Dynamics of news selection in different socio-cultural contexts: Theoretical and methodological issues

Abstract

This paper tackles theoretical and methodological issues of a comparative research in three countries of different journalistic cultures (UK, Sweden and Greece) that contributes to an explanation of news judgement, called 'journalistic gut feeling' by journalists, as implemented in varying social contexts. A thesis of this investigation is that the combined consideration of the theoretical domains of news values, news practice and journalistic professionalism is required so that an adequate explanation of the dynamics of news evaluation is produced. The theoretical approach adopted is Bourdieu’s 'field' perspective as applied in journalism research by Benson, while the methodological one is a comparative, mixed methods design that pays attention to contextual factors, drawing on suggestions by Bryman, Hantrais and Hanitzsch. The methods applied are a questionnaire survey of journalists and focus groups simulating editorial meetings.