistic adoption of
Generative AI (GAI) is to generate ‘news’may very well pose
an existential threat to the professional of journalism and the
occupational identity of the journalist, not to mention the jobs
that offer journalists their livelihoods.
Drawing upon analysis of in-depth interviews with jour-
nalists at the cusps of two epochal ages of digital disruption in
journalism –the social media age and the age of AI –we
demonstrate how Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(IPA) may serve as a powerful approach for journalism re-
searchers to make sense of the ways in which professional
journalists negotiate technological transformations in their
occupational spaces. Paying tribute to the journalist as ‘expert’
of their own occupational lived experience, the paper delves
into the value of IPA as an interpretive approach for under-
standing human journalists’sense-making of technological
encroachment into the journalistic occupational boundary.
This paper will first present a literature review of related
research using IPA within the context of lived experience of
various occupations and professions. Next, the paper will
touch upon the rise of user generated content (UGC) and the
current explosion of generative AI, two epochal technological
transformations disrupting journalism and challenging jour-
nalists’occupational boundaries. We then turn to two separate
IPA studies employing during each of these two digital dis-
ruptions. First is an IPA study of how journalists in 2010
perceived the encroachment of UGC and citizen journalism
into their journalistic space and their newswork routines. Next
is study of journalists in 2024 trying to make sense of what
generative AI means for their journalistic newsflows and their
jobs in journalism.
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(IPA) Research Applications
IPA was first established in the field of psychology to assist in
examining personal experiences and perceptions and “un-
derstanding the meaning or contents of thought”(Smith &
Fieldsend, 2021, p. 192). This qualitative turn in the field of
psychology is partially related to an emergent hermeneutic and
existential approach to psychological therapy (Larkin et al.,
2019;Pringle et al., 2011). The phenomenological qualities of
IPA however are equally useful to qualitative inquiry outside
of the field of psychology and health sciences (Smith, 2011,
2015).
Over time IPA gained popularity and established academic
significance in multiple disciplines apart from psychology
(Eatough & Smith, 2017), eventually emerging as a well-
established methodology within the realm of qualitative
research (Smith & Fieldsend, 2021). IPA is widely used in
various fields to explore how individuals make sense of their
personal and social experiences (Mavhandu-Mudzusi, 2018).
This is motivated by the method’s effectiveness in helping
researchers understand the scope and focus of a study in depth
and detail (Rajasinghe, 2020). Several important factors drive
this effectiveness, such as exploring individual lived experi-
ence, the idiographic approach, flexibility, depth, and the
involvement of hermeneutics. These aspects make IPA suit-
able for fields of study like psychology, health, and social
sciences, helping researchers to make sense of the personal
experiences and reflections of individual research participants.
Consequently, we can observe how IPA has been employed in
various major research fields today (Love et al., 2020).
IPA is often applied in studies focusing on people’s ex-
periences and reflections regarding their occupation, tech-
nological transformations and digital disruptions. In IPA
studies concentrating on workplace experiences and reflec-
tions, several researchers, such as Clarke (2009),Oxley
(2016),Guihen (2020),Francis (2023), and Valdivia
(2023), have conducted research across various occupa-
tional domains, including educational psychologists, child
and adolescent psychotherapists, and deputy headteachers.
In occupational therapy research, IPA has contributed to
developing a deeper understanding of how work is experi-
enced and imbued with meaning by those involved (Clarke,
2009). Similarly, in educational psychology, IPA has been
utilized to explore the career experiences of female deputy
headteachers, underscoring its potential to investigate the
perceived experiences of individuals (Guihen, 2020;Oxley,
2016). These findings collectively highlight IPA’s value as a
methodology for understanding individual experiences and
reflections across various work contexts (Clarke, 2009;
Guihen, 2020;Oxley, 2016;Palmer et al., 2010).
