Journalistic Autonomy Research Articles

Uneasy Bedfellows: AI in the News, Platform Companies and the Issue of Journalistic Autonomy

Platform companies play an important role in the production and distribution of news. This article analyses this role and questions of control, dependence and autonomy in the light of the ‘AI goldrush’ in the news. I argue that the introduction of AI in the news risks shifting even more control to and increasing the news industry’s dependence on platform companies. While platform companies’ power over news organisations has to date mainly flown from their control over the channels of distribution, AI potentially allows them to extend this control to the means of production as the technology increasingly permeates all stages of the news-making process. As a result, news organisations risk becoming even more tethered to platform companies in the long-run, potentially limiting their autonomy and, by extension, contributing to a restructuring of the public arena as news organisations are re-shaped according to the logics of platform businesses. I conclude by mapping a research agenda that highlights potential implications and spells out areas in need of further exploration.

Crumbled autonomy: Czech journalists leaving the Prime Minister's newspapers

In 2013, the Czech-Slovak businessman Andrej Babiš decided to widen the scope of his activities by buying the Czech media house, Mafra. He was also pursuing a political career and in 2017 became Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. Both the purchase and the political ascent of the new owner have contributed to the departure of many journalists from the two national newspapers in the Mafra Group. The journalists left in waves that corresponded to the stages of Babiš's takeover and the gradual tightening of his grip on the newsrooms, and their departure has done fatal damage to the reputation of Mafra newspapers. Through 10 in-depth interviews with some of the journalists who left, this case study charts the disintegration of the newsrooms to assess the decline of journalistic autonomy within the oligarchized media systems of central and eastern Europe. We aim to identify the point at which the erosion of workplace autonomy becomes unacceptable for media professionals and when the situation becomes inconsistent with their professional identities. The findings suggest that the gradual erosion of journalistic autonomy, caused mainly by changes in the organization's culture, led journalists first to accommodate to the changes and later to leave.

Egyptian Women Journalists’ Feminist Voices in a Shifting Digitalized Journalistic Field

This qualitative feminist study analyzes Egyptian women journalists’ articulations of their shifting roles, struggles, and resistances to the political, legal, socio-economic, and professional challenges in a shifting, hybrid, and digitalized journalistic field. Through analyzing 16 interviews with women journalists representing different media affiliations, experiences, and demographics, this study explores their varied perceptions of the shifts in journalistic professionalism and press freedom in Egypt, their equally shifting professional roles and struggles, and their varied resistance mechanisms. On the one hand, this study unpacks the multiple challenges facing them, such as restricted journalistic autonomy, limited access to information and technology, sexual harassment, lack of job security, and other forms of professional discrimination, in a male-dominated profession and a patriarchal culture. On the other hand, it investigates the parallel resistance mechanisms they deploy to overcome these challenges. We argue that the amalgamation of these cyclical, push-and-pull dynamics gave birth to a new “differentiated media landscape” (Schroeder 2018), representing a third space between mainstream media and citizen journalism, the online and the offline, and the old and the new, in a rapidly evolving journalistic field.

Between Personal and Public Interest: How Algorithmic News Recommendation Reconciles with Journalism as an Ideology

Throughout modern history, the introduction of new technologies in journalism has challenged journalistic roles and the normative landscape of journalism, and the emergent use of personalised news recommender systems seems no exception given personalisation’s inherent democratic risk and commercial nature. However, current literature offers limited insight into how these technologies reconcile with the shared ideological norms and beliefs of journalists. This article identifies recurring tensions between journalism’s ideology and increasing commercial pressures in existing literature focusing on illustrative examples of digital technology implementations in journalism, and discusses how personalised news recommendation may recreate or mediate these tensions. The findings suggest that personalised news recommendation can facilitate journalism in service of the public by using value-sensitive algorithmic design that incorporates editorial input and nudges users to view diverse and serendipitous content. The findings additionally emphasise the importance of algorithmic transparency as a constituent element to distinguish nudging that prompts reflective behaviour from manipulation of choice, thus mediating tensions with journalism’s ideological aspirations to be fair and objective. Lastly, the paper calls for a higher level of understanding and interaction between journalists and algorithmic designers to mediate the impact on journalistic autonomy and ease the inherent transfer of editorial authority over distribution.

