Journalistic Autonomy Research Articles

Job Autonomy: How Kenyan Newspeople Perceive Their Journalistic Latitudes

ABSTRACTNational in scope, this survey of Kenyan journalists conducted in 2012–2013 (n = 504) examines job autonomy in news selection decisions, media freedom and predictors of journalistic autonomy. The research also investigates the relationship between Kenya’s media freedom and journalistic autonomy. Findings show that over half (59%) of respondents believe that there is enough media freedom in Kenya. Similarly, there is a positive correlation between media freedom and journalistic autonomy—a relationship though moderate is statistically significant. While four in 10 Kenyan journalists have “some freedom” in deciding what to include in news, only 15.5 per cent enjoy “almost complete freedom,” and 31.7 per cent have “a great deal of freedom.” When analysed by demographics and work-related variables, male journalists reported higher autonomy than their female colleagues. Older and more experienced journalists have more freedoms than those who are younger and limited in work experience. Journalists with advanced education (doctorate and MA degree holders), those employed on full-time basis, and high monthly earners enjoy more job autonomy. Kenyan journalists working for international media organisations reported far higher autonomy than those in the local media. Job satisfaction and job autonomy emerged as the strongest predictors of journalistic autonomy in the Kenyan media.

Management and resistance in the digital newsroom

What happens when there is conflict between the profit motivations of a news outlet and the professional values of its journalists? Questions of managerial influence and journalistic autonomy have ...

Autonomía profesional y riesgos de seguridad de los periodistas en Colombia

Este artículo analiza la relación entre autonomía profesional y los riesgos de seguridad de los periodistasen Colombia, a partir de una investigación correlacional-transversal que utilizó un muestreopor cuota de 751 periodistas que diligenciaron a nivel nacional el cuestionario del estudio “Worldsof Journalism”. Como resultado se encontró que la variable “agresiones recibidas” presentó diferenciassignificativas respecto al género, la sección informativa, la región, el medio informativo, losaños de experiencia, el cargo y el nivel educativo de los periodistas; que las agresiones correlacionanpositivamente con la autonomía para publicar noticias sobre gobiernos, fuerzas armadas, bandascriminales y problemas sociales estructurales (pobreza, situación de las minorías étnicas, desigualdadsocial, daños ambientales), y que este último es un factor predictor del riesgo alto de seguridad. Laautonomía mostró ser un factor protector del acoso sexual laboral y del arresto ilegal.

Managing the newsroom: Perceptions of influence and control among Swedish newspaper professionals

Abstract Journalistic organizations are currently undergoing rapid change. One striking feature of this transformation is the increased influence of managerial discourse in the newsroom. Editorial leadership is proving to be more professionalized, standardized and accentuated than before, which could affect journalistic autonomy and status. In this article we investigate the shifting power balance in news production by focusing on the management–staff relationship in Swedish newspapers and discussing the possible consequences of this development for the professional autonomy of journalists. Empirical support is drawn from two national surveys and a small interview study of Swedish newspaper journalists. The results indicate a move towards managerial dominance in the newsroom during the last decade, but also that journalists to some extent seem to approve of this development. Even so, the results may be another indication of a de-professionalization of journalists to the benefit of the managerial group in the news business.

Book Review: Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation by Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis, eds.

Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation. Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis, eds. New York: Routledge, 2015. 233 pp. $46.95 pbk.With no Oxford comma in its title, Boundaries of Journalism: Professionalism, Practices and Participation indicates that it will reach beyond academic audiences. By choosing plural-boundaries instead of the boundary-editors Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis also suggest that complexities surfacing at this field's borders will lead readers into many different territory-exploring adventures. In those respects, this book delivers a mind-opening survey of a multitude of issues around evolution of in digital age.As a package of a dozen chapters, written by different authors-sandwiched between an introduction from Carlson (an associate professor at Saint Louis University) and an epilogue from Lewis (an associate professor at University of Oregon)-the view of journalism here only gets more gray and hazy as this book progresses. Is citizen really at all? Is wall between editorial content and business interests made of stone or air? When is news so soft it loses its label? Are reader comments a part of story or something separate? Can nonprofit groups, engaged in a societal issue, also create legitimate about that issue? The questions raised here blow down deteriorated fences in field all over place, leaving one to wonder what exactly is anymore. To be a plumber, Carlson notes, requires a license; to be a journalist, though, a person simply has to have an Internet connection. But there must be more to it than that.Instead of reverting, as Carlson described it, to a functionalist accounting of who qualifies as a journalist and what qualifies as journalism, this book probes deeply into field as a cultural practice embedded within a complicated social landscape. From this perspective, is not a solid form, accessible via checklists, but a constantly shifting ideological spirit that drifts in and out of ephemeral shapes, depending on context. Yet it needs to be established as something, so it is not confused or absorbed into something else.Carlson melds into this inquiry work of sociologist Thomas Gieryn and his ideas about boundary work, as distinguishing some intellectual activities from others. Gieryn established three primary components of such a pursuit, as a way to identify insiders and outsiders through identification of players and stakeholders, goals and interests, and arenas. Carlson and Lewis combine these ideas with others, such as actor-network theory; they then separate book into two general categories: professionalism, norms and boundaries and encountering non-journalistic actors in newsmaking. In this boundary-defining work, they focus their resources primarily on expansion (bringing in new participants, such as bloggers) expulsion (rejecting deviant behaviors, such as Jayson Blair's fabrications in New York Times), and protection of autonomy of journalists (from undue influences by public relations agents, advertising departments, politicians, etc. …

