Journalists’ roles and ethics in turbulent times: contemporary controversies in Ukraine

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union started a new era of media transformations in Ukraine. The end of state-controlled media associated with censorship and informational isolation, first lessons of transition to market-driven media system, political turbulences and pressures, and the emergence of journalism professional values, new rhythms dictated by technologies – they all caused significant and rapid changes to journalism culture and media practice. This article is devoted to the issues of media freedom in contemporary post-Soviet Ukraine. Based on the interpretive and visual (collage elicitation) research, it suggests looking at the phenomenon of journalists’ freedom through the journalists’ considerations and as a part of individual ethics, and explores how journalists see their role within the media practices they experience. Ukrainian journalists cannot play the role of agents in democratic change. Justifying the experienced pressures by different, usually external, reasons, Ukrainian journalists tend to adjust ethical norms to existing practices. It causes further conflict between normative standards and their interpretation and implementation in practice that is, according to Voltmer and Dobreva (2009), typical for new democracies in which old structures and values coexist with new democratic norms. In this paper, first, a review of the path of journalism evolution in post-Soviet and contemporary Ukraine and the forces behind the pressures journalists experience. Further, I will refer to the particularities of normative and individual journalism ethics as they are discussed in theoretical works and, finally, present the results of qualitative study showing how journalists interpret their ethical choices and decisions, and, more importantly, perceive their professional roles when they discuss their experienced practices.