Journalism culture is described as a "shared occupational ideology among newsworkers".Deuze, M. (2005). What is journalism? Professional identity and ideology of journalists reconsidered. Journalism, 6, p. 446. The term journalism culture spans the cultural diversity of journalistic values, practices and media products or similar media artifacts.Hanitzsch, T. (2007). Deconstructing journalism culture: Towards a universal theory. Communication Theory, 17, p. 369. Research into the concept of journalism culture sometimes suggests an all-encompassing consensus among journalists "toward a common understanding and cultural identity of journalism."Hanitzsch, T. (2007), p. 368.
There is scientific debate about the notion of a shared, worldwide journalism culture, whether such a common construct exists and can be found empirically.Hanitzsch, T. (2007), 17, p. 368. Several communication science studies were conducted for finding a hypothetic common Western journalism culture, a common European journalism culture, or even a common global journalism ideology. (cf. historical overview) Research into journalism cultures is especially helpful in analyzing assumed influences of globalization, indicated by world-spanning major media corporations, on individual media cultures and its worldwide standard-setting potency.Golan, G. (2006). Inter-Media Agenda Setting and Global News Coverage. Journalism Studies, 7 (2), pp. 323-333. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616700500533643 In scientific literature, journalism culture is also called "journalistic culture", "news culture", "newspaper cultures" or "culture of news production".
Types of cultures
A worldwide study on journalism culture conducted by Thomas Hanitzsch et al. between 2007 and 2011 encompassing 21 countries found that journalistic functions like detachment, non-involvement, providing political information and monitoring the government are perceived as essential journalistic virtues worldwide.Worlds of Journalism, Pilot Study. http://www.worldsofjournalism.org/research/2007-2011-pilot-study/
The four types of journalism cultures found in the Worlds of Journalism study through worldwide surveys of over 2100 active journalists regarding the "central areas of [journalistic] disagreement"Hanitzsch, T. (2011a). Populist disseminators, detached watchdogs, critical change agents and opportunist facilitators: Professional milieus, the journalistic field and autonomy in 18 countries. International Communication Gazette, 73(6), p. 481. (journalistic interventionism, distance to ruling powers, and their market orientation) are:
Journalistic milieu Specifics of journalism culture Populist disseminator Has a strong orientation towards the audience. Tendency to provide the audience with "interesting" information. Not very critical of government or elites. Yet does not intend to take on an active and participatory role in reporting. Example countries: Spain, Romania, Israel. Detached watchdog Interest in providing the audience with political information. Relative high regard to their position as detached observer of events. See themselves as watchdogs of elites (skeptical and critical attitude). Less interventionist than their counterparts in other milieus. Opposed to the idea of supporting official policies. Least likely to advocate for social change, influence public opinion and set the political agenda. Most ‘prototypical’ milieu of western journalist. Example countries: Germany, Austria, United States, Switzerland, Australia. Critical change agent Driven by interventionist intentions. Critical towards government and business elites. Emphasis on advocating social change, influencing public opinion or setting political agenda. Eager to motivate audiences to participate in civic activity (elections) and political discussion, yet strongly opposed to providing public support for official government policy. Does not support opportunist approach to journalism. Example countries: Turkey, Egypt. In parts Bulgaria, Mexico and Indonesia. Opportunist facilitator Journalists do not perceive themselves as detached observers, are constructive partners of the government. They are most likely to support official policies and convey a positive image of political and business leadership and pay least regard to the political information function or the mobilization potentials of journalism. At close distance to political powers. No watchdogs of government or elites. Found in developing, transitional and authoritarian contexts. Country examples: Russia, Chile, China, Uganda.
Western journalism culture
Compared to Southern, Eastern or less democratic countries like China and Russia, additional virtues like impartiality, the reliability and factualness of information and adherence to universal ethical principles are perceived to be of great importance for Western journalists.Worlds of Journalism, Pilot Study. Additionally, the study found Western journalists to be less supportive of any active promotion of particular values, ideas or social change.Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F. & Mellado, C. (2010). Mapping Journalism Cultures Across Nations: A comparative study of 18 countries. Journalism Studies, 12(3), 280.
Western journalism culture is classified by a dominance of watchdog journalism with a tendency of more South-Western democracies like Spain additionally harboring a strong journalistic culture of "populist disseminator".Hanitzsch, T. (2011a), p. 485.
