The power of primary definers: How journalists assess the pluralism of economic journalism

Abstract

After the financial crisis, journalism scholarship has extensively pointed out how the journalistic debate on economic policy has been dominated by a strong emphasis on austerity and a limited range of elite sources. Building on 19 semi-structured interviews with Finnish political and economic journalists, this article examines how journalists themselves evaluate the pluralism of the economic policy debate. This article shows how journalists covering economic policy are critical when evaluating the level of pluralism in economic journalism, referring to a narrow range of expert sources and a widely shared economic policy consensus. These findings testify to the ability of ‘primary definers’ to set the boundaries of ‘legitimate controversy’ in economic journalism. Also, the interviews show how ruptures in economic policy, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting vast amount of monetary and fiscal stimulus, create space for more pluralism in economic journalism.

The German media as amplifier of the political agenda: The economic policy framing of European conflicts in times of COVID-19

“…In contrast to the conclusions of the mentioned studies (e.g. Basu, 2019;Harjuniemi, 2021), no lack of plurality can be attributed to the mass media. The German political and media landscape has shown a willingness to present alternatives to the normalized narrative of austerity from other economic crises and to offer a comparatively high level of pluralism that challenged the status quo significantly-as argued by Kay and Salter (2014) to be desirable but was not fulfilled by the British media during the euro crisis.…”

“…The German political and media landscape has shown a willingness to present alternatives to the normalized narrative of austerity from other economic crises and to offer a comparatively high level of pluralism that challenged the status quo significantly—as argued by Kay and Salter (2014) to be desirable but was not fulfilled by the British media during the euro crisis. This conclusion is in line with Harjuniemi's (2021) findings that COVID-19-induced disruptions in economic policy decision-making can increase pluralism in economic policy journalism and provide scope for a paradigm shift.…”

“…Conversely, one-sidedness can influence the formation of citizens’ opinions ( Entman, 2003 : 418). In addition to the requirement for balanced coverage, reporting should also be pluralistic, which derives from the democratic role of journalism ( Harjuniemi, 2021 : 3): Specifically, the media should promote fundamentally different worldviews to promote a pluralistic democracy. This means that journalism should discuss economic issues based on different views rather than declaring particular ideas or paradigms beyond contestation.…”

The concept of social field in media discourse

“…It is relevant to point out, however, that the limitation of sources is not a problem unique to the Environmental Journalism. Harjuniemi (2021), for one, indicates that the informational discourse on economics policy has been dependent on a limited range of elite sources, lacking in pluralism. This view is corroborated by Rios-Rodríguez and Arrese (2021), when analyzing the coverage of the economic crisis in Spain from 2008 to 2015.…”

How Constructive Journalism Helps the Small and Medium Enterprises

“…The media used by journalism to convey information are newspapers, radio, television, and online mass media. Journalism is not only an activity to cover news but also every journalist has their own task in covering news and has its own name (Harjuniemi, 2021).…”