The same is true for IPA studies conducted across various
spectrums to examine individual experiences related to
technological transformation and digital disruption. These
studies are carried out by several researchers, such as
Stolterman and Fors (2004),Molla et al. (2016), and Kasavina
(2019), who focus on different aspects of individual responses
to and perceptions of digital change. In Molla et al.’s (2016)
study, the IPA method was employed to explore the experi-
ences and feedback of IT managers regarding digital dis-
ruption. Meanwhile, Stolterman and Fors (2004) similarly
utilize the IPA method to investigate the impact of information
technology on society, focusing on ongoing digital transfor-
mation and its significance for quality of life. Lastly, Kasavina
(2019) underscores the importance of critically assessing the
socio-humanitarian consequences of digitalization, suggesting
a potential role for IPA in this area. Together, these contri-
butions underscore the versatility and relevance of IPA in
Firdaus et al. 3
shedding light on the multifaceted dimensions of techno-
logical transformation and digital disruptions across diverse
academic and practical contexts.
Following on the heels of qualitative studies in the fields of
psychology and education, journalism studies and media
production research however, is only recently exploring IPA
as possible method for making sense of the lived experience of
journalism, with much of the effort coming from more tra-
ditional perspectives of newswork focusing narrowly on
journalists’lived experience of trauma and disability (Gekoski
et al., 2012;Powers, 2020;Takahashi & Tandoc, 2016).
Others in journalism studies such as Schumacher (2016),
Powers (2020),Bradshaw (2021),Eccles (2023), and Kurnia
et al. (2022), use the IPA method to explore the experiences of
journalists from various perspectives. These include exploring
and deepening the understanding of the journalistic experience
in traumatic news coverage, the transition of journalism
practitioners to journalism educators, the use of technology in
news reporting, challenges in journalism careers, and ethical
conflicts in journalism. Through the application of the IPA
method in most of these studies, researchers obtained various
in-depth experiences and feedback related to the technology
adaptation process, especially among journalists. Similarly, in
identifying issues and challenges in career aspects and ethical
considerations, researchers found the specific issues and
challenges journalists face, particularly from the perspective
of those who experience them. These studies offer nuance in
explaining the studied phenomena. Phenomenological studies
about journalists have explored influences on journalistic
work and how journalists themselves make sense of these
influences on their journalistic practices, providing a deep and
humanistic understanding of the journalist’s lived experience
of navigating profound challenges in their occupational lives.
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(IPA) of Journalists’Lived Experience of
Digital Disruptions in their Occupational
Lives
As a working illustration of IPA for making sense of jour-
nalists’lived experience of technological encroachments into
their occupational boundaries, we analyze (using IPA) inter-
views from two separate studies conducted at the cusps of two
epochal digital disruptions.
The first study took place in 2010 not long after news media
around the world reported on a devastating earthquake in Haiti
by using UGC video clips and photos. The year before in
2009, the global news media relied on Tweets to report on the
Green Revolution in Iran. Two years prior in 2008, news
media broadcasted UGC images of Tibetan monks protesting
Chinese.
The 2010 study explored Malaysia-based ‘glocal’jour-
nalists’perceptions and response to user generated content
(UGC), social networking sites (i.e. social media), alternative
news and citizen journalism. Interpretative Phenomenological
Analysis of the study’s interview transcripts facilitated mul-
tilayered interpretative analysis of both the multiple hierar-
chies of influences shaping journalists’new newswork
routines, as well as journalists’negotiation of new media
encroachment into their occupational role of ‘bearing witness’
(Firdaus, 2014,2018).
The second IPA study of digital disruptions in journalism
takes place in 2024 exploring journalists’in Pakistan and their
sense-making of ethical issues surrounding of AI adoption in
news workflows and the implications of AI-generated news on
journalism as an institution and an occupation (Baloch &
Firdaus, 2024). Here, interpretative phenomenological anal-
ysis allows for a triple hermeneutic analysis, wherein re-
searchers attempt to make sense of journalists critically
making sense of AI as journalistic tool whilst reflectively
engaging in sense-making of what it means to be a journalist in
the age of AI.
