Murrostuva valtamedia ja yhteiskunnallisen journalismin mieli

Authors

• Jaana Hujanen

Abstract

The article explores Finnish journalists’ perceptions of their professional tasks and responsibilities, and the views of democracy and the audience they subscribe to when negotiating the ideals and practices of societal journalism. The study is based on qualitative interviews with journalists. The analysis points towards heterogeneous, partially contradictory, ways of perceiving good societal journalism and the role of journalists. Despite the development work done in the newsrooms towards reader friendly news, readers are positioned by some journalists ‘only’ as (political) consumers and citizens who need to be served with news which disseminate relevant and critical information. However, also such conceptualizations of journalism and news practices emerged which indicate that journalists increasingly aim at organising encounters between various voices, public discussion as well as public fora for people to act.