"This report presents findings from the third wave of the Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS3), conducted between 2021 and 2025. In this iteration, we focused on journalists’ perceptions of risk and uncertainty in their profession and sought to identify key factors that shape how journalists navigate
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journalism’s changing environment. These risks and uncertainties arise from four partially overlapping domains: politics, economy, technology, and news consumption. Accordingly, the WJS3 questionnaire addressed journalists’ safety, editorial freedom, professional roles, news influences, and labor conditions. Our survey confirms that journalism is under pressure. Journalists worldwide are often undercompensated, and more than one-third engage in secondary employment. Economic pressures on news organizations have intensified in most countries. Nearly half of journalists have been targeted with hate speech, while psychological, physical, and digital threats are more prevalent in the Global South than in the Global North. More than 300 researchers from 75 countries participated in WJS3. This report provides a concise overview of key global findings. Subsequent publications will analyze specific topics in greater depth; please visit worldsofjournalism.org for more information." (Foreword, page 4)
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"Responding to mounting calls to decenter and decolonize journalism, The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South examines not only the deep-seated challenges associated with the historical imposition of Western journalism standards on constituencies of the Global South but also the opp
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ortunities presented to journalists and journalism educators if they choose to partake in international collaboration and education.
This collection returns to fundamental questions around the meaning, value, and practices of journalism from alternative methodological, theoretical, and epistemological perspectives. These questions include: What really is journalism? Who gets to, and who is qualified to, define it? What role do ethics play? What are the current trends, challenges, and opportunities for journalism in the Global South? How is news covered, reported, written, and edited in non-Western settings? What can journalism players living and working in industrialized markets learn from their non-Western colleagues and counterparts, and vice versa? Contributors challenge accepted “universal” ethical standards while showing the relevance of customs, traditions, and cultures in defining and shaping local and regional journalism." (Publisher description)
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"The study of forced internal displacement (FID) frequently focuses on the personal effects of structural violence. However, the targeted victimization of members of risky occupations is less studied, neglecting the importance of professional factors in mediating people's experiences of displacement
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. Based on 20 in-depth interviews, this study uses a social-ecological approach to explore the challenges and experiences of journalists living under forced internal displacement in Mexico City, analyzing the multiple hardships journalists face in their resettlement processes at macro-structural, meso-professional, and micro-individual levels. Findings show that the most relevant aspects of the journalists’ experiences are family, economic and psychological concerns at the individual level; the partial or total disenfranchisement of journalistic practice, professional demotion and deskilling at the meso-level; and the general distrust of government programs at the structural level. We conclude that displaced journalists, already victimized by occupational violence, become even more vulnerable and suffer from specific profession-related hardships on top of the challenges that usually afflict displaced populations. Journalists suffer from unique and isolated forms of displacement. We call for more studies that explore the professional traits and conditions of victimized members of risky occupations to account for their overall experiences of displacement and resettlement." (Abstract)
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"Para que el periodismo pueda realizar su función democrática, es preciso que el contexto político, social y económico le permita su desarrollo en toda forma. Aunque en el pasado estuvo caracterizado por la cooptación y la censura, el periodismo mexicano reciente ha mostrado prácticas innovado
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ras y cambios decisivos en la identidad y roles profesionales de quienes lo practican. Para dar cuenta de estos cambios y contribuir a un conocimiento más preciso de la realidad periodística de México, este reporte presenta los resultados de una encuesta representativa nacional aplicada a 486 periodistas que forma parte del estudio internacional Worlds of Journalism. En este reporte se incluyen hallazgos sobre las características sociodemográficas de las personas periodistas, sus perfiles profesionales, sus orientaciones éticas y epistemológicas, los valores que guían su labor, sus percepciones de autonomía y su relación con el Estado; así como las precariedades, los riesgos y las violencias que les afectan, incluyendo las consecuencias físicas, psicológicas y laborales provocadas por la pandemia, así como las medidas de seguridad que toman para protegerse. Los resultados sugieren un periodismo sofisticado en sus valores, roles y perspectivas éticas a pesar de las limitaciones que las inadecuadas condiciones laborales y la falta de autonomía le imponen." (Resumen)