IPA Study 1: Journalists’Negotiation of UGC
Encroachment into News Routines and Occupational
Boundaries
This IPA study was conducted by the first author (henseforth
referred to in the first-person). The study involved interviews
with 22 journalists, based at the Kuala Lumpur newsroom of
six “traditional”(i.e. legacy) news outlets. Interview partici-
pants worked for the global news channel Al Jazeera English
(AJE), Malaysian news channel Bernama News Channel
(formerly known as Bernama TV), Singapore-based regional
news channel, Channel News Asia (CNA), German news
agency, Deutsche Welle (DW), Japanese news agency
(Kyodo), and Malaysia’s national news agency, BERNAMA.
Interviews were conducted face to face in Kuala Lumpur over
an eight-month period between February and October in 2010.
Table 1 provides details of the journalists interviewed for the
study.
An initial interview guide (interview questions) prepared
before the interview stage of the study focused specifically on
the use of user-driven platforms/social networking media in
newswork. This interview guide served as a general guide, but
questions evolved as warranted by the amount of time each
journalist was willing to spend doing the interview, and
emergent themes arising out of individual interviews (Kallio
et al., 2016).
As the first batch of interviews progressed, a trend emerged
in which participants talked as much or even more about other
aspects of newswork, as compared to journalistic use of user-
driven platforms/social media.
This is partly due to the fact that traditional routinized
forms of doing journalism for conventional news outlets are so
resilient, and therefore and still relevant to news production,
true in 2010 during social media’s infancy and even now in the
age of digital journalism. Although diffusion of user-driven
platforms/social media as journalistic tool occurred organi-
cally through 2010 journalists’sporadic use of Twitter and
4International Journal of Qualitative Methods
YouTube as news source during crisis events, and/or indi-
vidual journalists’‘habitualized’use of such media platforms
in their daily work, it had yet to reach the level of being
‘institutionalized’at the organizational level. Whilst still re-
taining core questions related to journalistic use of user-driven
platforms/social media, the semi-structured form of the in-
terviews left sufficient room for participants to raise issues
more salient to their conception and experience of news
production, and these same issues resonate among colleagues
in similar situations. Questions were phrased openly, for
example “How about Twitter, do you use that?”where the
question was answered through the emergence of themes
relating to the intersections between Web 2.0 adoption and
professional journalistic norms and routines, and also ideo-
logical news values and extra-media influences of the news
system. But these themes emerged not from the formal
framing of the question, but through journalists’reflexive
conceptions regarding forces that shape their adoption Web
2.0 as news production tools.
IPA Reflexivity in Interview and Analysis
IPA’sflexibility extends to the method of applying its stages of
analysis, which Smith (2004) note doesn’t require strict
replication, but rather should be adapted to suit specific
conditions of different research studies. Accordingly, IPA has
been used to ‘theme’and interpret the 2010 study’s interview
transcripts by adopting Smith and Osborn’s approach which
respects the structure of data.
In the first stage, I exploratively reviewed each transcript,
making initial comments and notes. This is followed by a more
thorough reading of the transcripts where notes consist of
more theoretical comments and ‘emergent themes’are drawn
out from the transcripts. After going through each interview
transcript and making initial comments and notes to famil-
iarize myself with the professional reality of each news outlet,
I identified ‘emergent themes’evident from that particular
news outlet. I coded these ‘emergent themes’in NVivo. Then I
moved on to the next news outlet. At the end of this first step of
analysis, I compiled two types of ‘emergent themes’: Themes
specific to each news outlet and themes that were common
across two or more news outlets. Table 2 lists a sample of
‘emergent themes’from each news outlet, while Table 3 il-
lustrates a sample ‘clustering’of some ‘emergent’themes.
