Professional Roles in News Content

TLDR

Research on professional roles has examined journalism’s functions for five decades, yet how these roles manifest in news output remains largely unexplored, a gap that is critical because journalists’ attitudes are often assumed to shape content. The study proposes a standardized operationalization linking professional roles to their manifestation in journalistic performance. It connects role characteristics with journalistic discourses, reporting styles, power relations, voice presence, and audience approach.

Abstract

Over the past 50 years, a large body of research on professional roles has analyzed the different functions that journalism should fulfill in society. However, an examination of how these professional roles materialize in journalistic output remains mostly absent. This is especially critical because most studies of journalists' attitudes are justified by assuming that they influence news content. By combining the study of news content with research on professional roles, this study proposes a standardized operationalization of how different professional roles can manifest in journalistic performance. Specifically, this paper connects the characteristics of professional roles that have been studied in comparative contexts with different journalistic discourses and reporting styles in news, considering the relationship between journalism and power, the level of presence of the journalistic voice in a story, and the way journalism approaches the audience.