Abstract
Journalistic role conceptions are usually understood as internalised professional conventions about the tasks reporters pursue in society. This study insists that more attention be put on the relational and context-dependent nature of journalistic role conceptions. Adopting a social-interactionist approach to journalistic roles, the study examines how Finnish journalists conceived of their professional roles when covering asylum issues during the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015–2016. Based on an analysis of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 24 journalists, we highlight how considerations of the political context and interactions with three key reference groups—officials, asylum seekers and anti-immigrant publics—shaped the journalists’ conceptions of their tasks and duties. The article contributes to the study of journalistic role conceptions by illustrating how the conceptualisation of journalistic roles in relation to reference groups takes place in practice. It also sheds light on the tensions involved in journalistic balancing and negotiation between various available role conceptions, especially in the shifting societal and political contexts of a Europe marked by multiculturalism and the simultaneous rise of anti-immigrant movements.
Highlights
As migration, both voluntary and forced, reshapes the lived experiences of peoples, journalism emerges as one of the key cultural practices that can facilitate the adaption of societies to increasingly global and multicultural realities
As challenges to the neutrality and trustworthiness of mainstream news media are being voiced by previously marginalised voices, what purposes journalism should serve and how news reporters ought to represent various political views are issues ever more frequently raised in public by those participating in contemporary societal conflicts
This study examines how Finnish journalists conceived of their professional roles when covering the “refugee crisis”
Summary
Both voluntary and forced, reshapes the lived experiences of peoples, journalism emerges as one of the key cultural practices that can facilitate the adaption of societies to increasingly global and multicultural realities. Due to their professional expertise and institutional position as the principal providers of daily knowledge about distant events, journalists are influential interpreters of global processes for national and local audiences (Berglez, 2013), while shaping collectivelyshared social imaginaries and normative sensibilities about living in culturally diverse societies (Deuze, 2005; Ojala, 2011).
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