Comparing Journalistic Role Performance Across Thematic Beats: A 37-Country Study

Mellado, Claudia; Márquez-Ramírez, Mireya; Van Leuven, Sarah; Jackson, Daniel; Mothes, Cornelia; Arcila-Calderón, Carlos; Berthaut, Jérome; Blanchett, Nicole; Boudana, Sandrine; Chen, Katherine Y. N.; Davydov, Sergey; De Maio, Mariana; Fahmy, Nagwa; Ferrero, Martina; Garcés, Miguel; Hagen, Lutz; Hallin, Daniel C.; Humanes, María Luisa; Himma-Kadakas, Marju; Keel, Guido; Kozman, Claudia; Krstić, Aleksandra; Lecheler, Sophie; Lee, Misook; Lin, Christi I-Hsuan; Mazzoni, Marco; McGuinness, Kieran; McIntyre, Karen; Mick, Jacques; Navarro, Cristina; Olivera, Dasniel; Pizarro, Marcela; Silke, Henry; Skjerdal, Terje; Stępińska, Agnieszka; Szabó, Gabriella; Viveros Aguilar, Diana

doi:10.32920/23905653.v1

JMCQ_News_beat_paper accepted for web.pdf (575.46 kB)

Comparing Journalistic Role Performance Across Thematic Beats: A 37-Country Study

preprint

posted on 2023-08-08, 18:57 authored by Claudia Mellado, Mireya Márquez-Ramírez, Sarah Van Leuven, Daniel Jackson, Cornelia Mothes, Carlos Arcila-Calderón, Jérome Berthaut, Nicole BlanchettNicole Blanchett, Sandrine Boudana, Katherine Y. N. Chen, Sergey Davydov, Mariana De Maio, Nagwa Fahmy, Martina Ferrero, Miguel Garcés, Lutz Hagen, Daniel C. Hallin, María Luisa Humanes, Marju Himma-Kadakas, Guido Keel, Claudia Kozman, Aleksandra Krstić, Sophie Lecheler, Misook Lee, Christi I-Hsuan Lin, Marco Mazzoni, Kieran McGuinness, Karen McIntyre, Jacques Mick, Cristina Navarro, Dasniel Olivera, Marcela Pizarro, Henry Silke, Terje Skjerdal, Agnieszka Stępińska, Gabriella Szabó, Diana Viveros Aguilar

Studies suggest that, at the routine level, news beats function as unique “micro-cultures.” Exploring this “particularist” approach in news content, we compare how the interventionist, watchdog, loyal, service, infotainment, and civic roles materialize across 11 thematic news beats and analyze the moderating effect of platforms, ownership, and levels of political freedom on journalistic role performance in hard and soft news. Based on the second wave of the Journalistic Role Performance (JRP) project, this article reports the findings of a content analysis of 148,474 news items from 37 countries. Our results reveal the transversality of interventionism, the strong associations of some topics and roles, and the limited reach of news beat particularism in the face of moderating variables.