Detached or Interventionist? Comparing the Performance of Watchdog Journalism in Transitional, Advanced and Non-democratic Countries

Abstract

This study proposes the interventionist and the detached orientations to watchdog journalism through the conceptual lens of journalistic role performance. Based on a content analysis of 33,640 news stories from sixty-four media outlets in eighteen countries, we measure and compare both orientations across different countries using three performative aspects of monitoring: intensity of scrutiny, voice of the scrutiny, and source of the event. Our findings show that the interventionist approach of watchdog journalism is more likely to be found in democracies with traditionally partisan and opinion-oriented journalistic cultures or experiencing sociopolitical crises. In turn, the detached orientation predominates in democracies with journalistic traditions associated to objectivity. Although both orientations have a lower presence in transitional democracies, the detached watchdog prevails, while in non-democratic countries the watchdog role is almost absent. Our results also reveal that structural contexts of undemocratic political regimes and restricted press freedom are key definers of watchdog role performance overall. However, the type of political regime is actually more important—and in fact the most important predictor— for detached than for interventionist reporting.

The Promoter, Celebrity, and Joker Roles in Journalists’ Social Media Performance

“…This study extends these roles to journalists, with a focus on social media where professional and personal contexts, as well as public and private spheres, merge. To analyze components of journalistic performance, it is possible to examine the news production process through the lens of ethnographic work or consider the news product as an outcome through content analysis or using another textual/visual methodology (e.g., Márquez-Ramírez et al, 2020;Reich, 2016;Ryfe, 2012). At the outcome level, previous endeavors have developed standards to measure traditional journalistic roles in the news.…”

Tempo’s Watchdog Journalism toward the Indonesian Government’s Policy on COVID-19

“…Watchdog journalism is divided into two sub-dimensions, namely detached watchdog-leaning towards the passive voice of journalists when observing power by presenting reality-and interventionist watchdog-shaping reality within the framework of journalists, by openly questioning, criticizing, and making accusations while observing power (Márquez-Ramírez et al, 2020). In this case, Tempo applies an interventionist watchdog because it presents facts on the ground in framing the news as well as provides criticism to the government's responses and policies, both in actual data as well as interviews or confirmation to the responsible parties and through diction, rhetorical meaning, news schemes, issue highlights, and discourse.…”

“…This dimension can be achieved through the testimony of sources or the voice of journalists to question, criticize, or openly accuse. The third is the source of the news event, where journalists actively seek and uncover cases in an investigative manner, not just citing reports, press releases, or judicial decisions (Márquez-Ramírez et al, 2020).…”

Investigating the Gap between Newspaper Journalists’ Role Conceptions and Role Performance in Nine European, Asian, and Latin American Countries

“…Donsbach [2008] 2012; Eide and Knight 1999; Hanitzsch 2007), Mellado (2015) operationalizes and validates the presence of six independent roles in news content: the interventionist, watchdog, loyal-facilitator, service, civic, and infotainment roles (e.g., Mellado and van Dalen 2014, 2017; Mellado et al 2017b). Following her operationalization, multiple studies have analyzed the contextual nuances of JRP in a diversity of sociopolitical and news production environments, as well as the gap between ideals and practices at the individual level (e.g., Humanes and Roses 2018; Márquez-Ramírez et al 2020; Mellado et al 2017a, 2017b; Stępińska et al 2016; Wang et al 2018).…”