Journalism Under Threat

Previous studies of intimidation and harassment of journalists have (rightly) focused on non-democratic and authoritarian nations and/or transitional/emerging democracies. In this article, we examine the situation in Sweden, a country with strong de facto and de jure safeguards of journalistic freedom and autonomy. We report the findings from a representative survey of Swedish journalists where three themes are analysed: the extent of harassment, the forms of harassment, and the consequences of intimidation and harassment. The results show that a third of the respondents had experienced threats at work in the past year, and an overwhelming majority said they had received offensive and insulting comments. Intimidation and harassment also had consequences, both professionally and personally, such as fear and self-censorship. We therefore argue that it is time to add the dimension of external pressure and threats to the discussion of journalistic autonomy—including in countries like Sweden.

LA PERCEPCIÓN DE LOS NIVELES DE AUTONOMÍA PROFESIONAL DE LOS PERIODISTAS DE ECUADOR

This article shows the results about the perception of the level of professional autonomy of Ecuadorian journalists in their daily work and major constraints that are based on influence factors. This study is part of the project Culture Journalism of Ecuador ( cje) in which 31 journalists within 6 media (public, private and communitarian) were interviewed. Professional autonomy is one of the main values that determine the level of professionalism in journalism, which is directly linked to the concepts of self-regulation, freedom of speech and independence. This situation causes that influences perceived by the journalists —from the actor level, institution level and system level (Oller & Meier, 2012)— directly affct their professional freedom of action and, therefore, their rates of autonomy. The results show that most of the journalists interviewed considered to have complete freedom in their media and that the main constraints come from the system levels, specifically the current legislation in communication.

The politicisation of journalism in Spain: three obstacles to the professional autonomy of journalists

El periodismo politico desempena un papel clave las democracias actuales. No obstante, sus caracteristicas y dinamicas de funcionamiento cambian en funcion del contexto geografico en el que se insertan. En el caso espanol, uno de sus rasgos distintivos es el alto nivel de compromiso politico de los medios. El objetivo de este articulo es analizar los principales problemas que se derivan actualmente de ese elevado grado de politizacion y, en consecuencia, los obstaculos que se presentan para el correcto funcionamiento de la democracia. Para ello, se profundiza en esta cuestion a partir de tres aspectos fundamentales: el periodismo declarativo, la influencia de los gabinetes de comunicacion y la cobertura televisiva en campana electoral basada en la proporcionalidad parlamentaria. La metodologia se basa en la aplicacion de entrevistas en profundidad a una muestra de 45 sujetos (22 periodistas, 16 actores politicos y 7 consultores politicos). Los resultados demuestran que los cuatro obstaculos definidos actuan como factor potenciador de la politizacion, ya que limitan las funciones tradicionales de observacion y supervision de la politica operadas por el periodismo y abren las puertas al control de los medios por parte de los actores politicos mediante la interferencia en las rutinas productivas. Igualmente, se detectan diferencias significativas a la hora de valorar estas obstrucciones entre los actores implicados. Los periodistas las valoran negativamente por sus implicaciones en la reduccion de su autonomia profesional, pero reconocen su incapacidad para dar una respuesta conjunta a las mismas. Por su parte, los politicos despliegan un doble discurso, lamentando la generalizacion de estas practicas pero justificando tambien su existencia como un mal menor o desviando la responsabilidad hacia los periodistas, a quienes se culpa de su vigencia.

Playing by a Different Set of Rules

The notion that journalists in an interconnected world increasingly share values typically associated with the so-called “professional model” has gained considerable currency with scholars arguing that ideas such as a belief in journalistic autonomy, public service, objectivity, and the significance of ethics are widely espoused by journalists on a global scale. Underlying this conceptualization is a taken-for-granted assumption regarding the adoption of journalistic values that originated in Western democracies which neglects how they are embraced in non-Western contexts. This paper examines newsroom values in India’s regional television channels, which have emerged as a major news source in the country. Findings indicate that in the case of Indian regional television, local socio-political and economic factors undermine the adoption of professional norms derived from the Anglo-European model by Indian journalists who see such norms as having little functional value or relevance to their work.

