The Innovation Trap examines why three decades of sustained experimentation have left journalism’s underlying problems unresolved. Drawing on his extensive experience as a journalist and scholar, Alfred Hermida explores how the pursuit of innovation shapes journalism’s priorities and what news organisations overlook when they equate change with progress.

Historical analysis and case studies from North America, Europe, Latin America and other parts of the Global South trace these tensions from the rise of online news in the 1990s to the present. The book considers how professional culture and technological infrastructures shape the possibilities for change, and how understanding people’s information needs can help journalism rethink its relationship with the communities it seeks to serve.

The Innovation Trap offers advanced undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, editors, news leaders and journalism entrepreneurs a framework for assessing what innovation achieves and whose needs it serves. It is particularly relevant to courses in journalism innovation, entrepreneurship and digital media.

Alfred Hermida is a professor in the School of Journalism, Writing and Media at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where he has also served as director. A former BBC journalist, he co-founded The Conversation Canada in 2017. He is a Fellow of the International Communication Association.