(De-)professionalization in the New Medium Environment

This essay concerns several problems in relation to professional communication. The background is the changing circumstances and extreme phenomena like fake news, Donald Trump’s use of Twitter, his and many other politicians’ use of Facebook Live and, for instance, the many hostile and irreconcilable debates on social media. The hypothesis is that we see a de-professionalization in communication patterns both regarding the political system and in the public sphere enabled by digital media. In the political system, the parties and administrations are weakened while politicians and other actors take initiative. In the public sphere, journalists and the editorial offices are passed over by the blogosphere and social media. Our aim is to analyse these phenomena using media sociology and media history and point out an explanation of what is going on and point out a media historically based image of a probable socio-media evolutionary scenario for the future development in which we see a possible re-professionalization.