“I Know Which Devil I Write for” : Two Types of Autonomy Among Czech Journalists Remaining in and Leaving the Prime Minister's Newspapers

Kód výsledku v IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14230%2F23%3A00129927" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14230/23:00129927 - isvavai.cz</a>

Výsledek na webu

<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/19401612211045229" target="_blank" >https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/19401612211045229</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/19401612211045229" target="_blank" >10.1177/19401612211045229</a>

Jazyk výsledku

angličtina

Název v původním jazyce

“I Know Which Devil I Write for” : Two Types of Autonomy Among Czech Journalists Remaining in and Leaving the Prime Minister's Newspapers

Popis výsledku v původním jazyce

This paper examines two different understandings of professional autonomy among journalists currently and formerly working at Mafra, a Czech media house acquired in 2013 by Andrej Babiš, who in 2017 became the Czech Prime Minister. We build on existing research of local trends in media ownership and journalistic autonomy to ask the following questions: What differentiated the experience of journalists who exited the organization after the ownership change from that of those who stayed put? How did the two groups understand professional journalistic autonomy? Based on the thematic analysis of twenty semistructured interviews with ten journal- ists who stayed in the media house after Babiš’s acquisition and ten journalists who left, we argue that in the journalists’ narratives, the two decisions reflect two different notions of autonomy: autonomy-as-a-practice and autonomy-as-a-value. While our findings add to the scarce empirical research on journalists’ lived experiences of the region’s mediascape marked by growing comingling and concentration of political, economic and media power, we also suggest that the autonomy-as-a-practice and journalists’ agency should be further studied as a possible way how to perform and promote journalistic autonomy even in illiberalizing contexts—in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.

Název v anglickém jazyce

“I Know Which Devil I Write for” : Two Types of Autonomy Among Czech Journalists Remaining in and Leaving the Prime Minister's Newspapers

Popis výsledku anglicky

This paper examines two different understandings of professional autonomy among journalists currently and formerly working at Mafra, a Czech media house acquired in 2013 by Andrej Babiš, who in 2017 became the Czech Prime Minister. We build on existing research of local trends in media ownership and journalistic autonomy to ask the following questions: What differentiated the experience of journalists who exited the organization after the ownership change from that of those who stayed put? How did the two groups understand professional journalistic autonomy? Based on the thematic analysis of twenty semistructured interviews with ten journal- ists who stayed in the media house after Babiš’s acquisition and ten journalists who left, we argue that in the journalists’ narratives, the two decisions reflect two different notions of autonomy: autonomy-as-a-practice and autonomy-as-a-value. While our findings add to the scarce empirical research on journalists’ lived experiences of the region’s mediascape marked by growing comingling and concentration of political, economic and media power, we also suggest that the autonomy-as-a-practice and journalists’ agency should be further studied as a possible way how to perform and promote journalistic autonomy even in illiberalizing contexts—in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.

Druh

J_imp - Článek v periodiku v databázi Web of Science

CEP obor

—

OECD FORD obor

50801 - Journalism

Projekt

—

Návaznosti

V - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z jinych verejnych zdroju

Rok uplatnění

2023

Kód důvěrnosti údajů

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Název periodika

The International Journal of Press/Politics

ISSN

1940-1612

e-ISSN

1940-1620

Svazek periodika

28

Číslo periodika v rámci svazku

1

Stát vydavatele periodika

US - Spojené státy americké

Počet stran výsledku

19

Strana od-do

238-256

Kód UT WoS článku

000713263400001

EID výsledku v databázi Scopus

2-s2.0-85116874069