Journal article | Zeitschriftenartikel

Watchdogs, advocates and adversaries: journalists' relational role conceptions in asylum reporting

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.

Watchdogs, advocates and adversaries: journalists' relational role conceptions in asylum reporting

Urheber*in: Pöyhtäri, Reeta; Ojala, Markus

Attribution 4.0 International

ISSN
2183-2439
Extent
Seite(n): 168-178
Language
Englisch
Notes
Status: Veröffentlichungsversion; begutachtet (peer reviewed)

Bibliographic citation
Media and Communication, 6(2)

Subject
Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie
Publizistische Medien, Journalismus,Verlagswesen
Migration
Kommunikatorforschung, Journalismus
Finnland
Medien
Journalismus
Berichterstattung
Migration
Asylbewerber
Flüchtling
Flüchtlingspolitik
Krise

Event
Geistige Schöpfung
(who)
Pöyhtäri, Reeta
Ojala, Markus
Event
Veröffentlichung
(when)
2018

DOI
URN
urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-57868-1
Rights
GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. Bibliothek Köln
Last update
21.06.2024, 4:27 PM CEST

Data provider

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Object type

  • Zeitschriftenartikel

Associated

  • Pöyhtäri, Reeta
  • Ojala, Markus

Time of origin

  • 2018

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