Religious Impact on Media Co-regulation: a Case Study of Russia

The proposed paper is focused on media co-regulation and civic accountability from the perspective of religious ethos. The author analyses the process of religion mediatization in the Russian public sphere and presents the findings of a case study of the project entitled “Public Council on Morality for TV”. Classifying different situations when religions face the media and vice versa, the paper presents some empirically fixed facts and trends of dysfunction and corruption in the religious life coverage in Russia. Drawing attention to several particular features of the Russian context (public opinion, autonomy of journalists, agenda-setting and management problem, etc.), the author puts forward a set of significant obstacles for the moral control of the media: the axiological problem (the lack of value consensus in the Russian society), the evaluative problem (absence of a moral monitoring in the mass media and the public sphere), and the communicative problem (the absence of a well-articulated dialogue of value systems).

Influir sobre los medios: la tensa relación entre asesores comunicacionales de la élite y periodistas políticos

Exploramos la interacción entre periodistas políticos y asesores comunicacionales de la élite chilena. Encuestamos a periodistas con acreditación permanente en la sede presidencial y el Congreso. Los periodistas realizan una valoración ambivalente de los estrategas comunicacionales, y hay escasa reflexión crítica acerca de las consecuencias que la relación tiene sobre la autonomía periodística.

Chinese Journalists' Discursive Weibo Practices in an Extended Journalistic Sphere

This study examines Chinese journalists' Weibo practices by analyzing 2659 Weibo posts by journalists. Previous studies indicate that Western journalists generally “normalize” their posting activities on social media to fit their professional standards and practices, but this normalization practice is conducted in a more complicated way in China. Our findings suggest that Chinese journalists' Weibo practices are influenced by four offline journalistic discourses: Party-press, professionalism, market economy, and Confucian intellectual. Overall, Chinese journalists' Weibo discourses exhibit political caution, professionalism deviation, marketing commitment, and Confucian intellectual expression. By comparing officially oriented and commercially oriented journalists, we find that commercial journalists who are subject to less political and organizational control were more politically engaged, professionalism deviant, and socially conscious. This study treats “journalists' Weibo” as a spin-off journalistic sphere. On this new technological platform, Chinese journalists are able to enjoy increased journalistic autonomy and freedom. Thus, while Chinese journalists normalize their Weibo practices based on their existing offline journalistic discourses, the spin-off sphere of Weibo provides them with new opportunities to deviate from traditional journalistic norms. Yet, we find that official political and organizational control is still tight. Thus, technological innovation and socio-political context are both important in influencing journalists' discursive practices on this extended news sphere.

Editor's Introduction: Innovations in the newsroom – and beyond

I summarize both the four contributions to the theme issue - innovations in the newsroom - and the general article, highlighting their common threads and connections with larger literatures. The two major threads are (1) the primary brakes on media innovations, for better and for worse, frequently come from within the media sectors (e.g., editorial offices, newsroom practices, business practices), in contrast with innovation as developed and "pushed" from the ICT industries; and (2) two of the theme issue articles take up the core normative value of autonomy, highlighting how far innovations may foster and/or hinder consumer and/or journalistic autonomy. These connect in turn with themes and threads raised in our Inaugural Issue, beginning with the necessity of taking a holistic approach in our analyses of media innovations.

The Ethics of Web Analytics

The collection and reporting of audience data through Web analytics is reshaping the news construction process, with journalists now aware of what their online audiences want. A more important question than understanding this process of adoption of Web analytics in the newsroom is how access to audience metrics impacts on the journalism that journalists produce. In this essay, we pose three interconnected concerns about the use of Web analytics in journalism, guided by journalism’s communitarian role. First, we warn of the danger of viewing the audience as disaggregated segments based on consumer preference. Second, we argue against choice as a moral end and call for distinction between the public interest and what the public is interested in. Finally, we warn against the dangers of journalism studies romanticizing the audience and arguing too strongly against journalistic autonomy.

Journalistic Autonomy: Between Structure, Agency and Institution

Abstract This article investigates the concept of autonomy within the journalistic institution. A review of the literature reveals that journalist autonomy is restricted at the political, economic and organisational levels of news production, negotiated at the editorial level, and exercised at the level of practice. The article addresses the limits of professional autonomy, aiming for a wider contextualisation of the question to analyse the factors that restrict and enable journalistic autonomy. By investigating journalistic autonomy within the duality of structure, the analysis finds that autonomy is attained when journalists engage in the recursive reproduction of the institution. The level of autonomy enjoyed by journalists therefore remains a fluid concept that is continually adjusted to manage the daily task of reporting the news.