The second stage of IPA analysis, which is essentially an
‘iterative’stage, I attempted to identify connections between
themes. This procedure followed Smith (2004) approach in
listing out emergent themes in order to cluster related themes.
Table 1. Journalists Interviewed at the Cusp of the Age of UGC and Citizen Journalism (2010).
News outlet Job description Other professional role
Main case study
Al Jazeera English •News editor
•News editor
•Output producer
•Planning editor
•Interview producer •Output producer, deputy news editor
•Assistant program editor
•Producer •Reporter
•News presenter 1 •Reporter
•News presenter 2
Bernama TV •Assistant producer, English desk •News reader
•Assistant producer, Mandarin desk •News reader
•Executive producer •Stringer, channel news Asia
•BJ no. 1 economics & finance desk
•BJ no. 2 economics & finance desk
•BJ, general news & politics desk
•Assignment editor
•Visual editor
Contextual case study
Bernama news agency •Former chief executive officer and editor-in-chief •Editorial advisor, Bernama TV
•Reporter, general news desk •BJ, entertainment desk, Bernama TV
•Web site editor
•Deputy chief editor, foreign news desk
Channel news Asia •Malaysia bureau chief
dpa •Malaysia correspondent
Kyodo news agency •Malaysia correspondent
BJ = Broadcast Journalist.
Firdaus et al. 5
The third stage of analysis involves developing a ‘superor-
dinate theme’out of each cluster of similar ‘emergent themes’.
This development of ‘superordinate themes’involves my
attempt to interpret my journalists’interpretation of their own
professional reality (i.e. ‘second order’hermeneutic reading)
(Tandoc Jr. & Takahashi, 2018).
This relates to the notion of reflexivity and the evolution of
questions in semi structured interviews. Here this reflexivity is
extended to the data analysis. Most relevant to exploring
journalistic adoption of networked technologies is the way in
which IPA aims to ‘respect convergences and divergences in
the data’, thus drawing out and identifying transnational
commonalities and divergences in news production, and il-
luminating the ways in which the professional realities of
Malaysian-based ‘glocal’journalists’, vis-`
a-vis a globalized
networked media ecology, are ‘similar but also different’.
Finally after ‘superordinate themes’have been identified, I
subsequently identify recurrent ‘superordinate themes’as I
analyzed one transcript after another and one set of ‘case
studies’after another.
What I am ‘trying to do with the analysis’at this stage is to
cluster ‘recurrent’superordinate themes and interpret them
along micro and macro levels of analysis, namely: ‘individ-
ual’,‘routine’,‘organizational’and ‘insitutional-ideological’
levels of analysis. Table 4 below lists out a sample of these
‘recurrent superordinate themes’which have emerged across
several case studies or across several interviews. Following
Kester (2010) whose interview study with twelve Dutch
journalists working in Russia was structured according to
different levels of Reese and Shoemaker’s‘hierarchy of
Table 2. ‘Emergent Themes From First-Order Hermeneutic Reading.
Emergent themes (specificto
particular news organizations) Common emergent themes (common across news organizations)
Core case studies
Al Jazeera English •Telling untold stories •Extra evaluation of social media
newsworthiness and credibility
•Reversing news flow •Doing your own journalism
•Challenging government/authority •Professional journalism versus citizen journalism
•Iran Green Revolution •Credible authoritative sources
•Twitter for monitoring global hotspots •Access to credible authoritative sources
Bernama TV •‘Doing your own journalism’•Public opinion online
•‘Elite’authority voices
•No internet
•Twitter for monitoring global hotspots
•Facebook as a networking tool
Contextual case studies
Bernama News Agency •Facts without interpretation
•Government sources
•Censorship
CAN, dpa, Kyodo •Virtual reporting
•Balanced reporting
Table 3. Clustering ‘Emergent Themes’.
