Role Of Journalism Research Articles

Gentrificación? We know her

This article responds to Ben Gerlofs and Ernesto López Morales’ article, “¿Quién es gentrificación (‘who is gentrificación’)?” It explores the term “blanqueamiento,” which emerged from Mexico City housing activism, highlighting its ability to reveal the interlaced racism, corruption, and cultural erasure in urban transformation. The response discusses how “gentrificación nos queda corto” (“gentrification falls short”) and the necessity of new terms like “blanqueamiento” to address the complexities of urban development. By examining local discourses and the role of scholars, activists, and journalists, the paper underscores the importance of diverse terminologies in advancing urban spatial justice. It argues that while “gentrification” has facilitated global conversations, terms like “blanqueamiento” are crucial for highlighting different aspects of the process, thereby advancing efforts to dismantle structures of inequality and envision more just urban futures.

The role of journalists of the State Border Guard Service in military journalism in Ukraine

Modern Ukrainian media and communicators pay great attention to military journalism. Today, this field is gaining popularity in Ukraine and the world, as more and more media representatives work in conditions that threaten their health and lives. The challenges of hybrid warfare make scientists more interested in military topics, as the war is waged on two fronts — military and informational. The article considers the stages of formation and development of Ukrainian military journalism, focusing on its current state. Attention is drawn to the state of scientific research of modern military journalism. The role of journalists in the uniform of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU) is actualized. We emphasized the need to popularize the military journalists, their contribution to the development of Ukrainian journalism. The main directions of activity of the SBGSU journalists are analyzed and determined their place and role in modern military media. The functions and tasks of military journalism, the rights and obligations of combatant journalists while serving both in the war zone and in peaceful areas of the Ukrainian border are separately considered. The main tasks include covering the activities of the SBGSU and preparing materials for the media; information support for the internal work of the service; prompt response to events; work with regional and national media; countering disinformation; coordination with other state structures. The results can be used in the development of educational programs in military and civilian educational institutions, as well as in retraining courses for civilian correspondents who plan to work in the war zone.

Reporting from the Outside While Looking In: Iranian Diaspora Journalists and #WomanLifeFreedom

Following the death of twenty-two-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets in Iran—and the whole world watched through their screens. Several Iranian diaspora journalists stepped up to cover the events in Iran for western news outlets. In this study, we interviewed fourteen Iranian diaspora journalists on how they define their role when reporting on Iran and how they navigate the balance between their personal experience and their reporting. Implications for this study include journalistic expectations for international news coverage and the role of the diaspora journalist within that coverage.

The Value of Independence: Making the Connection Between Quality Journalism and Editorial Control in Rwanda

This study evaluates which type of news outlets—independent or government aligned—produce higher quality stories in the East African country of Rwanda. A number of quality indicators are discussed in context, and hypotheses are proposed based largely on Scott, Gobetz, and Chanslor’s (2008) investment model. The data come from a global project —the Journalistic Role Performance Project— and specifically from a content analysis of 2,644 news stories published by Rwandan media in 2020. Findings reveal that independent news outlets outperform government-aligned outlets on the majority of quality indicators included in the study, especially in regard to story sourcing.

Navigating constraints: news values and journalistic role performance in Chinese state media VR news

IntroductionThis study explores the intersection of virtual reality (VR) technology and journalism, with a particular focus on the application of VR in news productions by China Central Television (CCTV). The research aims to assess how VR enhances immersive storytelling, the prevailing news values it supports, and how journalistic roles are performed within these productions in China.MethodsA content analysis was conducted on 234 VR news productions by CCTV, examining the use of immersive elements, the representation of news values, and the roles of journalists in the context of VR news.ResultsThe findings indicate that, while VR enhances audience engagement through immersive experiences, its application in CCTV’s VR news remains limited in scope. The technology is primarily employed within traditional journalistic frameworks, often emphasizing the loyal-facilitator role.DiscussionThe study reveals that immersive journalism at CCTV tends to support state-aligned narratives, promoting positive news values and limiting the critical engagement typically associated with more interventionist journalistic models. By examining the news values and the nuanced performances of journalistic roles in the context of VR news, this research contributes to the broader understanding of how emerging technologies like VR are shaping journalistic practices in authoritarian media systems, offering insights into both the potential and limitations of VR in enhancing audience engagement while maintaining journalistic integrity.