From control to autonomy? Journalism awards and the changing journalistic profession in Taiwan

In most professional fields, award giving often symbolizes the establishment of professional standards by acknowledging and promoting exemplary practices. Theoretically, awards also serve as an important indicator of the level of professional autonomy in a specific field. In Taiwan, numerous journalism awards have been established over the last 50 years under the claim of enhancing news quality. Yet these awards do not necessarily signify a high level of journalistic autonomy in Taiwan; instead, they have become an implicit control mechanism through which the government operates to shape news production to further its political agenda. Previous studies on Taiwan's news media during the Martial Law era often focused on the restrictions imposed on the media, analyzing the oppressive methods employed by the government to undermine the freedom of the press. This study, however, examines how the government uses award giving to establish and exemplify its journalistic preferences and thus control news production. Specifically, this study reviews the history of the major journalism awards established in Taiwan since the 1950s with a focus on three aspects in each historical period: (1) the characteristics of the award organizers; (2) the objectives of establishing the awards; and (3) the genre of the winning works.

The Autonomy of Scandinavian Public Service Broadcasters During Election Campaign Periods

Abstract This comparative case study explores the formal and informal principles governing election formats produced by the public service broadcasters in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. The focus is on external regulation vs. journalistic autonomy and on principles of balance and access. The conclusion is that the Scandinavian broadcasters, to a larger extent than broadcasters in other Western countries, independently control the form and content of their election formats. This journalistic autonomy, however, has brought about election formats governed by different principles of access. The Danish and Swedish formats are based on a moderate stopwatch logic, whereas the election formats in Norway center on criteria of audience appeal, resulting in a model of access disproportionately favoring certain political parties. The high degree of journalistic control of election formats in Scandinavia, paired with the low control of political parties encourage a discussion of some of the central premises in the Democratic Corporatist Model.

Cooperative or Adversarial? Journalists’ Enactment of the Watchdog Function in Political News Production

This study examines how power relations between journalism and political actors vary across the news production process. Applying a process approach, it addresses this issue by exploring journalists’ enactment of the watchdog role in two key moments of news production: the interactional phase and the news-construction phase. The study is conducted in the context of press conferences with the Swedish Government and involves data from question-and-answer sessions and published news content that was initiated by such press conferences. With a low or moderate extent of journalistic aggressiveness in the interactional phase, the results indicate that this moment is characterized by cooperativeness and can be described in accordance with an exchange model. By contrast, the analysis of the published news content demonstrates a high extent of criticism and is in line with an adversary model. Altogether, the findings contribute new evidence to suggest that the power relations between journalists and political actors vary across the moments of news production, and that journalistic autonomy increases in the later phases of the process. The differences in the extent of watchdog-role performance are discussed in terms of a strategic ritual by which news journalism promotes a favorable image of itself as a public watchdog institution.

Cultivating the media activist: How critical media literacy and critical service learning can reform journalism education

The task of journalism education has been defined in relation to both the professional needs of the journalism industry and the need to educate well-informed citizens. A key part of journalism education involves introducing students to what Deuze (2005) terms the professional ideology of journalism, which includes commitments to public service, commitments to impartiality or objectivity, and a belief in the ideal of journalistic autonomy. Deuze has argued that this professional ideology has shifted in response to multiculturalism and new media. This article therefore sets out to explore the implications of these changes for journalism education and for the formation of the worldview of student journalists. The article considers a case study of a project involving critical service learning in an introductory class for journalism students. The article proposes that media activism, public journalism, and critical service learning may be drawn upon in journalism education as resources in the formation of an emergent journalistic worldview. Exploring student responses to this project through a framework of Youth Participatory Action Research, the article argues that such efforts can help journalism educators to achieve the pedagogical goal of enabling students to critique existing arrangements of power and develop a globally sensitive perspective while producing news stories across media platforms that reflect a deep appreciation for learning about and understanding the diverse communities they serve.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACE

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this article examines how changes in investigative journalism have taken place in two Chinese provincial newspapers—the Dahe Daily and the Southern Metropolis Daily—in the period from 1997 to 2006 and what such changes mean for investigative journalism in the country as a whole. Investigative journalism started almost simultaneously in the two newspapers in the late 1990s but developed along different trajectories in the following 10 years. The differences are the result of interaction between investigative journalists, news organizations, and the varying local and national social contexts in which investigative journalism takes place. The practice of investigative journalism benefits from the institutionalized choice of journalistic values in a given social context. Chinese journalism within news organizations reflexively looks for an appropriate position in the social space of the locale where it operates and seeks to construct a proper social identity to join in the production of culture in that space. These dynamics have generated various levels of journalistic autonomy in different places across China.