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Patterns in Media Accountability: A European Perspective

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Handbook of Global Media Ethics

Abstract

This chapter discusses several patterns of media accountability, as a process influenced by stakeholders with different expectations and colliding interests. To clarify the issue, the chapter presents three main cultural-cognitive definitions of journalism: public interest watchdog, instrument in the hands of power holder, and profit generator. It discusses them using the concepts of horizontal, voluntary accountability toward peers and society and vertical, compulsory accountability toward owner and public authorities. Research results from two international projects, MediaAct and Digital News Report, indicate that journalists in Europe face an accountability overload, while multiple definitions of journalism are imposed on the same newsroom. In addition, communication professionals have to solve a fundamental paradox: The state is the principal source of legal accountability. Yet, in regimes with autocratic tendencies, media workers have to refuse any delegitimizing patronage from the power holders, in order to protect public interest and democracy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Bovens, Schillemans, and Goodin, “Public Accountability.”

  2. 2.

    McQuail, Media Accountability and Freedom of Publication; McQuail, Mass Communication Theory.

  3. 3.

    Bovens, Schillemans, and Goodin, “Public Accountability.”

  4. 4.

    Larson, The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis.

  5. 5.

    Evetts, “Introduction: Trust and Professionalism: Challenges and Occupational Changes.”

  6. 6.

    Bovens, Schillemans, and Goodin, “Public Accountability.”

  7. 7.

    Norris, “Watchdog Journalism.”

  8. 8.

    For public institutions, see the excellent collection of essays in The Oxford Handbook of Public Accountability. For a discussion of the mass media, see McQuail. Mass Communication Theory.

  9. 9.

    Fengler, et al. eds., Journalists and Media Accountability: An International Study of News People in the Digital Age; Eberwein, Fengler, and Karmasin, eds. The European Handbook of Media Accountability.

  10. 10.

    The data of the MediaAct project are presented in Fengler et al., Journalists and Media Accountability: An International Study of News people in the Digital Age.

  11. 11.

    The Digital News Report data and analyses are available at www.digitalnewsreport.org. The project, launched in 2012, is coordinated by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.

  12. 12.

    Feintuck and Varney, Media Regulation, Public Interest and the Law, 171.

  13. 13.

    Jakubowicz, “Bringing Public Service Broadcasting to Account,” 151.

  14. 14.

    Gailmard, “Accountability and Principal-Agent Theory.”

  15. 15.

    Radu, “Externalities and Journalism.”

  16. 16.

    Bertrand, Deontologia Mijloacelor de Comunicare.

  17. 17.

    Tetlock, “The Impact of Accountability on Judgement and Choice: Toward a Social Contingency Model.”

  18. 18.

    Fengler et al., eds., Journalists and Media Accountability: An International Study of News People in the Digital Age.

  19. 19.

    McQuail, Mass Communication Theory, 192–206.

  20. 20.

    Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers.

  21. 21.

    Himelboim and Limor, “Media Perception of Freedom of the Press: A Comparative International Analysis of 242 Codes of Ethics;” Habermas, Sfera Publică și Transformarea ei Structurală.

  22. 22.

    Dahlgren and Sparks, eds., Journalism and Popular Culture; Hoynes, “Branding Public Service: The ‘New PBS’ and the Privatization of Public Television;” Fengler and Russ-Mohl, “The (Behavioral) Economics of Media Accountability.”

  23. 23.

    Voltmer, The Media in Transitional Democracies; Coman and Gross, “Uncommonly Common or Truly Exceptional? An Alternative to the Political System-Based Explanation of the Romanian Mass Media;” Stetka, “From Multinationals to Business Tycoons: Media Ownership and Journalistic Autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe.”

  24. 24.

    Radu and Preoteasa, Economia Mass-Media; Kuhn, “The Media and the Executive in France: An Unequal Power Relationship.”

  25. 25.

    Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers; Ferenczi, L’invention du Journalisme en France. Naissance de la Presse Moderne à la Fin du XIXe Siècle; Radu, Instituţii Culturale în Tranziţie.

