The Shifting Meanings of Journalism: Careless Interpretation and the Contested Conditions of Knowledge

The "Shifting Meanings of Journalism" project examines how news items lose touch, online, with the informational context in which they were originally meant to be understood. On social media platforms, journalistic texts lead a continuous second life: they are shared, commented on, memed, and reframed in ways that serve, more often than the transmission of information, the reinforcement of group identities or political polarization. Such careless interpretations can rely entirely on genuine source material and still be epistemically misleading. The issue, then, is not primarily disinformation, but how journalistic material is used detached from its original context.

The research combines text-analytical methods from literary studies with media and communication research. Particular attention is paid to the paratexts surrounding news texts – headlines, sharing captions, reactions, meme images, and AI-generated content – whose form shapes the interpretive use to which a news item comes to be put online. The material consists of case examples drawn from various platforms, and the analysis focuses on recurring, structurally similar interpretive disputes and chains of affective reaction.
Over its two-year run (2026–2028), the project produces, alongside its research output, practical tools for the journalistic field. The project is funded by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.

juha.raipola [at] tuni.fi, matias.nurminen [at] tuni.fi