A threat to journalism? How journalists and advertising sales managers in news organizations perceive and cope with native advertising

In the course of digitization, the traditional business model of news organizations has been substantially challenged, making innovative formats necessary to master the business of online news. Native advertising (i.e., sponsored articles) is considered an escape from this dilemma. In adapting to journalistic content, this advertising format is distinct from conventional online advertising and allows advertisers to convey persuasive messages in an unobtrusive manner. However, despite its financial benefits, there are ethical concerns about native advertising, which is inherently and intentionally deceptive to its audience. Moreover, native advertising perforates the normative wall separating journalistic responsibilities from advertisers’ interests. In news organizations, this is reflected in the relationship between journalists and advertising sales managers. The present study therefore explored how individuals in these two roles differ in their perceptions of risks and opportunities related to native advertising and in how they cope with ethical concerns. Exploring the power relations between journalists and sales managers in collaborations on native advertising, this study also sheds light on potential restrictions of journalistic autonomy caused by native advertising.

«Technological paternalism»: current trends in domestic data journalism

The article considers the further growth of the role of big data in society, the widespread use of new practices and methods of obtaining information, such as profiling consumer information, biometric data, automation, new opportunities for news reporting. Modern journalistic practices of news information presentation journalism are discussed. Because big data-based algorithms, which have recently been widely implemented to «optimize the performance» of social networks and search engines, often determine what information will be displayed and which sites respond to search queries. By creating and training neural networks, our preferences are analyzed — likes, reposts, comments — and on this basis, an individual news feed is formed for each account. As a result, the views that users do not share are gradually disappearing from the feed, and those that they like are emerging. The news world is becoming comfortable and understandable. The combination of machine and journalistic selection results is particularly interesting through the prism of data journalism, as this type of journalistic activity can be seen as the result of journalistic and technological practices. Based on a qualitative statistical analysis of news sites, the study examines how data journalism works in the news cycle of professional newsrooms. In addition, the publication explores the innovations that data journalism brings to storytelling, news gathering, and dissemination. Through statistical analysis of the content of these Internet resources, a clear direction in the information policy of media companies to give preference to linear formats of information messages. This direction of consumer information is more effective compared to truly interactive and less paternalistic data journalism projects. Thus, paternalism is probably the best from a commercial point of view. Professional paternalism is an important source for maintaining journalistic autonomy, while in public debates and on technology platforms «bubble filters» and delegating decision-making to machines are considered negative paternalism. In an age when journalism merges with artificial intelligence and journalists and engineers create algorithms side by side to protect their immunity, journalists need to make sure that the audience is informed about the methodology, the validity of the choice of design in interactive programs, clearly motivated. In our opinion, problems arise only if the auditor (journalist or program / developer) does not pay attention to the difference between filtering and selection in different digital texts.

Resisting Perceived Interference in Journalistic Autonomy: The Study of Public Service Media in Slovakia

Autonomy is of paramount importance for journalism, but there is little empirically based knowledge of how journalists cope when it is threatened. Using a case study approach, this contribution examines a newsroom conflict that took place in the public service Radio and Television of Slovakia. It started when the new director general, a person believed to have ties to one of the coalition political parties, was elected by the parliament in 2017, and it culminated in layoffs and resignations of more than 30 reporters and editors in 2018. The case study is based on semi-structured interviews (N = 16) with the journalists who decided to quit in protest of what they called “creeping political pressure,” those whose contracts were not prolonged, those who decided to stay at their jobs, and the members of the previous and the new management. Building on the interviews and document analysis, the article inductively develops a classification scheme for resistance practices the journalists used to cope with the perceived interference with their professional autonomy that came from within their media organisation. These practices include having internal discussions, voicing concerns during newsroom meetings, writing an internal letter to the management, meeting with the management, establishing a trade union, requesting mediation, writing an open letter to the viewers and listeners, publicly criticising the management in the media, voluntarily asking to be re-assigned to another topic area or position in order to avoid interference, staying at one’s job in open opposition to the management, and resigning in protest.

