Portrait of an Azerbaijani journalist: unpaid, dissatisfied, but nevertheless passionate and committed

Abstract

The field of journalism in Azerbaijan is vastly understudied. Aiming to fill the major knowledge gap owing to the lack of any empirical data on Azerbaijan’s media, this is an attempt to systematically study the media environment in Azerbaijan. Through a national survey based on the larger frameworks of the Global Journalist (GJ) and the Worlds of Journalism (WoJ) projects this study constructs a demographic profile of journalists in Azerbaijan. We find that the overall picture of journalism in Azerbaijan is, in many ways, similar to the global averages (i.e. education, ethnic and religious affiliation with majority groups). However, even when the findings are similar between Azerbaijan and other countries, especially the “Western” countries with particular media systems, similar demographic characteristics can be due to a set of factors specific to Azerbaijani society.