Emergent themes Recurrent themes
•Professional journalism versus citizen journalism Constructing professional occupational boundaries
•Blogs not journalistic or credible
•‘Doing your own journalism’Preference for conventional news work
•‘Elite’authority voices
•No internet ‘Network news work’
•Twitter for monitoring global hotspots
•Facebook as a networking tool
•Telling untold stories Journalistic ethos
•Challenging government/authority
•Press-as-government-partner
•Facts without interpretation
•Balanced reporting
6International Journal of Qualitative Methods
influences’model, these ‘superordinate themes’are presented
according to the type of ‘level’of influence that it exerts upon
‘network newswork’practices. This final interpretation stage
involves prioritizing themes and reduction of data, which
according to Smith (2004), is very challenging. It involves not
only prevalence of themes across the news outlets under study,
but also the richness of relevant interview excerpts and the
richness of the themes themselves.
IPA Study 2: Journalist Sense-Making of Journalistic
Occupation in an Age of AI
The second IPA study in the paper was conducetd by the 4th
author. 13 senior journalists from Pakistani digital newsrooms
and media development specialists were included representing
array of experience in varied journalism roles. All participants
are currently associated with digital media and well-aware of
media convergence and further transitioning to automated
news generation concepts. Their experiences range between 3
to more than 30 years, while majority made transition from
traditional media to digital modes. Some of them hold ex-
pertise of deeply studying the media transition who previously
also worked as practicing journalists themselves.
Interviews were conducted virtually via videoconferenc-
ing. The duration of interviews lasted between 40 to
90 minutes. At the time of interviews were conducted, the
researchers’institution did not mandate research ethics ap-
provals for research unrelated to a postgraduate research thesis
and studies not funded by university-registered grants. Nev-
ertheless, careful attention was paid to ensure the study ad-
hered to research ethics. All interview participants were duly
informed of the aims of the study and the intention to publish
interview findings. Table 5 lists out the details of journalists
interviewed for this study.
In this 2024 IPA study, a double hermeneutic reading led to
a third hermeneutic reading of ‘dimensions of sensemaking’.
We reflected upon journalists’reflections as they sought to
make sense of AI within their occupational space whilst
reflectively engaging in sense-making of what it means to be
a journalist in the age of AI (Baloch et al., 2024). Tab l e 6
presents the IPA themes from this triple hermeneutic
reading.
Drawing up the themes in Table 6, in the following par-
agraphs we illustrate the reflexivity, depth and nuance that IPA
method offers for making sense of journalists’sense making of
their lived experience during epochal digital disruptions where
AI encroaches into journalists’occupational boundaries.
Beyond merely organizing research findings into themes to
answer pre-determined research questions, reflexivity in IPA
themeing brought to fore dimensions of sensemaking.
IPA Dimensions of Sensemaking
Firstly, as journalists engaged in occupational sensemaking of
the AI explosion in journalism, there is a perceptible emer-
gence of an occupational identity crisis in the journalistic
fraternity. Journalists grapple with shifting skillsets, changing
values, and ethical concerns. Journalists question what it
means to be a journalist in a new age where generative AI can
not only take over the task of newswork, but may even push
human journalists out of the journalistic occupational space.
These reflections highlight the existential concerns that arise
with as AI encroaches into the journalistic occupational space,
fundamentally changing what it means to be a journalist
(Linden, 2018;T´
uñez-López et al., 2020).
As journalists negotiate the AI encroachment into the
newsroom, they are engaging in organizational sensemaking,
understanding that their place of work is now organized
around new priorities that value new AI-driven skillsets which
many journalists still lack. IPA brings to fore journalists’acute
awareness that this new digital disruption is unlike any pre-
vious technological transformation, as it restructures how
journalism is organized in this the age of AI.
Finally, journalists engage in institutional sensemaking of
the disruptions to their industry, challenging the normative
foundations of the institution of journalism. Where journalism
was traditionally associated with accuracy, fair and balanced
reporting, holding powers accountable, the explosion of both
Table 4. ‘Superordinate’Themes and Corresponding Levels of Analysis.