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"In global surveys, Latin America is all too often identified as one of the regions with the highest number of journalists killed for practicing their profession in the world. To explore the issues at stake, this chapter begins with a brief overview of the various faces of anti-press violence in thi
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s complex region. More specifically, it asks: What are the factors behind the rampant violence against journalists in the region? Next, the chapter examines what can be done to protect them. Brazilian society learned of the lack of safety precautions journalists took on assignment and media houses’ little protection to their staff. Many journalists exert their agency to fight back with the help of coalitions, collectives, and allies. The chapter shows that training initiatives prove vital here, helping to secure positive ways forward for efforts to improve the profession’s prospects under such challenging conditions." (Abstract)
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"The book brings together scholars from Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia, reporting findings based on data collected from democratic, transitional, and non-democratic contexts to produce thematic chapters that address how journalistic cultures vary around the globe,
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specifically in relation to challenges that journalists face in performing their journalistic roles. The study measures, compares, and analyzes the materialization of the interventionist, the watchdog, the loyal-facilitator, the service, the infotainment, and the civic roles in more than 30,000 print news stories from 18 countries. It also draws from hundreds of surveys with journalists to explain the link between ideals and practices, and the conditions that shape this divide." (Publisher description)
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"How do journalists around the world view their own function and role in society? Based on a landmark study that has collected data from more than 25,000 journalists in 66 countries between 2012 and 2015, Worlds of Journalism examines the different ways journalists conceive of their responsibilities
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, their relationship to society and government, and the work they do. The authors conclude that there is no one conception of journalism and instead advance a global classification of journalistic cultures: the corporate libertarian model (e.g., U.S. and Australia); the public-service remit model (e.g., parts of continental Europe); the social interventionist model (e.g., parts of the Islamic World); the developmental faciliative model (e.g., parts of Africa and Asia); and the coercive heteronomy model (e.g., China and Russia). The book is organized around a series of key questions regarding journalists' autonomy, influences on their practice, journalism's role in society, journalists' trust in social institutions, and their perceptions about the ongoing transformation of journalism. Worlds of Journalism reveals how perceptions of journalism are created and re-created by journalists and how the practice of journalism is affected by different political, social, and economic institutions. The authors challenge essentialist ideas about journalism and provide an understanding of the diversity of worldviews and orientations of journalists in terms of roles, ethics, and influences." (Publisher description)
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"Cross-national research has identified crime, corruption, and human rights abuses as explanations for threats against journalists in democracies and authoritarian hybrids plagued by antipress violence. In-depth studies additionally suggest gender or occupational characteristics such as risky newsbe
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ats increase the likelihood of being threatened. We overcome data limitations in many of these studies by analyzing work-related threats reported by journalists in Mexico, a territorially uneven democracy. Findings confirm that contexts of criminal insecurity are the strongest predictor of threats but only for journalists who are frequently harassed. For the infrequently threatened, democratic normative commitments are a stronger predictor. Subnational government corruption is another important predictor of threat but operates counter to expectations. We believe this is because clientelism sufficiently controls journalists without the need for threat. Neither occupational traits nor gender were individually important predictors. Findings suggest future research should compare threat and harassment across lower and higher risk contexts, and measure public insecurity and clientelism at the local level where journalists actually work. Measurement improvements might better reveal the gender dynamics of threat. More broadly, comparative research and policy-making in democracies and authoritarian hybrids should focus on how local authoritarians limit journalists’ democratic normative aspirations." (Abstract)
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"Research on journalists working in contexts of risk has examined either war correspondents on temporary assignments or the psychological effects of covering traumatic events, usually after the events have ended. Although these studies are important, they fail to account for the growing importance o
