"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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"The Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) assesses the performance of leading news media in mature democracies with regard to the three core dimensions of democracy: freedom, equality, and control. After monitoring 10 countries in 2011, the MDM project expanded to cover the leading news media of 18 dem
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ocracies in 2021. In this book, the most salient results from the MDM were selected to undergo cross-country and longitudinal comparison, searching for patterns and tendencies across countries, with a particular focus on the influence of digitalisation. Some of the key results are the ubiquitousness of the news media’s financial crisis, increasing consumption gaps as younger generations prefer online platforms, and persisting gender inequalities, both in news content and in newsrooms. However, the volume also shows that the reach of news media remains high, the watchdog role and investigative journalism are increasingly relevant in daily practice, and that public service media, in general, continues to play a vital role for democracy. These results have implications for media policies, regulations, and practices to improve news quality and, ultimately, democracy worldwide." (Publisher description)
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"To what extent do structures and conduct of leading news media correspond with requirements of contemporary democracies? Based on a root concept of democracy and several empirical indicators, the Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) delivers a panorama of the news media’s performance regarding freed
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om, equality, and control across several countries. In 2011, the MDM analysed 10 democracies. Ten years later, it covers 18 countries worldwide and pinpoints essential strengths and weaknesses during this decade of digitalisation. Around the globe, news are highly attractive to users, and the journalistic ethos of watchdogs and investigators is paramount. On the downside, journalistic job security eroded over time, and gender gaps both in content and employment patterns remain strikingly excessive in most countries. Volume two contains all countries analysed for the first time in 2021: Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Chile, Denmark, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, and South Korea." (Publisher description)
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"In this article, I discuss how the world’s smallest states, including Iceland, are routinely absent in research and comparative studies concerning media and politics. Size has up until now mostly been ignored as a possible factor in understanding media systems and the relationship between media a
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nd politics on the national level. Existing research from other academic fields, such as public administration and economics, has revealed an important finding: small states have unique characteristics that differentiate them from larger states. They can therefore not simply be viewed as smaller versions of large states that have been central in knowledge production. Arguably, a Nordic perspective in media research needs to incorporate the size variable into the research agenda. This article illustrates how this expanded agenda will enrich our understanding of media and politics in the Nordic countries and open up new areas of study on small and large states more generally." (Abstract)
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"This thesis examines the dissemination of political information in Iceland through an investigation of three interlinked and under-studied areas of research in the country. The research gaps concern perceptions of routine political news coverage, the politician-journalist relationship, and the impa
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ct of social networking sites on interactions between the public, journalists and politicians, as well as on news coverage of politics. The data in this mixed methods study is comprised of 50 semi-structured interviews with Icelandic politicians and journalists, and survey answers from a representative questionnaire (N= 1,264). In filling these research gaps, the Icelandic case is used to expand existing paradigms. Iceland has been routinely ignored in the comparative political communication literature, and the same goes for other small states. The thesis illustrates how qualitative differences between small and large states open up new areas of investigation. The findings demonstrate that the Icelandic legacy media is perceived to be breaking down and routinely bypassed in political dissemination. The smallness of the Icelandic society means that there is much more direct interaction between politicians, journalists and the public than in larger states. This happens in informal settings offline, as well as online, particularly on Facebook. In order to study these online forms of communication, I show that there is a need to probe the more private avenues, in addition to the public arena. I introduce the concept of a ‘two-level online sphere’ in relation to this. The thesis contributes to theory building by constructing frameworks based on four dimensions of ‘scaled down’ political communication dynamics: 1) offline network density, 2) online network density, 3) mobile multifunctionality, and 4) flexible autonomy. In addition, I show that the Icelandic case can be seen as a ‘canary in the coalmine’ in relation to political communication developments in the larger democracies of the world." (Abstract)
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