25 years of journalism on tablets: notes from a future that never happened

Abstract

This study examined 25 years of press publications on tablets and traced the full adoption curve of this technology by journalistic organizations—from the early expectations surrounding products that could revolutionize journalism to their gradual replacement by other devices. The article discusses how narrative analysis can serve as an important tool for understanding innovation processes and developing of business strategies in journalism. The methodology follows the Narrative Analysis approach proposed by Luiz Motta and seeks to identify how the body of texts published between 1993—the year Wired was founded—and 2017 constitutes a history of tablets as the future of computing. The narrative constructed by Wired about tablets is presented in the form of episodes that highlight moments when journalistic events shaped expectations, definitions, and reference frameworks for these devices, while revealing how the publication’s editorial choices were intertwined with elements of digital culture.