Tendencies in developing and emerging nations
Especially in the 1990s "US government and media initiatives"Reese, S. D. (2001), p. 175. have worked to establish a US-modeled "objective" press model in emerging democracies in South America and Eastern Europe. This move assumed "US-style journalism [to be] a natural and inevitable world model",Reese, S. D. (2001), p. 176. yet current studies regarding journalism culture in Eastern European countries do not see a natural adoption of Western journalism standards. Instead, the establishment of a less objective and more entertainment- and audience-oriented journalistic culture driven by the countries themselves (e.g. "populist disseminator" journalism in Bulgaria) can be observed.Hanitzsch, T. (2011a), p. 487
Within-country level journalism research in developing or emerging countries is described as lacking.De Beer, A. (2008): South African Journalism Research. Challenging Paradigmatic Schisms and Finding a Foothold in Era of Globalization. In: Löffelholz, M. & Weaver, D. (2008). Global Journalism Research. Theories, Methods, Findings, Future. Cambridge: Blackwell., pp. 185-196. This can either be explained with under-financed or non-existent research institutes within the respective countries or the neglect of certain research topics. Arnold S. de Beer, journalism researcher at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, is criticizing South African journalism research of the 90s and early 2000s as both too focused on areas like "public relations, marketing or other forms of corporate communication"De Beer, A. (2008), p. 185. and, on the side of the critical researchers, as having a too strong interest in journalism research of post-Apartheid specifics. This overpopulation with specific-interest studies created a deficit in South African conclusions about their own journalism culture.
Research Research of journalism culture is a sub-theme of journalism research, a tradition rooted in both classical sociological approaches (e.g. Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Robert E. Park, Talcott Parsons and Niklas Luhmann) and Humanities of the early 20th centuryWeaver, D. & Löffelholz, M. (2008). Global Journalism Research: Summing up and Looking Ahead. In: Löffelholz, M. & Weaver, D. (2008). Global Journalism Research. Theories, Methods, Findings, Future. Cambridge: Blackwell, p. 290. and is located in the broader area of media science and communication science. Journalism studies take into account many levels of analysis including individual, organizational, societal and cultural aspects.Weaver, D. & Löffelholz, M. (2008), p. 288.
Study design and methods
Study design for journalism culture research provides challenges for appropriate methodological operationalization. Its complexity arises due to journalistic professionalism being a multi-leveled concept consisting of various journalistic values, tenets, and practices, which different journalism cultures balance in their own unique ways.Reese, S. D. (2001). Understanding the Global Journalist: a hierarchy-of-influences approach. Journalism Studies, 2(2), p. 174. Research in journalism culture can be conducted within one nation, mostly led by journalism researchers originating from the country itself,For examples of within-country research in Germany, U.S., UK, South Africa, China and Mexico see Löffelholz, M. & Weaver, D. (2008). or in a comparative manner cross-nationally conducted with the help of international teams of researchers. Comparative journalism research is fore-mostly conducted cross-nationally, with "nation" being an important level of analysis, resulting in comparative studies on country-by-country basis.Reese, S. D. (2001), p. 177. Derived from comparative media system research, comparative journalism culture research uses the nation as "object, context, unit of analysis, or as component of a larger system".Reese, S. D. (2001), p. 177.Kohn, Melvin (Ed.) (1989). Cross-national Research in Sociology, Newbury Park, California: Sage.
Used methods in journalism culture research are surveys and interviews, content analysis, observation or a combination thereof.cf. Quandt, Kolmer, Weaver in: Weaver, D. & Löffelholz, M. (2008).
Levels of analysis Using the dimensions of analysis system suggested by Brüggeman and Wessler, media research can be conducted using three dimensions of analysis:Wessler, H., & Brüggeman, M. (2012) (in press). Transnationale Kommunikation. Eine Einführung. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. (1) Research perspectives, (2) research levels and (3) objects of analysis. Practically applying this system on journalism culture research shows: The use of "comparison" as prevalent research perspective The use of "state/society" (nation) as dominant level of analysis The use of various and often combined objects of analysis
The combination of various objects of analysis, such as "media structures", "content production" and "media contents" is explained in the complex nature of the "culture" aspect in journalism culture. As communication researcher Hanitzsch puts it: "One can generally speak of culture as a set of ideas (values, attitudes, and beliefs), practices (of cultural production), and artifacts (cultural products, texts)."Hanitzsch, T. (2007), p. 369.
Historical overview of research