No abstract

This article explores the degree to which journalists in Finland experience different types of external interference and how they perceive the implications of interference. For this study, external interference is defined as all active and invasive methods that external actors use to influence journalists and interfere in the journalistic processes to influence editorial content. By using Finland as a case example, this article provides new empirical evidence on how external interference manifests in the contemporary journalistic environment in a democratic Western country with strong safeguards for press autonomy. Based on the statistical analysis of survey responses from 875 Finnish journalists, the results indicate that individual-level factors of age and gender have only a marginal relation to the prevalence of external interference. Of analyzed organizational-level factors-employment type, occupational position, and media outlet used for reportingthe latter two were most significant. This article offers three important empirical contributions: (1) it highlights the existence of editorial defense shield as journalistic practice; (2) it illustrates the complex relationship between gender and external interference; and (3) it demonstrates how journalists in national and regional newspapers are more prone to interference than their colleagues in other media outlets.

Affective polarization refers to people having favorable attitudes toward their preferred political parties, or inparties, along with their supporters, and negative attitudes toward other parties, or outparties, and their supporters. Originally an American concept, there is now growing interest in studying (AP) in European countries characterized by multiparty systems. So far, researchers have primarily focused on like-dislike ratings when measuring affect, which has relegated another important aspect to the background, namely attitudes toward ordinary supporters of parties. Open questions also remain relating to how political ingroups and outgroups should be conceptualized in situations with large numbers of relevant political parties. We examine these puzzles using data from an online panel in Finland. First, we measure partisan social distance, or feelings toward interacting with supporters of different parties, in addition to commonly used like-dislike ratings of parties. We find that social distance differs from party like-dislike ratings in that respondents are less likely to report animosity toward outparty supporters. Second, we measure multiple party identification based on party support and closeness, and find that people commonly have not one, but many potential inparties. Finally, we build two individual-level AP measures and apply them using both like-dislike ratings and social distance scales. One of the measures is based on identifying a single inparty, while the other takes the possibility of multiple inparties into account. We find that choosing which type of attitude to measure is more consequential for the outcome than how partisanship is operationalized. Our results and discussion clarify relationships between AP and related constructs, and highlight the necessity to consider the political and social context when measuring AP and interpreting results.

Huolena on, että nämä ilmiöt alkavat vakavasti rajoittaa journalismin kykyä hoitaa tehokkaasti demokraattista tehtäväänsä yhteiskunnallisesti merkittävän tiedon välittäjänä. Aiheen seuranta on siis perusteltua ajantasaisen tilannekuvan ylläpitämiseksi sekä vaikutusten ja niihin kytkeytyvien taustatekijöiden tunnistamiseksi ja analysoimiseksi.Tämä analyysi tarkastelee empiirisesti painostuksen ja uhkailun yleisyyttä sekä vaikutuksia suomalaisiin journalisteihin ja näiden työhön. Havainnollistamme keräämämme kyselyaineiston avulla myös sitä, miten painostuksen ja uhkailun kokemukset ja koetut vaikutukset jakautuvat yksittäisten taustamuuttujien perusteella journalistikunnassa. Lisäksi kartoitamme painostuksen ja uhkailun taustalla olevia tahoja sekä aihepiirejä, joiden käsittely on johtanut kohteeksi joutumiseen. Aineisto koostuu 505 suomalaisen ammattijournalistin määrällisistä kyselyvastauksista ja näitä täydentävästä laadullisesta avovastausaineistosta.