THE PROJECT
Professional roles are a central focus in journalism research, as they serve as fundamental components of journalistic cultures. Roles shape the shared cultural capital among journalists, influencing both their professional identity and practices. They manifest not only in normative values and ideals but also in concrete journalistic routines and performances, reflecting broader societal and institutional dynamics (Zelizer, 1993; Mellado et al., 2017; Schudson, 2003).
Over the past decade, considerable attention has been given to theorizing the various concepts involved in the study of professional roles, particularly journalistic role performance. Journalistic role performance focuses on how professional roles manifest in both news production decisions and the final news content that reaches the public. Unlike studies that examine professional role conceptions in isolation, research on journalistic role performance has emerged as a more autonomous field, offering distinct insights into journalism practices worldwide. This is particularly relevant in contexts where evaluative elements of professional roles are less explicitly articulated in practice.
Studies from the first and second waves of our JRP Project consistently reveal patterns of multilayered hybridization in journalistic cultures across advanced, transitional, and non-democratic countries.Our findings also highlight significant variations in role performance, influenced by societal, organizational, and news-level factors. Moreover, they expose a substantial gap between journalistic ideals and perceptions and the professional practices observed in the field (e.g., Amiel et al., 2023; Boudana et al., 2024; Hallin et al., 2023; Lee et al., 2023; Márquez-Ramírez et al., 2019; Mellado et al., 2024; Mellado, 2021; McIntyre et al., 2023; Mothes et al., 2024; Navarro et al., 2024; Nolan et al., 2024; Pagiotti et al., 2024; StÄ™piÅ„ska et al., 2016; Wang, Sparks, & Huang, 2018; Zhao et al., 2023).
Professional Role Performance as Object of Study
The concept of role performance bridges journalists’ beliefs about the role of journalism with its actual practice across different societal contexts, linking research on professional roles (e.g., Weaver & Willnat, 2012) with studies on news production (Shoemaker & Reese, 2013) and media system research (Hallin & Mancini, 2024).
Our project argues that while the evaluative elements of journalistic cultures are fundamental to understanding professionalism, the constraints journalists face within the profession often prevent them from fully adhering to normative standards (Mothes & Mellado, 2024; Mellado & Van Dalen, 2014). This may occur even when journalists have clear ideas about which professional roles they consider most important.
One of the main challenges that quantitative studies on journalistic professional roles have faced over time is the lack of theorization and empirical focus on the connection between role conception and practice. Traditionally, journalistic roles have been treated primarily as an empirical concept to examine the roles journalists deem important in society. However, the definitions of the construct "professional role" have varied considerably over time (Mellado, Hellmueller, & Donsbach, 2017).
Our JRP Project distinguishes four different concepts within the construct of professional roles in journalism.
a) Role conception: The individual journalist’s understanding of the most important purposes of the profession. This evaluation is subjective and not necessarily aligned with broader social consensus.
b) Role perception: The perceived expectations of society regarding journalistic roles. Unlike role conception, role perception does not reflect an individual journalist’s personal stance and is not necessarily tied to the conceiver’s own beliefs.
c) Perceived role enactment: This concept has primarily been studied at the evaluative level, referring to what journalists believe they do in practice. Some studies have also used "role enactment" to examine the manifestation of journalistic roles in news content. However, due to the internal and external constraints shaping journalism, role enactment may never be fully realized within the profession. Unlike role performance, role enactment assumes that journalists have autonomy and freedom over their work, allowing them to individually implement the roles they consider most important—an ideal that is often difficult to achieve in practice.
d) Role performance: Role performance refers to journalists’ actual behaviors, representing the collective outcome of newsroom decisions and reporting styles, taking into account the various factors that shape journalism as a professional practice (Mellado et al., 2017, 2021).
The gap between ideals of roles or normative values and role performance is understood as the degree of congruence or discrepancy between an individual’s role conception, role perception or perceived role enactment, and his or her professional performance.
Within this context, role performance can explain the extent to which journalists’ news decisions and reporting styles are influenced by a journalist’s specific role conception, perception, perceived enactment, or by other variables that are not in the mix of expectations perceived as legitimate.
