Spurring or Blurring Professional Standards? The Role of Digital Technology in Implementing Journalistic Role Ideals in Contemporary Newsrooms

This study examines the perceived relevance and implementation of competing normative ideals in journalism in times of increasing use of digital technology in newsrooms. Based on survey and content analysis data from 37 countries, we found a small positive relationship between the use of digital research tools and “watchdog” performance. However, a stronger and negative relationship emerged between the use of digital audience analytics and the performance of “watchdog” and “civic” roles, leading to an overall increase in conception–performance gaps on both roles. Moreover, journalists’ use of digital community tools was more strongly and positively associated with “infotainment” and “interventionism.”

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

Comparing Journalistic Role Performance Across Thematic Beats: A 37-Country Study

Studies suggest that, at the routine level, news beats function as unique “micro-cultures.” Exploring this “particularist” approach in news content, we compare how the interventionist, watchdog, loyal, service, infotainment, and civic roles materialize across 11 thematic news beats and analyze the moderating effect of platforms, ownership, and levels of political freedom on journalistic role performance in hard and soft news. Based on the second wave of the Journalistic Role Performance (JRP) project, this article reports the findings of a content analysis of 148,474 news items from 37 countries. Our results reveal the transversality of interventionism, the strong associations of some topics and roles, and the limited reach of news beat particularism in the face of moderating variables

Orgulho e preconceito: a "objetividade" como mediadora entre o jornalismo e seu público

O artigo discute o valor da "objetividade" na construção do discurso e na orientação das práticas jornalísticas. A análise de revistas brasileiras semanais de informação permite observar que o ideal da objetividade e a afirmação dos valores morais não são excludentes: "fatos objetivos" e julgamentos complementam-se na legitimação do jornalismo como guardião dos valores sociais. O compartilhamento de posições sociais - e preconceitos - entre os jornalistas e seu público permite que perspectivas e interesses específicos sejam vocalizados como se correspondessem à totalidade, naturalizando um padrão de valores e transmutando julgamentos em fatos. No jornalismo, a neutralidade corresponde à validação de discursos hegemônicos.<br>The article discusses the value of "objectivity" for journalistic discourses and practices. The analysis of Brazilian weekly news magazines confirms the comprehension that the ideal of objectivity and the assertion of moral values do not exclude each other: "objective facts" and judgments are complementary in legitimating journalism as the guardian of social values. The sharing of social positions - and prejudgments - between journalists and their public allows specific perspectives and interests to be voiced as if they equal the totality, naturalizing a pattern of values and making judgments into facts. In journalism, neutrality corresponds to the validation of hegemonic discourses