Satire Between the Lines: Negotiating Genre Hybridity in the Satirical Newsroom of De Ideale Wereld

ABSTRACT The proliferation of political entertainment has internationally produced a wide variety of news satire formats which blend journalistic conventions with comedic storytelling. This paper investigates the production of the Belgian news satire show De Ideale Wereld through a genre theory lens, viewing genre as enacted practice. It reports on 23 interviews with the show's hosts and editorial staff and a three-week observation period in its “satirical newsroom.” The findings reveal how the creators of De Ideale Wereld engage in an on­going negotiation of comedic and journalistic roles inspired by irreconcilable genre identities, embodying conflicting intentions located on different ends of the spectrum between comedic absurdity and journalistic inquiry. Furthermore, by adhering to journalistic practices such as fact-checking and news values, the show's creators navigate perceived limitations to the subjectivity inherent to their roles as comedic professionals. This article contributes to the limited understanding of the production of news satire and the implications of hybridity on the understanding of comedic and journalistic practice.

Revictimization of women victims of intimate partner violence in the French press: A social representations approach.

This study aims to analyze how the press portrays cases of revictimization experienced by women in France, through the lens of social representation theory. An exploratory, descriptive study was conducted using a corpus of 157 online press articles. A total of 187,773 words and 5,240 segments were analyzed using Iramuteq version 7, employing top-down hierarchical classification and lexical similarity analysis. The analysis identified four classes: 1. Violent incidents (25.5%); 2. Political actions against violence (26%); 3. Institutional revictimization (26.6%) and 4. Violence and breaking the silence (21.9%). The findings illustrate how media portrayals contribute to the construction of social representations surrounding revictimization. Class 1 reveals a focus on extreme cases of violence, such as femicides, and highlights a potential gender bias in media reporting through the omission of terms like 'femicide'. Class 2 demonstrates the influence of ideological perspectives on the portrayal of political measures against violence, with conservative outlets framing such actions within traditional values, while progressive newspapers advocate for systemic reform. Class 3 shows a gap in the conceptualization of institutional revictimization in the French press compared to other countries, revealing how conservative portrayals can minimize systemic issues and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Class 4 shows the role of female journalists in addressing various forms of violence, despite the limited impact of the #MeToo movement in recent coverage. Collectively, these findings elucidate how media representations shape public attitudes and institutional responses to gender-based violence through the lens of social representations.

Political Parallelism and Journalistic Roles in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan

Political Parallelism and Journalistic Roles in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan

‘Big Lies’: understanding the role of political actors and mainstream journalists in the spread of disinformation

Much of the scholarly attention on disinformation has focussed on the role of social media, thus overlooking the political actors who themselves propagate disinformation and the mainstream news outlets that report on them. In this article we argue that disinformation has now become so widespread because outright lies are an effective way for political actors to attract and manage public attention. Political strategists have likewise worked out that cognitive biases and social factors are strong enough to overcome the ‘rational’ impulses of citizens who should, notionally, reject obvious lies. And, finally, journalists, who should be a bulwark against such behaviour, have mostly failed to address this problem because of an overly cosy relationship with those in power, and because of a lingering fealty to ‘objectivity’. We conclude the article by arguing that journalism needs to significantly re-think how it approaches the political field.

Interlopers by choice, or interlopers by circumstance? Alexey Navalny and alternative journalistic projects in contemporary autocratic Russia

In February 2024, Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalny died in a Western Siberian prison aged just 47. Known as a vocal opposition leader in Russia in the 2010s, he was regularly trying to be elected but also organised the largest mass anti-establishment and anti-corruption protests in Russia before his untimely death. Deprived of access and coverage in the Russian mainstream media, Navalny and his associates established their own media channels, including personal YouTube channels and online media outlets such as Navalny LIVE to avoid censorship and expose the corruption and abuses of power of high-ranking officials in Russia. However, at the same time, Navalny and his colleagues cannot be labelled as ‘journalists’ in a normative sense. They were not professional journalists and had not gone through the processes of journalistic socialisation, but rather ‘tried on’ journalistic roles and investigative journalism practices to expose corrupt elites. In this sense, Navalny and his team can be called (explicit) interlopers who adopt journalistic identities and force a reconsideration of what journalists are and journalism is. In this study, we look at the case of Navalny and his team and their investigative documentaries on YouTube. We relate his practice to the journalistic concept of (explicit) interlopers, analyse how their unique and alternative journalistic project has diversified a largely monopolised and authoritarian Russian public sphere, and propose extending the notion of interlopers by differentiating between interlopers by choice, and interlopers by circumstance.

