Role Of Journalism Research Articles

Context clues: Citizens and their higher valuation of the contextualist journalist role

This study examines media trust and how members of the public perceive and value various journalistic roles using a nationally representative survey (n = 1,026) to redefine and confirm how the American public places significant value on the contextualist role of journalism. The individual journalistic functions that make up contextual reporting are also highly valued. Media trust is primarily predicted by overall journalistic role perception, even above ideological views, but not for the contextualist role.

Scrutinizing Algorithms: Assessing Journalistic Role Performance in Chinese News Media’s Coverage of Artificial Intelligence

ABSTRACT Coverage of artificial intelligence and algorithms has been largely examined by scholars studying countries in the Global North that have historically supported conditions for critical journalism and watchdog journalistic role performances. However, it is unclear if the findings from such work would be applicable to authoritarian contexts that do not share those conditions. This study addresses this gap through a textual analysis of 23 journalistic investigations of AI and algorithmic systems published in Chinese news media between 2019 and 2023. We found that Chinese journalists were critical of multiple aspects of algorithmic systems and called for urgent AI governance at the nation-state level. Despite the technical nature of the issue, those journalists overwhelmingly employed traditional reporting techniques to uncover political and economic intersections—namely those resulting from the rise of tech companies and the algorithms they implement. Chinese journalists simultaneously performed the roles of being watchdogs and loyal facilitators by highlighting the risks posed by private platforms and their algorithms while casting the state as a protector and responsible steward of technological development. The study thus highlights the intricate roles necessary to perform critical journalism in authoritarian contexts, and the possibilities that the case of AI permits.

A Study on SDG Linkages in the Eco-Hope Series of News Portal Mongabay India

Even after eight years since the birth of UN Agenda 30 and its 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), climate change and its varying effects continue to loom over the earth and its inhabitants. How well are the SDGs covered by the media and communicated to the masses in a way that may evoke action and participation? The goals actively advocate for participation at global, national, and regional levels but, most importantly, at grassroots as well as individual levels. The knowledge that individuals or communities practising sustainable ways of living and livelihoods may go a long way in aiding other communities if adapted on a needs and context basis. The role of journalists and communicators becomes crucial here when such stories combined with the SDGs have the power to draw attention to not just the perils of global warming, or climate change but also, the idea that solutions to mitigate these exist. However, media coverage of SDGs or actions taken by various nations towards achieving these goals has been nearly negligible worldwide; with general environmental reportage itself, being rarely taken up in the mainstream media. To make environmental news more approachable, a constructive approach that includes context and examines solutions rather than focusing only on problems is the need of the hour. The role of alternative media platforms that particularly focus on environmental issues proves crucial here. One such platform in India is Mongabay India, whose Eco Hope series focuses on highlighting efforts and solutions towards environmental conservation. This paper studies linkages between SDGs emerging in 133 feature stories of the Eco Hope series and takes a mixed method approach to identify the linkages through content and thematic analyses.

Ghanaian Journalists and The Spread of Rumors During the Covid19 Pandemic: Views from Five Regions

This qualitative study examines the role of Ghanaian journalists in disseminating rumors, misinformation, and disinformation during the Covid19 pandemic. Additionally, the study investigates how this information was transmitted and spread among journalists, as well as the motivating factors behind their actions. The participants in the study were purposely selected from five administrative regions of Ghana that had a lower uptake of COVID-19 vaccines, as classified by the Ghana Health Services. The findings of the study indicate that journalists played a significant role in spreading disinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana. The interviewees in this study attributed this to various reasons, such as parochial and partisan interests, lack of information, deliberate attempts to force verification, and pressure associated with the job. The study concludes that the involvement of journalists in the spread of rumors about the COVID-19 pandemic and related issues can be attributed to the liberalized nature of the media space in Ghana with its excessive commercialization and rush for breaking news. This competition for news has led many journalists to neglect due diligence and professional ethics in sourcing and disseminating information to the public. This study highlights the need for policymakers to establish effective measures for regulating the ethics and standards of journalism in line with the relevant constitutional provisions and democratic practice