  26. 26.

    Hallin and Mancini, Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics.

  27. 27.

    Radu, “Strategii de Diferentiere Pentru Produsele de Presă Generaliste.”

  28. 28.

    Kuhn, “The Media and the Executive in France: An Unequal Power Relationship.”

  29. 29.

    Stetka, “From Multinationals to Business Tycoons: Media Ownership and Journalistic Autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe.”

  30. 30.

    Stetka, “From Multinationals to Business Tycoons: Media Ownership and Journalistic Autonomy in Central and Eastern Europe.”

  31. 31.

    Recommendation CM/Rec(2018)1[1] of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on Media Pluralism and Transparency of Media Ownership.

  32. 32.

    Vīķe-Freiberga et al., A Free and Pluralistic Media to Sustain European Democracy.

  33. 33.

    McManus, “The Commercialization of News,” 219.

  34. 34.

    McChesney, Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times; Coman, Introducere în Sistemul Mass-Media; Gross and Kenny, “The Long Journey Ahead: Journalism Education in Central Asia;” McManus, “The Commercialization of News.”

  35. 35.

    Machin and Thornborrow, “Branding and Discourse: The Case of Cosmopolitan;” Kitch, “Selling the ‘Authentic Past’: The New York Times and the Branding of History.”

  36. 36.

    McQuail, “Public Service Broadcasting: Both Free and Accountable.”

  37. 37.

    Djankov, et al., “Who Owns the Media?” 357.

  38. 38.

    Halachmi, “Accountability Overloads.”

  39. 39.

    Newman et al., Digital News Report 2017.

  40. 40.

    Newman et al., Digital News Report 2019.

  41. 41.

    Meyer and Rowan, “Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structures as Myth and Ceremony,” 357.

  42. 42.

    See, for example, Global Reporting Initiative, G4 Sector Disclosures. Media.

  43. 43.

    Larson, “The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis.”

  44. 44.

    Evetts, “Introduction. Trust and Professionalism: Challenges and Occupational Changes.”

  45. 45.

    Larson, “The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis.”

  46. 46.

    Matei, “Desacralization of a National Day.”

  47. 47.

    Waldenström, Wiik, and Andersson, “Conditional Autonomy: Journalistic Practice in the Tension Field Between Professionalism and Managerialism,” 493.

  48. 48.

    Radu, Instituţii Culturale in Tranziţie.

  49. 49.

    Coman, Popa and Radu, “Romania: Unexpected Pressures for Accountability.”

  50. 50.

    Becker, “Lessons from Russia: A Neo-Authoritarian Media System,” 151.

  51. 51.

    Eberwein, Fengler, and Karmasin, eds., The European Handbook ofMedia Accountability.

  52. 52.

    Lemelshtrich Latar, “Israel: Media in Political Handcuffs.”

  53. 53.

    Freidson, “Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge.”

  54. 54.

    Larson, “The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis.”

  55. 55.

    Larson, “The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis.”

  56. 56.

    Splendore, “Italy: Transparency as an Inspiration.”

  57. 57.

    Khondker, “Role of the New Media in the Arab Spring.”

  58. 58.

    See, for example, Aro, “The Cyberspace War: Propaganda and Trolling as Warfare Tools.”

  59. 59.

    See, for example, Radu, “‘Another Question?’ Journalism’s Role in Romanian Protests.”

  60. 60.

    Reader, “Free Press vs. Free Speech? The Rhetoric of Civility in Regard to Anonymous Online Comments.”

  61. 61.

    Boskos, “Andrew Caruana Galizia: Without Free Journalism, There Can Be No Democracy.”

  62. 62.

    Meers, “Romania Orders Journalists Investigating Corruption to Give Up Sources.”

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Raluca-Nicoleta Radu

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  1. UBC Graduate School of Journalism, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Stephen J. A. Ward

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Radu, RN. (2021). Patterns in Media Accountability: A European Perspective. In: Ward, S.J.A. (eds) Handbook of Global Media Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32103-5_64

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