To Intervene or be Neutral, to Investigate or Entertain?

Abstract

Through a series of surveys of Nordic journalism students in 2005, 2008 and 2012 (N = 4665 respondents from 30 institutions in five countries), this article investigates the differences in students' role perceptions and their link to national, institutional and personal factors. After discussing some methodological challenges for comparative survey studies of journalists and journalism students, the major differences in students' role perceptions are extracted using multiple correspondence analysis, which revealed: (1) an opposition of participatory versus neutral ideals, and (2) an opposition between investigative and recreational ideals, which in both cases are linked to a range of factors, including type of educational institution, social background, previous journalistic experience and year of study. While marked national differences in role perceptions are found to be present, subsequent analysis of single countries shows that the above oppositions are also found within the national context and linked to similar sociological characteristics, demonstrating the inadequacy of simple nation-type explanations of journalistic role perceptions.