A tale of two Southeast Asian states: media governance and authoritarian regimes in Singapore and Vietnam

Political scientists have crafted intricate taxonomies to classify nations beyond liberal democracy, positioning these societies along an authoritarian continuum. Despite the pivotal role of journalists in accelerating political dynamics, there exists a lack of comparative research on media governance in these regimes. Consequently, this study scrutinizes the media governance ecosystems in Vietnam and Singapore. Vietnam is a one-party authoritarian state, whereas Singapore represents a hybrid political system. However, both countries exhibit a stable and uninterrupted rule by the respective ruling party. Our research uncovers the nuances of Singapore’s media regulation, which embeds trusted stakeholders with financial interests in key press roles to reinforce the implicit political norms. Conversely, Vietnam employs a more direct, coercive, and state-centric approach. Media actors in both nations occasionally test the boundaries of acceptable discourses, with each government’s responses being shaped by specific contexts and broader history. Reforms in Vietnam, embracing privatization and commercialization, mirror Singapore’s integration of capitalism, public ownership, and commercial interests when governing media. These findings highlight diverse yet effective authoritarian media governance strategies, unique features, and commonalities in both systems. Overall, media structures in these Southeast Asian countries have undergone profound evolutions towards more sophisticated regulatory tools to manage societal and political transformations.

Time-based Variability in the Presence of Infotainment, Service, and Civic Roles in Czech Quality Press

ABSTRACT Evidence on how journalistic role performance changes in time and in relation to which factors is largely missing. This study investigates the presence of civic, infotainment, and service roles in the news, and examines whether their presence varies in time given the worsening economic conditions on the press market and changes in ownership type. A longitudinal content analysis of a representative sample of news (N = 1871) published in four Czech quality dailies during three year-long periods (i.e., 2006–2007, 2011–2012, 2016–2017) was conducted. Bivariate analyses showed that the presence of the roles varied in time for all of the newspapers but to a relatively small extent. Ridge logistic regressions revealed that the presence of all three audience-related roles was associated with specific dailies and ownership types, but not with worsening economic conditions. As compared to privately-owned newspapers, likelihood for the presence of the service role was bigger in corporate-owned newspapers, and for the civic role it was bigger in oligarchic-owned newspapers. The findings suggest that corporate-owned dailies responded to worsening economic conditions by preferring a service role rather than an infotainment role, and that the effects of oligarchic ownership on journalism practice are complex and far from being straightforward.

Interpreting or Reporting? An Analysis of Journalistic Interventionism Across Western European Countries

ABSTRACT The literature comparing journalistic roles around the world highlights different ways of understanding journalistic work across countries. One of the main differences in conceptualising concerns the journalist’s propensity for intervention: where in some contexts it is common practice for journalists to intervene with commentary and interpretation; while in others there is a tendency to adopt a more neutral reporting style. Through the conceptual lens of journalistic role performance, this study investigates the performance of the interventionist role within its two analytical sub-dimensions (content-driven interventionism and style-driven interventionism), together with the specific indicators related to each of the two (interpretation, journalist point of view, call to action, qualifying adjectives, and use of the first person) across nine Western European countries. Contrary to expectations, our data show a higher level of interventionism—particularly content-driven—in Central and Northern European countries when compared to those belonging to the polarised pluralist model theorised by Hallin, D. C., and P. Mancini. (2004. Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge University Press). Moreover, in almost all the countries considered, when journalists do intervene with their own voice, they predominantly do so through rhetorical devices of interpretation and by expressing their point of view.

“Whether That’s Truly Objective Journalism, Probably Not”. Professional Retreatism and Professional Dilemmas When Reporting on Muslims

ABSTRACT Professional retreatism can be seen as a central concept in guiding journalistic role performance. It relates to how journalists distance themselves from the stories they produce by drawing upon professional ideals such as objectivity to produce a non-interventionist detached account of the news. But what happens when this professional retreatism ends up reproducing, rather than challenging, an existing media bias that contributes to the further marginalisation of a minority group? Drawing on 23 qualitative interviews with British press journalists, the article examines the dilemmas they face in their professional roles when it comes to negotiating objectivity in the reporting of stories involving Muslims. The study finds that objectivity as a form of professional retreatism can work in a counter-productive way to limit journalists’ abilities to value and act upon their own moral and ethical judgements when producing Muslim-related stories. The article further argues that recent scholarship on journalistic role performance and the tensions between journalistic ideals and practices can provide an important missing insight into why spaces for resistance and contradiction can also coexist alongside the more negative representations.

