"With regards to professional role orientations, Sudanese journalists found it most important to support national development, to be a detached observer, to advocate for social change, and to influence public opinion. The relevance of these roles was fairly undisputed among the interviewed journalis
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ts as the relatively low standard deviations indicate. At the same time, respondents turned out to be less keen on acting as an adversary of the government, supporting government policy, and conveying a positive image of political leadership. However, standard deviations point to a great deal of disagreement among journalists with regards to these aspects of journalistic roles. Still, a majority of journalists in Sudan found it important to let people express their views, to report things as they are, to provide analysis of current affairs, to provide the kind of news that attracts the largest audience, to provide advice, orientation and direction for daily life, to provide information people need to make political decisions, and to monitor and scrutinize political leaders and business. Overall, Sudanese journalists’ look fairly similar to their counterparts in other parts of the world, while at the same time, they also subscribe to some of the basic elements of development journalism." (Journalistic roles, page 1)
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"Respondents believed that their primary role was to monitor and scrutinize political leaders, followed closely by reporting facts as they are. Yet only half found either of these to be ‘extremely’ or ‘very important’. They were also keen that everyday people should be allowed to express the
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ir views through the national media, and that the media should broaden the readers’ horizons. To promote tolerance and cultural diversity was an important journalistic role as well, concomitant with Singapore’s conscious and consistent effort to foster harmony among the diverse races and religions that constitute the population. At the bottom end of the table, respondents did not see that providing advice for daily life, entertainment and relaxation was a significant journalistic role. These are, perhaps, values more associated with lifestyle magazines, and this may reflect a division of labor in the minds of the newsworkers." (Journalistic roles, page 1)
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"Hong Kong journalists treated as most important the roles of monitoring and scrutinizing political leaders, reporting things as they are, monitoring and scrutinizing businesses, providing analysis of current affairs, and letting people express their views. Given the emphasis on monitoring the power
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holders, “to be a detached observer” was treated as important only by slightly more than half of the respondents. Twelve of the 18 roles included in the questionnaire were treated as important by fewer than half of the respondents. About one-third saw the advocacy role of the press as important, and about three in ten saw setting the political agenda and motivating people to participate in politics as important. The Hong Kong journalists were least likely to see conveying a positive image of political leadership, supporting government policy, providing entertainment and relaxation, and supporting national development as important roles. However, the percentage of journalists seeing the press as an adversary of the government is also low (14.4%). It indicates that the Hong Kong journalists saw themselves as an independent watchdog without being an adversary to the power holders." (Journalistic roles, page 2)
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"With regards to professional role orientations, Argentinian journalists found it most important to report things as they were, to promote tolerance and cultural diversity, to provide analysis of current affairs, and to let people express their views (see Table 1). A majority of journalists in Argen
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tina found it important to monitor and scrutinize political leaders and business. Considering the political polarization context as it was seen in Argentina during the years when the survey was conducted, options of conveying a positive image of political leadership or being an adversary of the government were surprisingly supported by only a minority of respondents. They showed some consensus towards more politically assertive roles such as supporting government policy or setting political agenda, both roles related to partisan journalism. Regarding this popular model, half of the respondents considered important, in increasing order, setting the political agenda, motivating people to participate in political activity, influencing public opinion, supporting national development, providing information people need to make political decisions and advocating for social change." (Journalistic roles, page 2)
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"When it comes to professional role orientation, Latvian journalists are almost unanimous that journalists should report things as they are and act as detached observers. Interviewed journalists also found it important to provide analysis of current affairs, to educate the audience, to let people ex
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press theirs views, to tell stories about the world as well as to advocate for social change. All these professional roles, except the necessity to tell stories about the world (s=1.22) and to let people express their views (s=1.08), showed relatively low standard deviations, suggesting that journalists agree on their importance. Similar consensus among the respondents showed over the little importance of supporting official government policies and conveying a positive image of political leaders." (Journalistic roles, page 2)
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"Journalists in Malaysia view educating the audience, reports things as they are, promote tolerance, tell stories about the world, and cultural diversity and be a detached observer as their main roles (see Table 1). On the other hand, they did not indicate highly as their roles such as setting of po
