Examining national culture and journalistic autonomy

Abstract

This study used data from 52 countries to examine newspaper journalists’ perceptions of their professional autonomy and whether autonomy is improving. Results suggest that nearly three-quarters of newspaper journalists enjoy some degree of professional autonomy. Journalists in individualistic cultures and high uncertainty avoidance cultures reported higher levels of autonomy. A healthy democracy also predicted journalistic autonomy. Overall, results suggest journalistic freedom is declining. Interestingly, stronger human development was associated with perceived declines in autonomy.

Keywords

international communication press and society management/economics/personnel political communication gov’t-press relations /public policy

In their seminal work “Comparing Media Systems,” Hallin and Mancini (2004) identified autonomy as one of the three most important dimensions of journalistic professionalism. Journalism autonomy can influence job satisfaction (Lopes et al., 2014) and is generally understood to be a precursor to watchdog journalism (Hamada et al., 2019). Although considered a Western ideal, “journalists around the world voice support for editorial autonomy as a protection against state and other forms of outside intrusion or interference in the editorial news-making process” (Hamada et al., 2019, p. 133). But while journalists globally extol the virtues of professional autonomy, it is constantly being contested (Hughes et al., 2017) and is believed to be on the decline (Glasser & Gunther, 2005; Hanusch et al., 2019). The current study seeks to understand the degree to which newspaper journalists say they enjoy professional autonomy as well as whether they perceive journalists’ freedom is on the rise or decline. We are also interested in understanding the factors that predict the level of autonomy around the globe as well as the factors that predict journalists’ perceptions of changes in their professional freedom. We pay particular attention to political, economic, and cultural dimensions. These questions were addressed using data from four datasets: the 2012-2016 Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS) wave, the Hofstede Center, the U.N. Human Development Index, and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index (associated with The Economist magazine).

Literature Review

Journalistic Autonomy

Journalistic autonomy refers to journalists’ ability to exercise control over their own work. There is ample evidence that journalistic autonomy is not static and can increase or decrease over time (De Albuquerque, 2012; Hanusch et al., 2019; Vartanova, 2012). For example, De Albuquerque (2012) notes that although professional journalism norms in Brazil have been strongly influenced by the American model, there remain significant differences. De Albuquerque attributes this to several factors, including that Brazil is a collectivist culture whereas U.S. is individualistic. As Hamada et al. (2019) note, “While the norm of editorial autonomy has global reach, it is clearly a malleable, challenged, and context-dependent concept that has extended beyond the liberal democratic context in which it originated” (p. 138). In terms of context, more experienced journalists report higher levels of autonomy (Reich & Hanitzsch, 2013), and beat reporters report higher levels than general assignment reporters (Weaver et al., 2007).

In a study using the larger sample from which the current study is drawn, Hamada et al. (2019) found that “in the vast majority of the sixty-seven societies investigated, journalists reported that they enjoy considerable editorial autonomy—a finding that runs counter to assumptions and assertions of weak journalistic freedom, which are common in the literature” (p. 156). Journalistic autonomy was positively correlated with press freedom, democracy, and human development. Of the five types of influences on their work that journalists were asked about, the two with the greatest apparent impact on journalistic autonomy were political influence and organizational influences. In addition to considering political and organizational factors, Hamada et al. (2019) argue for considering cultural values. In their study, they considered two: emancipative values and Hofstede’s power distance (although they refer to it as acceptance of inequality). The former is drawn from the World Values Survey and measures freedom of choice and equality. Perhaps not surprisingly, emancipative values were positively correlated with journalism autonomy, and acceptance of inequality was negatively correlated with it.

In most countries included in the Worlds of Journalism Study, journalists who had been in the profession for 5 or more years were asked about the degree to which various aspects of journalistic work had changed over the years. They were asked about 10 different aspects and each responded on a five-point scale ranging from “decreased a lot” to “increased a lot.” The item most relevant to the current study asked about “journalists freedom to make editorial decisions.” The fact the average across the sample was 2.95 might suggest that editorial autonomy had remained stable, but in fact, relatively few journalists selected the “did not change” option. Instead, most journalists indicated autonomy had either increased or decreased, thus canceling one another out in the aggregate (Hanusch et al., 2019).