언론인의 괴롭힘과 트라우마에 대한 경험이 언론 역할에 대한 인식 및 직무 만족도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

언론인의 괴롭힘과 트라우마에 대한 경험이 언론 역할에 대한 인식 및 직무 만족도에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

Religious Journalists’ Ethics on Communicating Science: The Case of Ultra-Orthodox Reportage in Israel

While religious dogma and science are often viewed at odds, scientific knowledge is increasingly integrated into religious journalism. This challenges the epistemic tenets that underlie the worldviews of religious readers. In this study, we aim to investigate the role of religious journalists as science gatekeepers and, more specifically, uncover their ethos in advocating science communication to their audience, amid widespread ambivalence. To this end, we focus on the ethical gaze of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Jews in Israel. An enclaved religious group that has a history of challenging scientific precepts and has of late demonstrated various levels of ambivalence and resistance to scientifically inspired policies made during the COVID-19 pandemic. To this end, we conducted in-depth interviews with 20 Haredi editors, radio and print/online journalists, engaged with science reporting before and during the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings unveil several ethical facets employed by Haredi journalists: care, community, professionalism, and religion. The findings also outline the interaction between professional, religious, and communal codes of conduct, as they play out in bounded mediascapes. Accordingly, religious journalists’ role breaches traditional boundaries as they respond and strive to integrate multiple sources of knowledge for what they see as the betterment of their devout readers.

Psychiatrists’ Perceptions of the Role of Journalists in Suicide Reporting and Prejudices about Mental Illnesses in Portugal

International studies and the World Health Organization call for collaboration between media and mental health professionals to reduce the risk of imitative suicidal behaviour after suicide reporting – known as the Werther effect – and encourage individuals at risk to seek help. This study explores Portuguese psychiatrists’ perceptions of the practices of journalists, their interaction with those professionals, and their perspectives on the national suicide coverage through an anonymous online questionnaire and ten semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire received 128 responses. Only about 24% of the Portuguese psychiatrists characterized their relationship with journalists as cooperative, and most of them considered suicide reporting to be sensationalist and irresponsible. More than 80% of the participants expressed the view that journalists do not know the guidelines for responsible suicide reporting, but more than 95% considered that they can contribute to suicide prevention. These findings suggest that there is a long way to go to build a constructive partnership for suicide prevention between psychiatrists and journalists in Portugal, focused on improving the quality of suicide reporting. We hope this study may inspire similar studies in other countries, since suicide is an international public health problem and collaboration between media and mental health professionals can help to prevent it on a global scale.

Science & Technology Studies

The first edition of Science & Technology Studies, then named Science Studies, became available in 1988. Over the past 35 years, the journal has established itself as a prominent international publication, experiencing significant growth in publication volume, manuscript submissions, and readership. This editorial commemorates these achievements and reflects on the journal's evolution. A key aspect of this exploration is our journal's role in the Open Access movement, which both enhances transparency and offers new tools for the analysis. The sections delve further into the topic of the scholarly impact of STS, starting with a discussion of impact factor metrics followed by insights from our Editorial Team. The paper then utilizes the extensive archives of the journal and the capabilities of new tools to explore reader engagement with our publications. The editorial concludes with a discussion of our way forward into the next years and decades.

