Editorial Organisation – Roles and Power

Heinz Wittenbrink

2025-10-30

Editing, authority and power

Team structure and content

Size and structure of the editorial team have a direct impact on the content
The editorial team decides what is and what is not discussed.
It thus determines how the world is presented to the recipients and also to the organization
The power relations in the editorial office and the power over the reaction are very relevant for the content

We have seen that classic editorial work is one of the roots of content strategy. Today we want to look at how this editorial work can be analysed from a social science perspective and what we can learn from it for content strategy. In doing so, I am deliberately drawing on the study of traditional editorial offices. The transfer service or necessity for us consists above all in considering what is different in the editorial structures we know, why these differences exist, and whether we can perhaps nevertheless learn something for our work from these old studies on journalistic practices.

The focus here is again on quality and selection, i.e. how decisions are made about what is published and when. These decisions are very closely linked to the power structures in an editorial office and also in the organisation to which the editorial office belongs. As content strategists, we are always the advocates of the users who are interested or should be interested in the content. That’s why there are always conflicts with the power structures in organisations in our work.