Watchdogs, Advocates and Adversaries: Journalists’ Relational Role Conceptions in Asylum Reporting

Media and Communication

Markus Ojala^1¹  Reeta Pöyhtäri^2² 

[1] Department of Social Research, University of Helsinki, Finland^1;Research Centre for Journalism, Media and Communication COMET, University of Tampere, Finland^2

关键词: asylum seekers;    migration;    journalism;    refugee crisis;    role;    role conception;   

DOI  :  10.17645/mac.v6i2.1284

学科分类：电子、光学、磁材料

来源: Cogitatio Press

【 摘 要 】

Journalistic role conceptions are usually understood as internalised professional conventions about the tasks reporters pursue in society. This study insists that more attention be put on the relational and context-dependent nature of journalistic role conceptions. Adopting a social-interactionist approach to journalistic roles, the study examines how Finnish journalists conceived of their professional roles when covering asylum issues during the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015–2016. Based on an analysis of open-ended, semi-structured interviews with 24 journalists, we highlight how considerations of the political context and interactions with three key reference groups—officials, asylum seekers and anti-immigrant publics—shaped the journalists’ conceptions of their tasks and duties. The article contributes to the study of journalistic role conceptions by illustrating how the conceptualisation of journalistic roles in relation to reference groups takes place in practice. It also sheds light on the tensions involved in journalistic balancing and negotiation between various available role conceptions, especially in the shifting societal and political contexts of a Europe marked by multiculturalism and the simultaneous rise of anti-immigrant movements.

【 授权许可】

CC BY