“I Know Which Devil I Write for”: Two Types of Autonomy Among Czech Journalists Remaining in and Leaving the Prime Minister's Newspapers

This paper examines two different understandings of professional autonomy among journalists currently and formerly working at Mafra, a Czech media house acquired in 2013 by Andrej Babiš, who in 2017 became the Czech Prime Minister. We build on existing research of local trends in media ownership and journalistic autonomy to ask the following questions: What differentiated the experience of journalists who exited the organization after the ownership change from that of those who stayed put? How did the two groups understand professional journalistic autonomy? Based on the thematic analysis of twenty semistructured interviews with ten journalists who stayed in the media house after Babiš's acquisition and ten journalists who left, we argue that in the journalists’ narratives, the two decisions reflect two different notions of autonomy: autonomy-as-a-practice and autonomy-as-a-value. While our findings add to the scarce empirical research on journalists’ lived experiences of the region's mediascape marked by growing comingling and concentration of political, economic and media power, we also suggest that the autonomy-as-a-practice and journalists’ agency should be further studied as a possible way how to perform and promote journalistic autonomy even in illiberalizing contexts—in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.

Media in Croatia: from freedom fighters to tabloid avengers

The article provides an overview of the Croatian media landscape and its transformation that has been driven by the processes of democratization, commercialization and digitalization.The main media-related concerns from 1990 to 2000 were freedom of the press, autonomy of journalism and censorship. The liberalization of the media market that started in 2000, led to proliferation of media outlets and galloping commercialization of media ownership and content. The next big change came with digitalization that fundamentally altered media habits of Croatian audiences. Television was preceded by online media as the main source of news while the press registers constant decline in readership, trust and advertising revenues. Radio remains the most trusted medium, as opposed to social media that are the least trusted source of information. Nevertheless, the level of trust in social networks in Croatia is considerably higher than the EU average.The data on media freedom and journalistic autonomy indicate that Croatia has made significant progress in this respect in the past thirty years. Although problems related to freedom, autonomy and political pressure persist, the biggest threat to journalism nowadays seems to come from within the profession. Commercialization, coupled with digitalization and merciless struggle for survival, eventually led news media to succumb to tabloid-style journalism and to radically downplay their professional standards. Although the role of the media as a social corrective remains undisputed, such media practices seem to cultivate ‘media fatigue’ and foster distrust in political institutions. In such an ethically challenging environment, the newsrooms and professional organizations remain for the most part silent about eroding professional standards.

From “Cool Observer” to “Emotional Participant”: The Practice of Immersive Journalism

ABSTRACT Over the past years, innovative technologies (such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR)) have become more common within news organizations. These technologies allow users to immerse themselves in a virtual world. With these types of productions, the journalist tries to engage and involve the user by introducing emotional styles, often to create empathy. This does not only demand new technological skills, but also challenges the way journalist allow emotions in journalistic productions, and what role they take in relation to the story and the user. Through fifteen in-depth interviews with immersive producers and experts in renowned news organizations across the globe, this paper examines both the motivations of journalists who produce immersive stories, and how they seek to balance traditional journalistic norms and emotionality in them. The results show that journalists believe that emotions and facts can be compatible with journalistic production. Yet, they struggle with their role in relation to the user. Immersive journalism obliges journalists to carefully reconsider their relationship with their public. In sum, this study illuminates an ongoing professional debate on the role of emotionality, user agency, and journalistic control and autonomy.

Independent or a political pawn? How recipients perceive influences on journalistic work compared to journalists and what explains their perceptions

Journalistic autonomy is a prerequisite for the public function of journalism. Although most journalists in Western democracies indicate particularly low political or economic influences on their work, there is evidence that recipients assume that journalism is driven primarily by political and economic interests. These perceptual discrepancies can be problematic as perceived influences on journalistic work are known to reduce recipients’ media trust. Hence, this study addresses the extent to which recipients perceive influences on journalistic work, how their perceptions differ from that of journalists, and which variables explain recipients’ perceptions. A representative online survey of German recipients ( n = 1000) and the representative sample of German journalists of the Worlds of Journalism Study ( n = 775) demonstrate that recipients perceive stronger influences on journalistic work than journalists do, especially in regard to politics and economics. Furthermore, recipients who display higher levels of anti-elitism, selective exposure and media literacy assume stronger influences on journalistic work.

