Influential research on comparative media systems identifies distinctive models according to which certain countries-particularly advanced democracies-share key features in their journalistic cultures. Revisionist literature has not only emphasized the limitations of such models, but also highlighted the hybridization of journalistic cultures elsewhere. This article tests the hybridization thesis, analyzing the presence of six journalistic roles in print news from 19 countries (N = 34,514). Our findings show patterns of multilayered hybridization in the performance of professional roles across and within advanced, transitional, and nondemocratic countries, with journalistic cultures displaying different types of hybridity that do not resemble either existing ideal media system typologies or conventional assumptions about political or regional clusters. The implications of these findings for future studies are discussed.
This study explores the professional roles of Russian journalists, from the perspective of 30 practitioners working in St Petersburg at the end of the 1990s. The aim is to describe how journalism has developed, what attitudes and work values professionals hold and what the prospects for the future of journalism are. A central finding is that there are two types of professional roles within contemporary journalism, representing two types of professional subculture: the old generation (practitioners of the Soviet era) and the new generation (who have joined the profession since 1990). Whereas the old generation continues to hold a cultivated view of journalism as an important societal task in natural collaboration with those in authority, the new generation is orientated towards the contemporary role of providing entertainment and perceives journalism rather as a PR role for the benefit of influential groups and people in politics and business. Despite their polarities, both generations of journalism accept the political function of journalism as a propaganda machine for the power elite during elections and other important events
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The article describes the transformation of contemporary Russian media in the dual framework of common trends initiated and set to a great extent from the centre of power in Moscow, on the one hand, and specifics pertaining in the regions, on the other. As common trends characterising the post-Soviet society and media we note capitalization, westernization, commercialization and corruption. Their specific character was formed by the political and economic conditions pertaining in St. Petersburg from the end of the 1990s to the beginning the 2000s. The article is based on an empirical study of St. Petersburg media conducted 1998-2001. The data consist of pilot interviews with eleven experts in 1998, in-depth interviews with thirty journalists in the editorial offices of the eight basic media in 1999, and a survey of eleven experts in 2001. Asking in what ways the common trends dovetail into the local context, the article describes the conditions for journalism and its emerging characteristics. On the one hand, the study reveals crucial changes after the decade of reforms, such as the intensive development of informational and advertising services in society and commercialization of media and journalist's labour. On the other hand, the study notes the forces of continuity deriving from the fact that the media and journalists formerly served the interests of the political and economic groups rather than the interests of the public.
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