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¦¦¦¦¦ Methodology
Theory
Journalism culture can be deconstructed in three essential constituents -- Institutional Roles, Epistemologies and Ethical Ideologies -- which are further divided into seven basic dimensions: Interventionism, Power Distance, Market Orientation, Objectivism, Empiricism, Relativism and Idealism (see Figure 1). All dimensions will be measured on the basis of three to five items.
More about the theory...
Figure 1: Journalism culture - overview of constituents and dimensions
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Constituent
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Dimension
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Poles
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Description
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Institutional Roles
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Interventionism
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Intervention (+)
Passive (-)
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The extent to which journalists pursue a particular mission and promote certain values
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Power Distance
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Adversarial (+)
Loyal (-)
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The journalist’s position toward loci of power in society
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Market Orientation
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Consumers (+)
Citizens (-)
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The dominant view of the audience as either citizen or consumer
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Epistemologies
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Objectivism
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Correspondence (+)
Subjectivity (-)
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The question of how can truth be established
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Empiricism
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Empirical (+)
Analytical (-)
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The means by which a truth claim is ultimately justified; the relative importance of facts vs. analysis
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Ethical Ideologies
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Relativism
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Contextual (+)
Universal (-)
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The extent to which individuals base their personal moral philosophies on universal ethical rules
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Idealism
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Means (+)
Outcome (-)
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The consequences in the responses to ethical dilemmas
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During an international project workshop in April 2007 it was suggested to add a third dimension to the Epistemology constituent, namely Contextualization. This dimension captures the extent to which journalists believe that facts cannot speak for themselves, hence journalists need to put facts in context. The final questionnaire will also contain items to measure this additional dimension.
It is hypothesized that the seven (or eight) dimensions account for most part of the variance in journalism cultures. However, journalistic cultures do not become manifest in terms of these dimensions. They crystallize on three levels of analysis: on the macro level of systems as national journalism cultures, on the meso level of organizations as organizational journalism cultures, and on the micro level of individuals as milieu-specific journalism cultures (see Figure 2. These cultures are embedded in the nexus of journalism's shared professional ideology and cultural identity.
In terms of influences on journalistic cultures, it is further assumed that these influences emanate from four general levels: The super level of the world system mainly influences journalism's shared ideology and identity via processes of globalization, diffusion and interdependence. The macro level of systems (nations) primarily shapes national journalism cultures through the political, economic, legal, social and cultural contexts, as well as the properties of the media system in general. On the meso level of organizations, influences on organizational journalism cultures stem from the editorial organization, the media organization (corporation) and the medium as such (e.g. newspapers vs. television). Finally, the micro level of the individuals mainly influences milieu-specific journalism cultures through the journalists's backgrounds and individual characteristics.
Figure 2: General heuristics -- levels of influence, contexts, concepts, constituents and dimensions
Selection of countries
In addition to political, economic, social, cultural and media-specific contextual factors, countries were selected on the basis of diverse national journalistic traditions and cultures. In terms of research strategy, the study follows a "Most Different Systems Design" by selecting very diverse countries to capture a broad range of journalism cultures. Following countries were selected for the pilot study: Brazil, China, Germany, Indonesia, Russia, Uganda and the United States. Bulgaria, Israel, Romania, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey were added as the project evolved.
Methodology
The project is carried out in two phases: In the first phase, data will be collected on the journalists' professional orientations, the organizational evironment in which they work, as well as on their national media systems. In the second phase, we will conduct a content analysis of news accounts produced by the interviewed journalists.
Phase 1: In each participating country data will be gathered on three levels, while specific research instruments will be developed for each of these levels: On the individual level, fully standardized telephone interviews with a quota sample of 100 working journalists will be conducted. For the organizational (structural) level, data will be collected for 20 media organizations by means of document analysis (annual business reports, public databases, etc.) and telephone inquiries. Data at the societal level will be obtained from public and commercial data bases (World Bank, UNESCO, World Advertising Trends, etc.) as well as from accessible sources of aggregated context data (Polity IV, World Values Survey, etc.).
Research instruments will be collaboratively developed and translated in all languages via translation-backtranslation procedure. The validity and stability of the theoretical model and the research instrument will be evaluated on the basis of confirmatory factor analysis and factor congruence coefficients, as well as by comparison of factor structures. Relationships with and between contextual variables at multiple levels of analysis will be assessed by means of a statistical technique known as hierarchical linear and nonlinear modeling which is especially useful for multilevel data.
Phase 2: A subsequent content analysis will tap into the differences between what the journalists' orientations and their actual practice. For practical reasons, the content analysis will be conducted on an exemplary basis only in a small number of selected countries and only for journalists working for print media and news agencies. For each of the interviewed journalists, three recently published news accounts will be analyzed.
Sampling
The sample is not intended to be representative; rather, it is geared towards functional equivalence. To make sure the country samples are equivalent to a maximal possible extent, a stratified quota sample has been designed with 20 media outlets to be selected in each country. During a project workshop in April 2007, the participating principal researchers agreed on following sampling scheme:
| Media segment |
Sublevel |
National media
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Local media
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Total
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Daily newspapers
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quality: citizen-oriented |
2
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3
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5
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popular: consumer- oriented |
1
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1
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2
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| General interest weeklies |
quality: citizen-oriented |
1
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1
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popular: consumer- oriented |
1
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1
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| News Agency |
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1
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1
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| Television |
state-owned/public |
1
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1
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2
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private |
3
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1
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4
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| Radio |
state-owned/public |
1
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1
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2
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private |
1
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1
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2
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| Total |
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12
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8
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20
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In each of these categories the local research teams will select the media outlets based on their agenda-setting function (national quality dailies), circulation (popular national dailies, local dailies) and audience shares of prime-time news (television, radio).
Five journalists will be randomly selected in each of the 20 media organizations. Three journalists will be selected from the lowest level of the editorial hierarchy (non-decision-makers: reporters, news writers, investigators, etc.). One journalist will be chosen from the highest level (strategic leadership: editors in chief, programming directors, etc.), and another journalist will be selected from the middle level of the editorial hierarchy (operational decision-makers: editors, desk heads, producers, etc.).
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