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Watchdogs, advocates and adversaries: journalists' relational role conceptions in asylum reporting
[journal article]
Abstract 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 a... view more
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.... view less
Keywords
Finland; media; journalism; reporting; migration; asylum seeker; refugee; policy on refugees; crisis
Classification
Migration, Sociology of Migration
Communicator Research, Journalism
Document language
English
Publication Year
2018
Page/Pages
p. 168-178
Journal
Media and Communication, 6 (2018) 2
Issue topic
Media and communication between the local and the global
DOI
https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v6i2.1284
ISSN
2183-2439
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed