Hierarchy of influences on transitional journalism – Corrupting relationships between political, economic and media elites

Abstract

In this article, we use the hierarchy-of-influences model as a framework for examining the ways in which media owners, managers and journalists perceive the influence exerted on their work during 12-year democratic transition in Serbia. We aim to explain how factors perceived as influential at the highest system level gradually transfer and relate to the factors on the subsumed levels. Using the concepts such as corruption and the culture of corruption to interpret hierarchy between different levels of influence on transitional journalism, we argue that coupling extra-media actors at the system level can be considered corruption – understood as abuse of power for personal gain or benefit of the aligned group – which translates to all other levels of influence.