Introduction: Journalistic Role Performance in Times of Change

Introduction: Journalistic Role Performance in Times of Change

Examining Journalists’ Adoption of Social Media Tools in Contexts of Precarity

ABSTRACT Digital technologies have changed journalists’ work practices and their roles with far-reaching effects for news production. While many studies focus on the ways social media transforms editorial processes, much of this research examines fully democratic Western countries. We examine how journalists in Turkey, who occupy particularly precarious social positions, incorporate social media tools into their routines, and the effects of these tools on journalistic role conceptions. To understand this, we analyzed 10 interviews with Turkish editors and reporters from popular Turkish news outlets. These journalists say their roles are shifting from active news formation to passive information relay — they are becoming aggregators rather than reporters. And while social networking sites increase the volume of newsworthy ideas that journalists encounter, they also increase the pressure on editors and reporters to compete with other news outlets. The organizations we studied did not employ separate fact-checking teams or software for news verification, leading to workflow challenges around verifying large quantities of information collected from social media. Our findings suggest that journalists in precarious positions might be especially reliant on social media logics in their daily work since they lack the social, political, and occupational security to improvise or resist new practices and values.

Públicos imaginados: la concepción de los periodistas mexicanos sobre sus audiencias desde de los roles profesionales

How do Mexican journalists conceive their audiences and how does this impact their work? This study, based on a survey of journalists in Mexico (N = 486), conducted within the framework of the Worlds of Journalism project, analyzes the perceptions that journalists have about their audiences, highlighting how these perceptions influence journalistic roles. Findings indicate that the orientation ranges from educating and offering relevant content to disseminating exciting stories to increase consumption metrics, but this is conditioned by region, type of media, and journalists’ age.

Deerminants of watchdog journalism: A global empirical approach

This article introduces and examines a hierarchical model of influences that identifies the variables affecting the watchdog role of journalists at three levels: the societal (press freedom and democracy), the organizational (media ownership), and the individual (editorial autonomy and perceived influences) on a global scale. Using data from 27,567 journalists in 6403 media organizations across 67 countries, the model's validity is confirmed. The findings reveal that variations in journalists’ perception of their role are more pronounced at the societal level compared to the organizational and individual levels. Furthermore, journalists tend to assume a watchdog role more prominently within public media as opposed to private or state-run outlets. Surprisingly, press freedom and democracy have a weak and insignificant impact on watchdog journalism, challenging established norms in the literature, a result that we critically discussed.

Fact-Checking Role Performances and Problematic Covid-19 Vaccine Content in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa

The move from political fact-checking to a “public health” or debunking model of fact-checking, sustained by policies and funding from platforms, highlights important tensions in the case of Covid-19. Building on findings from studies focused on journalistic role performance, we investigated how professional fact-checkers in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa conceived of and performed their professional roles when addressing Covid-19 vaccination topics. Interviews with fact-checkers from six well-established, Meta-affiliated, International Fact-Checking Network-accredited organizations operating in these regions indicated that fact-checkers recognized the diversification of tasks and new roles associated with addressing problematic content from social media users. However, fact-checkers expressed unanimous commitment to prioritizing political and media watchdog activities in response to problematic Covid-19 vaccine information spreading from elite sources. To compare these role conceptions with role performance, we conducted a content analysis of Covid-19 vaccine content posted in 2021 to these fact-checkers’ Facebook accounts. We found that content was mostly associated with explainers or debunking content (addressing hoaxes or rumors about Covid-19 vaccines from non-elite social media users). In particular, the abundance of explainers, compared with other genres of fact-checking content, aligns fact-checkers with professional roles as civic service providers, educators, and “interpreters” of health information. Only a small proportion of the Covid-19 vaccine-related posts from each fact-checker contained verifications of claims from authoritative (elite “top-down”) sources (i.e., politicians, media, and health/science professionals). This study offers insights into a particularly tumultuous time of political activity in these regions and considers implications for practice innovation.