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litical agenda, conveying a positive image of political leadership and motivate people to participate in political activity. In between those two “group” of roles, they would provide analysis of current affairs, provide the kind of news that attracts the largest audience. They also support national development and provide information people need to make political decisions." (Journalistic roles, page 2)
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"While answering questions about their professional roles, journalists in Bangladesh preferred being assertive with social issues. An overwhelming majority of the Bangladeshi journalists work to promote tolerance and cultural diversity (87.0%). They also put importance on advocacy for social change
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(79.6%), followed by letting people express their views (78.8%), providing analysis of current affairs (78.4%) and reporting things as they are (76.8%). They also prioritize political assertiveness by assigning importance and extreme importance to supporting national development (76.3%) and monitoring and scrutinizing political leaders (63.2%). Journalists, however, show the least interest in supporting government policies (28.7%). They ranked roles like being an adversary of the government (28.9%) or conveying a positive image of political leadership (37.3%) the lowest. The journalists in general aim to provide the kind of news that attracts the largest audience (75.9%)." (Journalistic roles, page 2)
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"The top five roles, in order of importance both by mean scores and by percent who said “extremely” and “very” important, for Indian journalists, were: report things as they are (88.4%), educate the audience (85.5%), provide analysis of current affairs (84.7%), let people express their views
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(83.2%), and support national development (81.7%) (see Table 1). Interestingly, the last role in mean importance was “convey a positive image of the leadership.” “Be an adversary of the government” and “set the political agenda” tied for second last place in terms of means, followed by “support government policy.” These Indian journalists considered it only somewhat important to be directly oppositional to the government as well as to portray leaders positively. As the means decreased, in general, standard deviations increased. Thus journalists’ opinions were quite varied on the roles that were not of primary importance to them." (Journalistic roles, pages 1-2)
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"Albanian journalists believe their most important professional role is reporting things as they are, being detached observers and providing the kind of news that attracts the largest audience. These functions contrast with the dominant perceived role of journalists in the early 1990s as missionarie
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s and educators of the audience (see Table 1). Journalists in Albania tend to be audience-oriented, report uninvolved according to the audience’s taste and demand and attempt to educate them remotely through entertainment and recreation. Journalists’ other attributes as “advocates for social change”, “educators of the audience” and “promoters of tolerance and cultural diversity” find broad support as well. As for critical journalism, only a few journalists think it is important to set the political agenda, to monitor and scrutinize business and political leaders." (Journalistic roles, page 2)
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"With regards to professional role orientations, the vast majority of journalists in Mexico found it extremely or very important to report things as they are, followed in second place by the role of promoting tolerance and cultural diversity, and the role of advocating for social change in third pla
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ce. The fourth role to which Mexican journalist gave top importance in a most (5) to least (1) scale was to let people express their views, followed by the role of monitoring and scrutinizing political leaders in fifth place. The top roles show a rich mixture of adherence: from the classic Western roles of dissemination (reporting things as they are), to the roles more associated with mobilization and promotion of positive social outcomes (promoting tolerance or advocating for social change), followed by democratic roles such as serving as forum (let people express their views) and the watchdog function of the press (monitoring political leaders). There appears to be greater consensus around the ten most-popular roles, as shown by the relatively lower standard deviations, than in the bottom ten roles. This indicates the journalists who support those roles are unusual and the values they represent are a point of contention within the corps of journalists. For example, the least prioritized role was to convey a positive image of political leaders which however had a fairly high standard deviation, followed by the role of being an adversary to the government, which ranked in penultimate place in order of priority and had the second highest standard deviation of them all. This suggests some journalists consider both roles very important while others do not at all. The support of government policy was also the third least prioritized role, followed by that of providing entertainment and relaxation in fourth place and by the role of being a detached observer of events in fifth place of low priority, but which had the highest standard deviation of them all, suggesting very little agreement on how distant should journalists be from the stories they report on." (Journalistic roles, page 2)
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"Building on the assumption that journalists' attitudes toward public institutions can contribute to a decline in public trust, this article sets out to identify the driving forces behind journalists' confidence in public institutions. Based on interviews with 2000 journalists from 20 countries, var
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iation in trust is modeled across the individual level of journalists, the organizational level of news media, and the societal level of countries. Our findings suggest that the principal determinants of journalists' trust emanate from a country's political performance, from state ownership in the media, and from the extent to which people tend to trust each other. Journalism culture and power distance, however, seem to have relatively little weight in the calculus of journalists' institutional trust." (Abstract)
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