It should be borne in mind that although its relevant components are inevitably determined by normative criteria, the concept of role performance is not a normative one. Indeed, roles are not good or bad per se, since they are not universal. They are historical, situational, and they can be mediated constantly depending on the specific contexts (Mellado, 2015; Vos, 2017, Lynch, 2007).
Studying professional roles
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The JRP Project has generated a common methodology, with valid scales to measure journalistic role performance in the news, as well as role conceptions, role perceptions, and perceived role enactment among journalists. Using these scales, scholars are able to analyze professional roles in different contextual settings to enable cross-national research.
Based on standardized measures, the JRP Project looked at three main areas in which both the ideals and practice of journalism can be analyzed: the “journalistic voice” domain; the “power relations” domain; and the “audience approach” domain.
Within these domains, the watchdog, the loyal-facilitator, the interventionist-disseminator, the service, the infotainment and the civic roles, are measured by specific indicators and variables.
Except for the interventionist and disseminator roles, which form a one-dimensional structure, all other roles are independent yet interrelated to some extent. Therefore, they should not be viewed as opposing poles on a continuum but rather as distinct dimensions in their own right.
Of course, these are not the only domains from which professional roles can be analyzed, nor are they the only roles that manifest at both the evaluative and performative levels.
Also, taking into account that several concepts are inevitably culturally bound, it is likely that not all the indicators emerging from the literature will work in the same way in all societies, especially when considering that professional roles can be seen as reflective measurement models.
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References
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Boudana, S., Cohen, A. A., & Mellado, C. (2024). The geographic frame matters (too): How journalistic role performance varies in domestic, foreign, and mixed news. Journalism, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241298783
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​​Hallin, D. C., Mellado, C., Cohen, A., Hubé, N., Nolan, D., Szabó, G., … Ybáñez, N. (2023). Journalistic Role Performance in Times of COVID. Journalism Studies, 24(16), 1977–1998. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2274584
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Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511790867.003
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Lee, M., Mellado, C., Lim, D., & Park, K. (2024). Journalistic Continuity and Variability in South Korea’s COVID-19 Coverage. Journalism Practice, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2433248
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McIntyre, K., Abdenour, J., Maduneme, E., & Skjerdal, T. (2023). Investigating the Gap Between Journalists’ Role Conceptions and Role Performance in Rwanda and Ethiopia. Journalism Studies, 24(12), 1497–1517. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2230302
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Márquez, M., Mellado, C., Humanes, M. L., Amado, A., Beck, D., Davydov, S., … Wang, H. (2019). Detached or Interventionist? Comparing the Performance of Watchdog Journalism in Transitional, Advanced and Non-democratic Countries. The International Journal of Press/Politics 25(1),53-75. https://doi.org/10.1177/194016121987
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Mellado, Claudia et al. (2024). Does News Platform Matter? Comparing Online Journalistic Role Performance to Newspaper, Radio, and Television. Digital Journalism, 12(3), 376–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2191332
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Mellado, C. (ed) (2021). Beyond Journalistic Norms: Role performance and news in comparative perspective. NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429425509
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Mellado, C., Hellmueller L., Márquez- Ramírez, M; Humanes, M.L... Wang, H. (2017). The Hybridization of Journalistic Cultures: A Comparative Study of Journalistic Role Performance. Journal of Communication 67, 944–967. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12339
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Mellado, C (2015). Professional roles in news content: Six dimensions of journalistic role performance. Journalism Studies 16 (4), 596-614. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.922276
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Mellado, C & Van Dalen, A (2014). Between rhetoric and practice. Explaining the gap between role conception and performance in journalism. Journalism Studies 15 (6), 859-878.
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Mothes, C., Mellado, C., Boudana, S., Himma, M., Nolan, … Van Leuven, S. (2024). Spurring or Blurring Professional Standards? The Role of Digital Technology in Implementing Journalistic Role Ideals in Contemporary Newsrooms. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 1-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990241246692
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Pagiotti, S., Stanziano, A., Mazzoni, M., & Mincigrucci, R. (2024). Interpreting or Reporting? An Analysis of Journalistic Interventionism Across Western European Countries. Journalism Practice, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2326988
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