Understanding COVID-19 Media Framing: Comparative Insights from Germany, the US, and the UK During Omicron

ABSTRACT This study examines the media framing of COVID-19 reporting in Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom during the period of the highly contagious Omicron variant from December 2021 to March 2022. By identifying issue-specific media frames using hierarchical cluster analysis, the study gains insights into the distinctive characteristics of journalistic roles within each country and sheds light on the similarities and differences in media framing. Findings reveal that the German Süddeutsche Zeitung prioritizes the economic and Omicron impact on society and reports rather emotionally through evaluations and blame on social issues but frames otherwise quite neutral, reflecting its role in opinion formation and information dissemination. Conversely, the American New York Times takes an objective and informative approach, except similar to the Süddeutsche Zeitung when dealing with social impacts of the pandemic, addressing Omicron, economic impacts, and vaccination challenges while emphasizing shared burdens of the pandemic. The British Guardian gives equal weight to economic and social consequences and the Omicron impact and also raises the issues concerning the healthcare sector. Blame and negative evaluations cross all frames and newspapers, although (emotionally charged) evaluations and accusations are most prevalent in the Guardian, often directed at unvaccinated people and politics.

En busca de la audiencia: materialización del rol cívico, de infoentretenimiento y de servicio en las noticias

Basado en un análisis de contenido de noticias de 12 medios de comunicación en España (n = 6 088), el trabajo analiza la presencia de los roles periodísticos que abordan las audiencias: de servicio, infoentretenimiento y cívico. Los resultados han puesto de manifiesto que el rol de infoentretenimiento es el más presente, y que es muy similar la presencia de los roles de servicio y cívico. Se ha concluido que los medios periodísticos conceptualizan a sus audiencias como espectadores. Respecto a los factores que explican la mayor presencia de cada rol, la temática noticiosa es el más relevante.

A Little of that Human Touch: How Regular Journalists Redefine Their Expertise in the Face of Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT Recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence raise fundamental questions about its impact on the journalistic profession and the future role of journalists in news production. However, the attitudes of regular journalists towards artificial intelligence remain largely unexplored. We address this gap by investigating the potentials and concerns that Danish journalists attribute to the impact of artificial intelligence on journalism. Journalists largely acknowledge its potential to streamline news production. While they also express broader concerns about the trustworthiness of journalism and the risk of job displacement, their more immediate worry lies in the impact of artificial intelligence on job meaningfulness and professional identity. These findings reveal a differentiated perspective on the profession-wide and individual impacts of artificial intelligence on journalism. Furthermore, journalists emphasise their human qualities and skills such as nuanced judgement, empathy, and creativity as beyond artificial intelligence’s capabilities. This indicates that artificial intelligence prompts journalists to reshape their expertise to prioritise the human touch in journalism, suggesting a broadened view of the journalistic profession. By examining these perceptions among regular journalists, this study contributes to a better understanding of the multifaceted challenges that artificial intelligence poses to both individual journalistic practices and the broader profession.

Comparison of Objectivity, Transparency, Contextualization, and Trust Between Fact-Checking Sites and News Organizations

ABSTRACT This study compares U.S. adults’ perception about the performance of news organizations and independent fact-checking sites. Drawing upon a survey of 1580 respondents, this study finds that rating of the objectivity and trust in news organizations is somewhat higher than that of fact-checking sites. Fact-checking sites, however, are perceived to give more contextual information about current topics than news organizations. In terms of transparency, no significant difference is found. The analysis also finds that the positive perceptions about objectivity, transparency, contextualization, and trust significantly predict fact-checking site use. The results suggest that audiences perceive fact-checking sites to play a journalistic role to some extent, which may blur the boundary of journalism.

Accommodating Journalism in Authoritarian Political Regimes. The Interventionist and Loyal-Facilitator Roles in Cuba and Venezuela

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between accommodating journalism and journalistic roles in authoritarian regimes, focusing on Cuba and Venezuela. Through content analysis of news from influential media outlets in both countries, the study assesses professional roles including loyal facilitator, watchdog, civic, infotainment, service, and interventionist roles. In particular this study aims to measure the presence of the loyal-facilitator and interventionist roles in the media of Cuba and Venezuela; to explore potential differences between both countries; and to contrast whether media ownership influences the performance of interventionist and loyal facilitator roles. Findings show similar patterns, but they especially indicate significant differences between Cuba and Venezuela, with Cuban journalism showing higher prevalence of interventionist and loyal facilitator roles, while the other roles are more frequent in Venezuelan journalism. Media ownership can also influence the adoption of journalistic roles: while in Cuba accommodating discourses are not only dominant in state-owned media, in the case of Venezuela private and civil society media tend to show a more critical discourse compared to state-owned ones. These findings contribute to understanding journalistic roles in authoritarian regimes, supporting the existence of accommodating journalism in these contexts, but with a somewhat more independent journalism in Venezuela.