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f ongoing violence in insecure democracies and its possible consequences for national journalistic practice. We address these issues by examining journalists' risk-reduction practices in Mexico, including self-censorship, following company censorship policies, curtailing street reporting, and concealing sensitive information. Using logistic regressions, we tested occupational, organizational, normative, and contextual conditions as predictors of engagement in these practices. Findings reveal the pervasiveness of risk-reduction practices in Mexico and the complexity of conditions prompting their use, including conditions related to antipress violence, dangerous newsbeats, and the economic insecurity of media firms but also voicing greater support for assertive professional norms. The research sets a baseline for future comparative research that includes greater attention to subnational conditions, dangerous newsbeats, and how violence and uneven state capacity may undermine the economic conditions of media firms." (Abstract)
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"Comparative research across the world has shown that nation-level variables are strong predictors of professional roles in journalism. There is, however, still insufficient comparative research about three key issues: cross-national comparison of journalistic role performance, exploration of how -
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or whether - organizational variables account for variation in role performance across countries, and the performance of specific journalistic roles that prevail in regions with post-authoritarian political trajectories. This article tackles these three issues by comparatively measuring journalistic performance in five Latin American countries. Based on a content analysis of 9841 news items from 18 newspapers, this article reports findings from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador and Mexico, by analyzing the presence of the 'interventionist', 'watchdog', 'loyal', 'service','infotainment', and 'civic' roles. Results show that the region is far from homogeneous and that while 'country' is a strong predictor for most of the roles, other variables such as 'media type', 'political orientation', and 'news topic' are also significant predictors to varying levels." (Abstract)
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"Journalists in many countries work in contexts of continuous risk, but few empirical studies identify how these conditions influence practice or measure the relative influence of different kinds of risk. This study asks a national sample of Mexican journalists to report use of several measures to a
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meliorate risk as violence and anti-press threat intensified over the last decade. It then identifies conditions that increased the likelihood of engaging in these practices. Findings reveal diverse tactics to remain safe and how those seeking to disseminate news through less-risky channels are less common than individual or outlet-based censorship. The study shows that physical insecurity overlaps with economic pressures to shut down important public-interest functions and that support for change agent roles, youth, ethnic minority status and working in smaller cities are important predictors of precautionary practices. The chapter ends with policy recommendations for international organizations, the Mexican government and press rights activists." (Abstract)
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"Democracies with sharp violence and public insecurity have proliferated in recent decades, with many also featuring extreme economic inequality. These conditions have not been explicitly considered in comparative research on journalists' work environments, an omission that may obscure important rea
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lities of contemporary journalism. We address this gap through analysis of journalist surveys in 62 countries. We confirm the existence of insecure democracies as an empirical phenomenon and begin to unravel their meaning for journalists. We find democracies with uneven democratic performance tend to have more journalist assassinations, which is the most extreme form of influence on work, and that levels of democratic performance, violence, public insecurity and economic inequality significantly shape how journalists perceive various influences in their work environment. Case studies of insecure democracies in Africa and Latin America address why these conditions sometimes (but not always) lead to journalist assassinations and other anti-press violence. They suggest anti-press violence is higher when sub-national state actors intensify criminal violence and when insecurity is geographically and topically proximate to journalists. How journalists' perceive influences on work are therefore more complex and multidimensional than previous research has suggested. The study concludes by identifying areas for improvement in data collection." (Abstract)
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"In this volume of essays edited by Anya Schiffrin, media capture is shown to be a growing phenomenon linked both to the resurgence of authoritarian governments as well as to the structural weaknesses presently afflicting media markets. In this environment, political figures and economic elites are
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colluding to undermine the independence of privately-owned media, and efforts to stop this collusion by activists, regulators, and the international community have proven to be ineffective." (Publisher description)
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"To support joint efforts to protect journalism, there is a growing need for research-based knowledge. Acknowledging this need, the aim of this publication is to highlight and fuel journalist safety as a field of research, to encourage worldwide participation, as well as to inspire further dialogues