‘Emergent themes’clusters
‘Superordinate themes’(second
order hermenuetic reading) Levels of analysis
•Individual adoption/non-adoption of networked media Individual agency in appropriating
networked media
Individual level
•Constructing professional occupational boundaries
•Stages of news production and different uses of
networked media
Integrating networked sources
into news production
Professional routines level
•‘Doing your own journalism’(preference for
traditional forms of newswork)
•Evaluating newsworthiness and credibiltiy
•News orientation (global/trasnational/national) Social (journalistic) appropriation of
networked technologies
Organizational level
•Organizational resources
•Journalistic ethos ‘Government-model’versus ‘
professional-model’journalism
Institutional and ideological level
Firdaus et al. 7
social media, news algorithms and generative AI gives rise to a
norm that includes disinformation, polarized partisan bubbles,
and very real potential misuses of data, including breaches of
privacy and confidential information. IPA brings to fore;
journalists’concerns of what journalism will look like in an
age of AI.
Discussion
As illustrated above, IPA allows for a triple hermeneutic
analysis, wherein we have conducted a third-order reading
of the two IPA studies’researchers’attempt to make sense
of journalists critically making sense of epochal digital
disruptions in journalism whilst reflectively engaging in
sense-making of what it means to be a journalist in the age
of AI.
The individual lived experience of doing newswork under
specific contexts (i.e. technological transformations, organi-
zational goals, politico-ideological institutional values) pre-
sented the study with a rich, multiperspectival view of what is
it like to be making news at the cusp of major technological
disruption to journalism.
Themeing using IPA drew out the experiential differences
and differing factors influencing how journalists incorporate
Table 5. Journalists Interviewed at the Cusp of the AI Age.
Participant ID Organization Position Experience Profession
AR International media support Program manager Pakistan 30+ years Journalist and media development activist
ASI Pakistan television Executive producer 17 years Newsroom manager
ASD Geo TV & talk SHOCK Host & senior special correspondent 19 years TV broadcaster & multimedia journalist
KR Discover Pakistan Chief executive officer 3 years Satellite TV & digital media entrepreneur
GA The Fri times Managing editor 14 years Digital journalist
JH Dawn.com Chief digital strategist 17 years Digital journalist
KS Urdu news Editor reporting & planning 25 years Digital journalist
MJ MJ TV & neo TV Anchor & multimedia editor 29 years Digital & broadcast journalist
TIM Fact focus Consultant editor 17 years Digital journalist
TA The centrum media Chief executive officer 8 years Digital journalist
UZK Soch media Fact checker, assistant editor 5 years Multimedia & digital journalist
ZH BBC Urdu News editor 22 years Multimedia & digital journalist
ZZ Urdu news Senior digital editor 17 years Digital journalis
Table 6. Emergent Themes, Recurrent Themes and Superordinate Themes in IPA Study of Journalists’Lived Experience of AI.
Emergent themes (‘first’order hermeneutic reading)
Recurrent themes (‘second order
hermeneutic reading)
Sensemaking dimensions &
superordinate themes
•AI potential threat to journalists jobs AI encroachment into journalistic
occupational boundaries
Occupational sensemaking
What is means to be a journalist in the age
of AI
•Some roles will be replaced by new roles
•AI a force multiplier
•Humans more aware of ground realities Journalists’negotiation of AI encroachment
•Verification role to remain with humans Shifting journalistic skillsets
•Journalists’poor AI literacy
•Lack of understanding with changing news
workflows
Shifting journalistic skillsets Organizational sensemaking
How journalism is organized in the age of
AI
•Top-down policy changes in newsrooms AI uptake by newsrooms
•State-run media
•Private media (media-only vs. media-also)
•Pro-AI digital media editors Change in journalistic priorities
•Literacy gap between fake news peddlers versus
debunkers
Shifting journalistic priorities Institutional sensemaking
What journalism looks like in the age of AI
•AI to further aggravate disinformation and
censorship
AI must be controlled/managed
•AI algorithmic bias, discrimination, transparency,
security & unfairness
•Govt.’s role in policy making crucial
•Privacy/confidentiality of data
8International Journal of Qualitative Methods
new technologies into their routine newswork, whilst also
navigating threats to their occupational identities.