Overseas media, homeland audiences: examining determinants of newsmaking in Deutsche Welle’s Amharic Service

Historically, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia’s (FDRE) media environment faced a state apparatus that had been hostile to journalism practice. In particular, government-sponsored intimidation, jailing, and censorship of journalists paralyzed non-state journalistic institutions. With the political establishment’s hostility toward non-state press incapacitating credible journalism internally, foreign-based international and diasporic news outlets have enjoyed considerable following by Ethiopians. In the absence of reliable domestic news sources, Germany’s public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), alongside the Voice of America, has become arguably the most sought-after source of news in Ethiopia. Through data generated from interviews with newsroom staff, document analysis, and workflow observation, the purpose of this study is to examine newsmaking determinants in DW’s Amharic Service. The study identifies three major factors that influence newsmaking practices at DW Amharic, namely ideological determinants, geographic determinants, and audience-generated determinants. Ideological determinants mainly ascribe to the tensions between the host (Germany) and homeland (Ethiopia), emerging principally from the former’s mission of ‘a democratic export’ and the latter’s resistance to it. Geographic determinants enhanced journalistic safety at the expense of eyewitness reporting and sourcing triangulation. Finally, in engaging with audience-generated determinants, findings reveal how partisan political groups attempt to exert pressure on coverage and the mechanisms the newsroom implemented to navigate externally generated challenges of journalistic autonomy.

Inside or out? Perceptions of how Differing Types of Comment Moderation Impact Practice

ABSTRACT This study examines how the moderation of reader comments influences journalism practice. Through in-depth interviews with journalists working at both organizations that perform in-house comment moderation and organizations that employ outside organizations such as Facebook to do moderation, the study aims to illuminate how comments can influence newswork on multiple levels of analysis, all the while decreasing journalistic autonomy. The paper concludes by theorizing how to protect autonomy while still prioritizing community participation.

From One Division of Labor to the Other: The Relation between Beat Reporting, Freelancing, and Journalistic Autonomy

ABSTRACT In this paper, we focus on the consequences of cost-cutting strategies for the division of labor in newsrooms both in terms of differences between generalist profiles and beat reporters, and in terms of differences between permanent staff and freelancers. A large-scale representative survey of Belgian journalists in 2013 and 2018 shows that the number of beat reporters has remained stable although these journalists are expected to cover a higher number of beats. We also noticed a sharp increase of self-employed journalists. The prestigious political beat seems to benefit from a protected position in the newsroom and is mostly staffed by payroll journalists. Other beats are under pressure, most importantly the regional beat (that has decreased over the course of 5 years) and the lifestyle beat. The latter group of journalists are predominantly freelancers and report low levels of perceived autonomy from commercial and non-commercial pressure. The findings raise concerns about negative side-effects of cost-cutting strategies including a tendency towards more homogeneous news production and increasing influence of PR on journalism.

Fact-Checking Interventions as Counteroffensives to Disinformation Growth: Standards, Values, and Practices in Latin America and Spain

As democracy-building tools, fact-checking platforms serve as critical interventions in the fight against disinformation and polarization in the public sphere. The Duke Reporters’ Lab notes that there are 290 active fact-checking sites in 83 countries, including a wide range of initiatives in Latin America and Spain. These regions share major challenges such as limited journalistic autonomy, difficulties of accessing public data, politicization of the media, and the growing impact of disinformation. This research expands upon the findings presented in previous literature to gain further insight into the standards, values, and underlying practices embedded in Spanish and Latin American projects while identifying the specific challenges that these organizations face. In-depth interviews were conducted with decision-makers of the following independent platforms: <em>Chequeado</em> (Argentina), <em>UYCheck</em> (Uruguay), <em>Maldita.es</em> and <em>Newtral</em> (Spain), <em>Fact Checking</em> (Chile), <em>Agência Lupa</em> (Brazil), <em>Ecuador Chequea</em> (Ecuador), and <em>ColombiaCheck</em> (Colombia). This qualitative approach offers nuanced data on the volume and frequency of checks, procedures, dissemination tactics, and the perceived role of the public. Despite relying on small teams, the examined outlets’ capacity to verify facts is noteworthy. Inspired by best practices in the US and Europe and the model established by <em>Chequeado</em>, all the sites considered employ robust methodologies while leveraging the power of digital tools and audience participation. Interviewees identified three core challenges in fact-checking practice: difficulties in accessing public data, limited resources, and the need to reach wider audiences. Starting from these results, the article discusses the ways in which fact-checking operations could be strengthened.

