Worlds of Journalism Study

The Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS) is an international comparative research project which assesses the state of journalism throughout the world. The principal purpose of the WJS is to help journalism practitioners, researchers and policy makers better understand worldviews and changes that are taking place in the professional orientations of journalists, the conditions and limitations under which they operate, as well as the social functions of journalism in a changing world.

The WJS offers a unique opportunity to gain comparative information about journalism globally. The key concept in the study is journalism culture and it consists of (1) institutional, (2) epistemological and (3) ethical levels (Hanitzsch 2007). By operationalizing the concept of journalism culture, the study is able to map out shared professional milieus in which journalists operate. On top of the commonalities, the study is naturally able to shed light on the distinctiveness of nationally defined journalism cultures. This is important because certain features of journalistic culture become visible and tangible only via comparison.

The WJS is an exceptionally broad project with over 60 participating countries in six different regions:

  1. Africa
  2. Asia
  3. Australia and Oceania
  4. Europe and North America
  5. Latin America and the Caribbean Karibialta and
  6. The Middle East

The research network is led by Professor Thomas Hanitzsch from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Germany.

The Finnish part of the project has been carried out by COMET, and the main task was to survey nearly 370 Finnish journalists. The quantitative results from the survey were supplemented by qualitative group interviews with six different groups. With the help of these two sub-projects, the national study aims:

  1. To assess the state of journalism in Finland at a time of changes within the institution of news media.
  2. To compare the state of journalism in Finland with developments in other nations in order to trace differential evolutions of journalism taking place under similar or different contextual conditions, and simultaneously, deepen the knowledge of the particularity of journalism culture of Finland.
  3. To assess the principal factors that shape journalism in Finland in contrast to other countries.
  4. To provide room for Finnish journalism professionals’ own reflexivity based on their experiences from the field.

The national study is planned to run until the end of 2015. It is funded by the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation.

The results from the entire comparative project will be published in 2017 as articles, and a collaborative book will be out in 2018.

Researchers:

Reeta Pöyhtäri, reeta.poyhtari a uta.fi
Jari Väliverronen, jari.valiverronen (at) uta.fi

Project director: Laura Ahva, laura.ahva at uta.fi, tel. +358 50 318 5915