Gans (2004) notes that “phenomenological-inclined re-
searchers have made a major contribution to understanding
journalists and their work by showing that whatever the nature
of external reality, human beings can perceive it only with
their own concepts, and therefore always ‘constructed’real-
ity.”While this quote from Gans comes from a discussion on
the different theoretical perspectives for understanding news
selection, it is also relevant to journalism studies more gen-
erally, as it highlights the power of IPA in bringing to fore
journalists’“own concepts”for perceiving the “external re-
ality”of their profession (Gans, 2004, p. 312).
For this paper’s professional journalists and their intro-
spective sense making of the emerging external reality of
disruptive technological transformations, IPA provided an
additional layer of reflexivity through a heuristicity of inter-
pretation between scholarship and the practice of journalism.
The ‘reality’of newswork is as much ‘real’in a journalists’
(re)construction of it as he or she talks about it, as it is ‘real’as
he or she goes about the daily news gathering or news pro-
duction activities required of a journalist. And this interpre-
tation is then re-interpreted by the scholar who examines and
documents and makes further sense of the journalists’world.
As Zelizer highlights:
Thinking about journalism takes shape in patterned ways, and
these ways reveal not only a wealth of cognitive information but
also a social map of points of commonality and difference that
goes beyond journalism per se . . . For journalism, that social map
has two valuable referent points –journalists and journalism
scholars. Both groups are invested in the shape of inquiry about
journalism as it persists and changes. Both play a part in shaping
that inquiry, and both have much to lose if that inquiry is not made
explicit to those it touches. Conversely, the common interest of both
groups necessitates a workable and ongoing awareness of what
each group thinks in regards to journalism (Zelizer, 2004,p.6).
Zelizer refers to the general reflexivity inherent to the
relationship between academia and the institution of jour-
nalism. And one manifestation of this relationship occurs in
the act of research, when in the name of inquiry, the journalism
scholar looks to the journalist in his or her capacity as a
“referent point”, and actively engages with that referent point
in order to learn about journalism, while the journalist does the
same in order to “play a part in shaping that inquiry.”IPA and
its attending in-depth interviews offer one instance in which
both journalist and scholar engage in “a workable and ongoing
awareness of what [the other] thinks in regards to journalism.”
And reflexivity is a likely consequence as well as a possible
factor in the journalist’s and the researcher’s“ongoing
awareness”of each other.
Researchers’reflexivity may be characterized by two
processes, one of discovery and one of construction
(Kleinsasser, 2000). The researcher strives to identify and
discover incongruities, and having done so, treats them as
sources of new knowledge; thus, researchers combine both
processes when reflecting on the studied phenomena
(Dodgson, 2019). Such activity may lead researchers to a new
way of conceptualizing the meaning of previously acquired
information. As shown above, IPA offers a nuanced approach
for making sense of the phenomenon under study (Goldspink
& Engward, 2019).
Conclusion
The aim of this paper we to explore the relevance and use-
fulness of IPA methodology for the field of journalism studies.
We have argue d that ‘epochal’digital disruptions such as the
rise of user generated content and social network sites and
citizen journalism around 2010, as well as the current explosion
of generative AI, bear implications on the lived experience of
journalists, necessitate a reflective turn in journalism research.
This reflective turn in journalism can be well-served by IPA.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: IPA Study
1 was funded by a PhD scholarship from the Malaysian Ministry of
Higher Education (MOHE). IPA Study 2 received no funding from
any funding body.
ORCID iDs
Amira Firdaus https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0609-7371
Jiankun Gong https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3785-7449
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