Reporting ‘African gangs’: Theorising journalistic practice during a multi-mediated moral panic

This article uses Bourdieusian field theory to examine how journalistic practices contributed to a multi-mediated moral panic about ‘African gangs’ in Melbourne, Australia. Empirical insight is supplied via interviews with journalists who identified traditional media outlets as ‘secondary definers’ that amplified and legitimised this racialised threat construction. Participants attributed the intense and sensationalised media coverage to the political climate, the newsworthiness of racialised ‘folk devils’, and the economic and technological transformation of the journalistic field. These transformations were perceived to have negatively influenced journalistic standards by incentivising the efficient production of commodifiable content. Participants described how these structural changes were filtered through the social personalities of different news outlets; they shaped, and were reproduced through, distinct managerial cultures, editorial routines and journalistic habitus. The emergent nomos (‘rules of the game’) was perceived to constrain the autonomy of journalists, particularly those lacking cultural capital, and limit opportunities for contestation of the ‘African gangs’ narrative. Journalists seemingly adapted by engaging in practices which reflected their attempts to negotiate these conditions and establish coherent narrative identities. In some cases, this entailed the neutralisation of what journalists recognised as ethically questionably reporting practices.

Between Journalist Authorship and User Agency: Exploring the Concept of Objectivity in VR Journalism

ABSTRACT Virtual Reality (VR) journalism has brought many changes to journalistic practice, calling facticity, accuracy, objectivity and autonomy into question. This study examines factors influencing objectivity and its significance in VR journalism from the perspective of VR content creators. The researcher conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with fact-based VR content creators. The findings showed the diverse understandings of objectivity among VR content creators and the growing acceptance of VR as a subjective experience. The 360° spherical view reduces the ability to frame the content. The different story-paths in interactive VR storytelling may add perspectives to the story. However, the VR user retains the ability to actively explore the virtual environment, deciding what to experience and what to dismiss. VR emphasises user-induced subjectivity in addition to the already existing journalist-induced subjectivity, in which the journalist chooses camera placement and provides a guided experience. Subjectivity is inescapable in VR and its impact is magnified, suggesting extra caution from VR content creators to protect users and affirming the need for the notion of pragmatic objectivity.

Determinants of Journalists’ Autonomy and Safety: Evidence from the Worlds of Journalism Study

ABSTRACT The present study is an attempt to examine how objective structural political forces and subjective perception of political influences determine journalists’ autonomy and safety. The evidence is based on responses representing journalists from 65 countries, which adds to the cross-cultural robustness of the results that inform theory and that bear significant implications for efforts of journalists’ protection. The results reveal a strong positive correlation between press freedom and democracy in one hand and editorial autonomy and safety of journalists on the other. The results also show a strong negative correlation between journalists’ perception of political influences and editorial autonomy and safety. The correlation between journalists’ autonomy and safety was not as strong as expected.

Triangle of Tension: How Social System, Market Forces & Journalistic Autonomy Influence Web Analytics Use

ABSTRACT This study seeks to understand how newsrooms negotiate and navigate their way in adopting and using web analytics within an environment where the influence of the social system interacts with the influences of market forces and journalistic autonomy. Based on interviews with 22 editors and journalists from 13 publications in Singapore, this study finds two interesting trends: First, news organisations in Singapore follow closely how web analytics is used in newsrooms in the West and have embraced it but are cautious and selective, especially when it touches on sensitive issues like politics, race, and religion. Second, conceptualisations of web analytics use in earlier research conducted in the Western context is less significant in Singapore where its use accentuates a triangle of tension between three forces: the social system, journalistic autonomy, and market values. The findings show a need to expand the understanding of the place of web analytics in journalism—and how individual journalists adopt and adapt it in their news work—beyond the dominant market-forces-versus-journalistic-autonomy framework, especially in contexts where social system structures exert strong influences on journalism.

Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making

Social media platforms have increasingly become an important way for news organizations to distribute content to their audiences. As news organizations relinquish control over distribution, they may feel the need to optimize their content to align with platform logics to ensure economic sustainability. However, the opaque and often proprietary nature of platform algorithms makes it hard for news organizations to truly know what kinds of content are preferred and will perform well. Invoking the concept of algorithmic ‘folk theories,’ this article presents a study of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 U.S.-based news journalists and editors to understand how they make sense of social media algorithms, and to what extent this influences editorial decision making. Our findings suggest that while journalists’ understandings of platform algorithms create new considerations for gatekeeping practices, the extent to which it influences those practices is often negotiated against traditional journalistic conceptions of newsworthiness and journalistic autonomy.