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and new research initiatives. The contributions represent diverse perspectives on both empirical and theoretical research and offer many quantitatively and qualitatively informed insights. The articles demonstrate that a new important interdisciplinary research field is in fact emerging, and that the fundamental issue remains identical: Violence and threats against journalists constitute an attack on freedom of expression." (Back cover)
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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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"La descripción del perfil laboral y los roles profesionales de los periodistas de Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador y México aporta evidencias de ciertas tendencias que ayudan a entender en qué consiste ser periodista en América Latina. Dentro del marco del proyecto World
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s of Journalism Studies (WJS),1 equipos de investigación de estos países analizaron los datos obtenidos a partir de una encuesta común durante los años 2013 y 2015 (véase anexo de este capítulo). Este estudio de la situación profesional de los periodistas en América Latina se enmarca dentro de las redacciones de los medios de comunicación donde estos desarrollan su trabajo. El sistema mediático en el que participan estos medios y periodistas se inscriben, a su vez, en los contextos particulares de cada uno de estos países latinoamericanos, con determinadas peculiaridades definidas por sus sistemas político, económico, social, cultural, académico, tecnológico, entre otros." (Página 11)
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"La temporalidad del presente estudio comprende el periodo 2006-2015, que corresponde a los sexenios de Felipe Calderón Hinojosa y una parte del de Enrique Peña Nieto, periodo en el que, según muestran los informes de agencias nacionales e internacionales, la violencia contra los periodistas en e
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l contexto de la guerra declarada contra el narcotráfico se ha incrementado. La organización internacional Artículo 19 (2015), en su informe Estado de censura, ha contabilizado así las agresiones: mientras que hubo 1 092 agresiones en todo el sexenio de Felipe Calderón, en los dos primeros años del sexenio de Peña Nieto, éstas aumentaron 80%, reportándose 330 en 2013 y 326 en 2014. El estado de vulnerabilidad de los periodistas en México es grave y el riesgo de silenciar crecientemente la información es muy grande [...].
Cada uno de los capítulos presenta diferentes acercamientos a la(s) violencia(s) ejercida(s) contra y representadas en los medios, con distintos anclajes teóricos y metodológicos que, en su conjunto, ofrecen un amplio muestrario de cómo puede abordarse este problema. Aunque se apuntan diversos factores como desencadenadores de la violencia contra los periodistas, así como diferentes mediaciones para entender las representaciones de la violencia en los medios de los lugares estudiados, sí pueden señalarse elementos comunes. Por ello, concluyo este apartado con una cita del estudio introductorio de Mireya Márquez, en este mismo libro, la cual suscribo: [ ... ]es preciso comprender que el periodismo mexicano no se ve amenazado únicamente por la violencia criminal como un actor de poder aislado, sino que es amenazado por la violencia criminal en la medida en que el periodismo ha estado instrumentalizado desde su concepción por las diversas facciones en disputa por el poder, y de que no existe un andamiaje de protección de la profesión periodística en general ni su concepción como una ocupación profesional y autónoma." (Presentación, páginas 9-13)
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"Today, Mexican journalists see themselves as generational change agents. These journalists — many of whom are university graduates — stand in stark contrast to their corrupt, ill-equipped, trained-on-the-job predecessors who were fond of bribery and manipulation. Today‘s journalists define th
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emselves as professionals who strive to counter established power, seek to impart the truth without bias, and endeavour to overcome ordinary pressures and provide politically relevant and reliable information to their audiences. However, political structures, occupational culture, and individual values clearly influence the extent to which this cherished autonomy and committment to ethics can be practised. Therefore, it is not possible to speak about two separate generations — one unethical and the other ethical — but, instead, of one transitional generation where old and new elements blend." (Conclusion)
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"Media Systems and Communication Policies in Latin America proposes, tests and analyses the liberal captured model. It explores to what extent to which globalisation, marketization, commercialism, regional bodies and the nation State redefine the media's role in Latin American societies." (Publisher
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description)
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"The rise of digital and social media necessitates a new way of considering the ethical questions facing practicing journalists. This volume considers the various individual, cultural and institutional influences that have an impact on journalistic ethics today. It also examines the links between et
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hics and professionalism, the organisational promotion of ethical values and the tensions between ethics, freedom of information and speech, and the need to disseminate information. By comparing the theoretical underpinnings of journalistic ethics with a variety of international case studies, this volume provides a comparative global analysis of the ethical challenges faced by the media in the twenty-first century." (Publisher description)
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