The Global Journalist in the 21st Century

David H. Weaver, Lars Willnat, David H. Weaver, Lars Willnat

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000153095
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Journalist Biographies

The Global Journalist in the 21st Century systematically assesses the demographics, education, socialization, professional attitudes and working conditions of journalists in various countries around the world. This book updates the original Global Journalist (1998) volume with new data, adding more than a dozen countries, and provides material on comparative research about journalists that will be useful to those interested in doing their own studies.

The editors put together this collection working under the assumption that journalists' backgrounds, working conditions and ideas are related to what is reported (and how it is covered) in the various news media round the world, in spite of societal and organizational constraints, and that this news coverage matters in terms of world public opinion and policies. Outstanding features include:

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• Coverage of 33 nations located around the globe, based on recent surveys conducted among representative samples of local journalists

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• Comprehensive analyses by well-known media scholars from each country

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• A section on comparative studies of journalists

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• An appendix with a collection of survey questions used in various nations to question journalists

As the most comprehensive and reliable source on journalists around the world, The Global Journalist will serve as the primary source for evaluating the state of journalism. As such, it promises to become a standard reference among journalism, media, and communication students and researchers around the world.

1 Introduction

David Weaver and Lars Willnat

The first decade of the 21st century has seen a dramatic increase in studies of journalists and journalism, including surveys of journalists in many countries around the world. Many of these studies have been modeled on the four major surveys of U.S. journalists conducted in 1971 (Johnstone, Slawski, & Bowman 1976); 1982–1983 (Weaver & Wilhoit 1986); 1992 (Weaver & Wilhoit 1996); and 2002 (Weaver, Beam, Brownlee, Voakes, & Wilhoit 2007).

The Global Journalist (Weaver 1998) offered the first comprehensive collection of such studies by presenting surveys of more than 20,000 journalists from 21 countries and territories conducted between 1986 and 1996. This overview led to the conclusion that there were more differences than similarities between journalists from these nations, a finding that seemed to reflect social and political differences rather than the influences of media organizations, journalism education, or professional norms.

More than 13 years have passed since the first edition of The Global Journalist, and journalism has changed dramatically during this time. Media in most industrialized nations have been struggling with dwindling audiences, shrinking advertising revenues, reduced operating budgets, and fierce competition from new online media that have undermined the business structure of an entire industry. More and more journalists work across media platforms, often as freelancers or reporters without traditional desk jobs. Most importantly, however, the growing importance of social media in journalism has led many to question the very basic concept of who journalists are and what qualifications they should have.

The question is, of course, whether and how these unprecedented structural changes have affected the profession of journalism. Exactly how have these changes influenced the demographic composition of the profession and how have they affected the professional values and attitudes of journalists around the world?

This new book presents the findings from surveys of more than 29,000 journalists working in 31 countries conducted between 1996 and 2011 (see Table 1.1). The book includes a total of 42 survey studies conducted in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.¹ It also includes a collection of comparative chapters on Latin American journalists, Arab journalists, political journalists working in Europe, foreign correspondents, and a chapter based on the Worlds of Journalism project directed by Thomas Hanitzsch.

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Table 1.1 Sample Sizes, Dates, and Methods of Journalist Surveys

	Sample Size	Response Rate	Year of Study	Representative Survey^*	Method(s) Used
Asia
China	1,309	99.0%	2010/11	Yes	Personal Interviews
Hong Kong	553	62.0%	1996	Yes	Self-administered
	722	62.0%	2001	Yes	Self-administered
	1,004	55.0%	2006	Yes	Self-administered
Indonesia	385	80.0%	2001/02	No	Personal Interviews
	100	—	2007/08	No	Personal Interviews
Japan	1,011	18.4%	2007	Yes	Mail
Korea	970	—	2009	Yes	Personal Interviews
Malaysia	182	72.8%	2009/10	No	Self-administered
Singapore	447	39.5%	2009	No	Self-administered
Taiwan	1,182	72.0%	2004	Yes	Personal Interviews
Australia/Pacific
Australia	117	—	2009/10	No	Phone
New Zealand	514	12%	2007	Yes	Online
Europe
Belgium	682