How the Social Complements, Extends or Replaces the Professional: Autonomy and Adaptation in Journalist–Source Relationships

ABSTRACT This study uses the process model of journalistic roles and discusses how journalists perceive (normatively and cognitively) and enact (according to their narrated practice) their professional roles upon interaction with socially distant vs. closer sources on the political beat. Specifically, the study looks at how journalists negotiate between their professional and social roles, and balance between autonomy and adaptation to the source when encountering sources with whom they are related by single (purely professional) vs. multiplex (social and professional) social ties. Empirically, the article compares journalist role conception (based on 26 qualitative interviews with journalists in Lithuania and Sweden) and performance (based on 475 reconstructed journalist–source interactions in both countries). The results show that the professional role is fluctuating and sensitive to the social relationship context. In both countries, journalists praised the norm of role autonomy from sources. However, in role performance, professional and social roles influenced each other during interactions with sources. The patterns of negotiating the professional role in different relational contexts to sources were similar regardless of the country.

Sports News in Five Arab Countries: A Comparative Study of Journalistic Role Performance Across Platforms and Sources

This study examines journalistic role performance in sports news in five Arab countries in relation to country, geographic frame, platforms, and sources. The comparative content analysis of three journalistic roles – loyal-facilitator, watchdog, and infotainment – in Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) relies on 874 sports news stories from 40 print, broadcast, and online outlets, sampled in 2020 through a constructed, two-week stratified-systematic approach. Results point to variations in all roles as a function of some predictors more than others. Specifically, the UAE tended to be the most loyal/cheerleader, whereas Qatar led in the infotainment role. Loyalty was also apparent across the region in domestic news that was more loyalist than foreign news. Sources mattered in that political sources tended to predict higher levels of loyalist content, while sports sources did not have any impact on any role. Sources’ viewpoint of diversity, on the other hand, revealed multiple perspectives to be associated with more infotainment and watchdog content. The results indicate the loyalist cheerleader role that sports journalists in the West have been associated with for decades also applies to the Arab region, suggesting sports journalists behave in a similar manner irrespective of their country of origin.

Journalistic Roles at the Local Press: Between Demographic Characteristics and the Commitment with the Community

ABSTRACT Local journalism plays an important role in the shaping of nearby communities, being relevant for participation. However, local media have been especially affected by the crisis of business model. Bearing these trends in mind, this study aims to examine the presence of journalistic roles at the local level and their relationship with sociodemographic characteristics. Specifically, we analyze the most populated Spanish region (Andalusia) as a case study. First, a database of the local news media outlets in Andalusia is developed (n = 214), identifying the main journalistic roles according to their mission statements. Second, we draw upon 10 in-depth interviews with newspaper editors from different organizations across the region. Finally, a multiple linear regression is conducted to determine which sociodemographic variables are related to the existence of media in the Andalusian municipalities, using the official database of the regional population. Results show the existence of differences in the conception of journalistic roles. The preference for an audience approach is noted, but the fulfillment of the roles depends upon factors such as young population or distance to the regional capital. Our study contributes to current discussions on state of local journalism, arguing that precariousness reinforces some professional roles at community service.

Strengthening the Theoretical Foundations of Role Performance Theory

ABSTRACT This article aims to strengthen the theoretical edifice of role performance theory through appeal to recent advances in cultural theory. Role performance studies often assert that journalistic roles are fluid, contingent, situational and hybridic. Yet, In the large-scale surveys and content-analyses that dominate the literature, roles become more fixed than fluid, more over-determined than contingent. This disjuncture is caused, I argue, by under-theorization. Borrowing from contemporary cultural theory, I cast journalistic roles as schematic associations between cultural elements embedded in the field of journalism. Journalists internalize these elements via two distinct cognitive processes, one I label declarative and the other nondeclarative, and they do so from distinct positions within the field. This conception of role performance moves the field away from questions of beliefs and gaps between thinking and doing and toward those of perceptions, interpretations, motivations, and positionality. In so doing it offers a powerful explanation for how and why role-taking may be situational and dynamic and at the same time organized and patterned. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, I end the essay with a consideration of one of the literature’s most compelling empirical findings: that a persistent gap exists between role conception and role performance.

