"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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"In a new communication context, factors such as the rise of hate speech, disinformation, or a precarious financial and employment situation in the media have made discursive menaces gain increasing significance. Threats of this kind challenge the legitimacy of institutional news media and professio
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nal journalists. This article contributes to the existing literature on the legitimization of journalism and boundary work through a study that seeks to understand the perceptions of Southern European journalists of the threats that they encounter in their work and the factors that help explain them. To this end, a survey of 398 journalists in Spain, Italy, and Greece was conducted to learn what personal or professional factors influenced their views and experiences of discursive and non-discursive menaces. Results show that discursive threats, such as hateful or demeaning speech and public discrediting of one’s work, are the most frequent to the safety of journalists, while expressions of physical violence are less common. Younger and more educated journalists tended to perceive themselves as having been victims of discursive menaces more often, although not many significant differences were observed between different groups of journalists. Even though it could show a worrying trend, this finding can also indicate a growing awareness about menaces of this kind." (Abstract)
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"The Global Handbook of Media Accountability brings together leading scholars to 'de-Westernize' the academic debate on media accountability and discuss different models of media self-regulation and newsroom transparency around the globe. With examination of the status quo of media accountability in
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forty-four countries worldwide, it offers a theoretically informed, comparative analysis of accountability regimes of different varieties. As such, it constitutes the first interdisciplinary academic framework comparing structures of media accountability across all continents and represents an invaluable basis for further research and policy-making. It will therefore appeal to scholars and students of media studies and journalism, mass communication, sociology and political science, as well as policy-makers and practitioners." (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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"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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"Media scholars and students, professionals and policy-makers alike will be introduced to the specific problems and perspectives of media accountability in different media systems and journalistic cultures. The status quo of media criticism online across Europe will be a key issue and provide insigh
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ts into the innovative potential of media accountability in the digital age. Looked at from a comparative point of view, the reports hint at the formation of different cultures of media accountability within Europe and its adjacent countries. These media accountability cultures partly overlap with the journalism cultures identified in the well-known model by Hallin & Mancini who differentiate between North Atlantic or Liberal, Mediterranean or Polarised Pluralist, and Northern European or Democratic Corporatist media systems. At the same time, the development of media accountability and transparency shows distinctive features incongruent with established models of journalism cultures." (Back cover)
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