Crosscultural challenges in comparative journalism research
The value of comparative journalism research depends on the study’s validity across borders. Although this may appear as common sense, there tends to be a lack of discussion of crosscultural difficulties when addressing methodological concerns in various comparative global journalism studies. This paper seeks to address the issue in light of experiences with the latest Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS), referring particularly to experiences from the Africa chapter of the study and especially Ethiopia. The challenges encountered in the data collection were not limited to issues of semantics and translation of the questionnaire, but concerned underlying assumptions which are characteristic of studies designed in a liberal, Western setting. For example, studies typically presume that professional roles and preferences are an expression of individual judgement, whereas journalists in controlled media environments may operate with multiple, competing role perceptions simultaneously. Besides discussing theoretical issues, the paper makes practical suggestions regarding comparative survey studies such as WJS. The author does not argue for major changes in the questionnare format, but encourages researchers to pay more attention to crosscultural issues in the discussion of research methodology when presenting research findings.
Publisert i Paper presented at the annual IAMCR congress (International Association for Media and Communication Research), 2016
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