Using formulations to maximize differences of opinion during televised climate change panel interviews

This paper discusses climate journalistic issues of polarization and ‘false balance’ based upon a study of Danish public service television panel interviews in which participants debate climate change politics. More specifically, the study uses Conversation Analysis to examine the host’s use of formulations. Formulations refer to utterances designed to give the gist (or its ‘natural’ upshots) of a co-participant’s preceding account. Analysis reveals that the host recurrently formulates a panelist’s assertion a bit stronger (e.g. more controversial), and subsequently makes an opposing participant comment upon this augmented version. The host, thus, actively solicits disagreement and rhetorically maximizes participants’ (latent) differences of opinion. This finding adds a new perspective to our understanding of the rise of the panel interview format, which is sometimes said to marginalize the host’s substantive journalistic role into a launcher of topics. It also offers points to ponder in a time where climate change communication researchers warn us that polarization is highly counter-productive in achieving shared understanding about the climate crisis, which we need to promote conversion.

Catch, Engage, Retain: Audience-Oriented Journalistic Role Performance in Canada

ABSTRACT To understand audience-oriented journalistic role performance, one must understand how journalists conceptualize and cater to their audience. Giving the audience what it wants is a complex endeavor, with varying goals and hybridized end results, in newsrooms with fewer resources serving increasingly polarized audiences. Through a triangulation of data—content analysis at the subdimension level to examine the range and hybridity of audience-oriented journalistic product presenting the civic, service and infotainment roles; a survey to identify journalists’ attitudes toward the use of audience data and social media in their work; and interviews with journalists that revealed how their journalistic practice and audience perceptions were impacted by quantitative (metrics and analytics) and qualitative data (comments/social media interactions)—this research fills a gap in understanding about the connection between journalists, their audiences, and audience data when it comes to journalistic role performance. Findings show that in Canada the infotainment role is a significant part of reporting, but entertaining often comes with a goal of educating, as does service journalism. There are no “bad” journalistic roles, but there are a lot of journalists trying to figure out which ones might best catch, engage, and retain an ever-shrinking news audience.

Between Headlines and Punchlines: Journalistic Role Performance in Western News Satire

ABSTRACT News satire has proliferated worldwide and has emerged as a valid site for public discourse. What we see today is a spectrum of news satire formats ranging from the predominantly absurd and comedic to more overtly journalistic satirical deconstructions of current affairs. This maturation of news satire as an alternative form of journalism thus underlines the necessity for further research into the journalistic roles that certain news satire formats carry out. This study assesses the journalistic roles in three international news satire formats i.e., the United States’ Last Week Tonight, the Swedish Svenska Nyheter, and the Dutch Zondag met Lubach and presents the findings of a content analysis of 150 satirical segments having aired from October 2020 to April 2023. We conclude that Western news satire displays a fairly united execution of journalistic role performances with high scores for the Advocate, Watchdog and Civic Educator roles, yet low scores for Reporter and Loyalist roles. Furthermore, we present the Comedic Interlocutor role, and discuss its place in alternative conceptions of professional journalism today. This study empirically validates that humor and entertainment are not irreconcilable with a factual, civically engaged, critical kind of journalistic coverage.

The societal context of professional practice: Examining the impact of politics and economics on journalistic role performance across 37 countries

The impact of socio-political variables on journalism is an ongoing concern of comparative research on media systems and professional cultures. However, they have rarely been studied systematically across diverse cases, particularly outside Western democracies, and existing studies that compare western and non-western contexts have mainly focused on journalistic role conceptions rather than actual journalistic practice. Using journalistic role performance as a theoretical and methodological framework, this paper overcomes these shortcomings through a content analysis of 148,474 news stories from 365 print, online, TV, and radio outlets in 37 countries. We consider two fundamental system-level variables—liberal democracy and market orientation—testing a series of hypotheses concerning their influence on the interventionist, watchdog, loyal-facilitator, service, infotainment, and civic roles in the news globally. Findings confirm the widely asserted hypothesis that liberal democracy is associated with the performance of public-service oriented roles. Claims that market orientation reinforces critical and civic-oriented journalism show more mixed results and give some support to the argument that there are forms of “market authoritarianism” associated with loyalist journalism. The findings also show that the interventionist and infotainment roles are not significantly associated with the standard measures of political and economic structure, suggesting the need for more research on their varying forms across societies and the kinds of system-level factors that might explain them.