ResearchPod Summary
Hanitzsch and Vos argue that journalism scholarship has been historically constrained by a "Western-centric" framework that equates journalism almost exclusively with democracy. By prioritizing the media’s role in political life and democratic citizenship, researchers have marginalized other vital functions of journalism, particularly those relevant to non-Western contexts and the "everyday life" of individuals. The authors contend that this narrow focus has led to a "hegemonic model" that treats Western journalistic standards as universal, often ignoring how journalism functions in societies that prioritize social harmony, national development, or collective stability over liberal democratic ideals.
To move beyond these limitations, the authors employ "discursive institutionalism." They define journalistic roles not as fixed, essential functions, but as discursive constructions—ideas about journalism’s identity that are created, negotiated, and contested through ongoing public and professional conversation. Over time, these ideas "sediment" into institutional norms. By viewing roles as products of discourse, the authors argue that we can better understand why certain roles (like the political "watchdog") gain institutional legitimacy while others (like those related to lifestyle or personal guidance) are dismissed as "unworthy."
The paper proposes a more inclusive framework that categorizes journalistic roles into two distinct domains:
By explicitly including "everyday life," the authors argue that journalism serves essential human needs—such as guidance, self-maintenance, and emotional orientation—that are not reducible to political participation.
Alex: Welcome to another episode of ResearchPod. Today, we're looking at how we define the role of a journalist in our society.
Sam: We're discussing a paper by Thomas Hanitzsch and Tim Vos. Their central argument is that journalism scholarship has been trapped by a narrow, Western-centric view—one that defines journalism almost exclusively by its contribution to democracy.
Alex: So the paper is asking why we treat certain types of news as "real" journalism while dismissing everything else?
Sam: Exactly. By focusing only on political watchdog roles, scholars have effectively been studying a ghost of journalism rather than the full reality. Hanitzsch and Vos propose a new framework—one that gives equal standing to both political journalism and the often-ignored world of "everyday life" journalism.
Alex: I've always heard journalism described as the "fourth estate"—the watchdog of power. But that framing doesn't seem to cover the lifestyle sections, advice columns, or personal finance guides I see every day.
Sam: That's the core tension. The traditional approach—what scholars call "normative theory"—focuses on how journalism *ought* to function in order to support democracy. The problem is that this framework was built around Western liberal democracies. It largely ignores journalists in other parts of the world who prioritize things like national unity, social cohesion, or community wellbeing.
Alex: So if you're a journalist in a society that values harmony over confrontation, the old model essentially marks you as doing it wrong?
Sam: That's a fair way to put it. And that's precisely what the authors want to dismantle. To do it, they draw on a concept called "discursive institutionalism." The name sounds dense, but the idea is straightforward. Rather than treating journalism as a fixed set of rules carved in stone, think of it as a living conversation—one that society keeps having with itself about what journalists are supposed to do. Over time, certain ideas harden into accepted norms. But those norms are never truly permanent. They can always be questioned, renegotiated, or replaced.
Alex: So it's less like a rulebook and more like a language—one that evolves as the people speaking it change?
That's a good way to frame it. And using that lens, Hanitzsch and Vos map journalism into two broad domains. The first is political life—the territory most people associate with journalism, covering roles like the investigative watchdog, the political analyst, or the public forum facilitator. The second domain is everyday life, which is where things get interesting. This covers how journalists help people navigate personal identity, make consumer decisions, or process difficult emotions.
This research is significant because it challenges the "existential" link between journalism and democracy, suggesting that such a link is a scholarly construct rather than a universal reality. By providing a broader taxonomy of roles, the authors offer a toolkit for researchers to study journalism in diverse global contexts without forcing those practices into a Western mold. This shift allows for a more accurate, inclusive understanding of how journalism actually functions in the lives of people worldwide.
AI-generated third-party summary by ResearchPod. Not official content or an endorsement by the paper authors or affiliated organizations.
Alex: Why does that second domain matter so much to their argument?
Sam: Because in practice, a huge portion of what journalists actually produce falls into that category—and yet scholarship has largely treated it as secondary, or even trivial. The authors argue that when people turn to a health column for guidance on managing stress, or read a personal finance piece to understand a major life decision, that journalism is performing a genuine social function. Dismissing it as "soft" content means ignoring a significant part of what the profession actually does.
Alex: So it's about extending legitimacy to the lifestyle reporter, not just the political investigator.
Sam: Precisely. To make the relationships between all these roles easier to visualize, the authors use a color wheel analogy. Think of the core functions of journalism as the primary colors—a small number of fundamental purposes. The specific roles journalists play are the individual shades that blend from those primaries. A journalist might act as a watchdog one week and a community facilitator the next, without any contradiction. The roles are fluid, not fixed categories.
Alex: Does this framework actually change how researchers study the field, or is it mainly a conceptual reframing?
Sam: It has real methodological consequences. It pushes researchers to stop using Western democratic ideals as the universal standard. Instead of asking whether a journalist in, say, Southeast Asia is "failing" to be a proper watchdog, a researcher using this framework would ask: what social needs is this journalist successfully meeting within their own context? That's a fundamentally different question, and it tends to produce more accurate answers.
Alex: It sounds like a shift from judging journalism against a single ideal to actually observing what journalism does across different societies.
Sam: That's exactly the move the authors are making. The goal isn't to abandon standards, but to build a framework broad enough to reflect the profession as it actually exists globally—rather than as it exists in one particular political tradition. When you stop forcing every journalist into the same box, the authors suggest, you start to see the full range of work the profession performs.
Alex: It's a meaningful reorientation—and one that seems long overdue given how much of the world's journalism has simply been left out of the conversation. Thanks for listening to ResearchPod.