Culture

Scholars disagree on how to define culture, but for the current study, we have adopted Geert Hofstede’s definition. Hofstede (2011) defined culture as “the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from others” (p. 1). He suggests value systems are important aspects of culture that affect beliefs, attitudes and practices. Values are often developed subconsciously and at a young age through interactions with our parents, siblings and others. In this sense, Hofstede et al. (2010) suggest that a culture reproduces itself. They distinguish between human nature—the things we all have in common—and culture. All humans experience fear, anger, joy, and sadness among other things, but how we express those emotions is influenced by culture.

Hofstede’s analyses led to six dimensions (power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, long-term/short-term orientation, and indulgence/restraint). Hofstede organized his orientations by cross-country comparison. Setting aside individual or geographic variance, each ranking is meant to describe the dominant orientation in the specific nation. What follows is a brief explanation of each dimension.

Individualism Versus Collectivism

This dimension speaks to the degree to which individuals look out for themselves and their immediate family and think in terms of “I” versus being more tied to a larger group and thinking in terms of “we.” In collective cultures, peoples’ sense of identity and sense of security comes from their in-group. “Between the person and the in-group, a mutual dependence relationship develops that is both practical and psychological” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 91). While personal freedom and achievement are prioritized in individual cultures, collective cultures place an emphasis on group harmony and group norms. Although standing out is seen as a good thing in individual cultures, fitting in is valued in collective cultures. This dimension has implications for how people behave at work, be it at a news organization or elsewhere. “Employed persons in an individualist culture are expected to act rationally according to their own interest, and work should be organized in such a way that this self-interest and employer’s interest coincide” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 235). In collective cultures the workplace can become an in-group and the employee-employer relationship “resembles a family relationship, with mutual obligations of protection in exchange for loyalty” (Hofstede, 2001, p. 235). Individualism is strongly correlated with national wealth.

Power Distance

This dimension assumes that differences in power are inevitable but the degree to which people in a particular country accept those differences is socially determined. Hofstede et al. (2010) define power distance as “the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally” (p. 61). They suggest that the degree to which people are accepting of inequality begins in childhood with the child-parent relationship and is later strengthened during the school-age years with the student-teacher relationship. Low power distance societies tend to invest more money in higher education and have greater upward mobility. In higher power distance cultures, there is more centralized power in the workplace and subordinates take for granted they won’t be consulted. Workplaces in low power distance cultures tend to be less centralized with a higher degree of upward mobility. In lower power distance cultures, employees understand their boss will often make the final decision but still expect them to be accessible and expect to be consulted.

Uncertainty Avoidance

This dimension measures the degree to which a culture is comfortable with ambiguity. In high uncertainty avoidance cultures, ambiguity leads to anxiety, and rules are often put in place to help alleviate this anxiety. “The need for rules in a society with strong uncertainty-avoidance culture is emotional. People—employers and employees but also civil servants and members of governments—have been programmed since early childhood to feel comfortable in structured environments. Matters that can be structured should not be left to chance” (Hofstede et al., 2010, p. 209). Employees in high uncertainty avoidance cultures tend to look for long-term employment but struggle to find work–life balance. Among journalists, uncertainty avoidance is positively correlated with the belief that ethical standards should be absolute (Ramaprasad et al., 2019).

Long-Term Versus Short-Term Orientation

This dimension considers whether people focus on the future or focus on the past and present. Cultures with a long-term orientation tend to be pragmatic and open to change while valuing thrift and perseverance (Hofstede et al., 2010). Cultures with a short-term orientation tend to be normative and cling to tradition while valuing analytical thinking and cognitive consistency.

Indulgence Versus Restraint

Indulgence versus restraint is heavily influenced by the World Values Survey items and modern “happiness” research (Hofstede, 2011). Societies with higher happiness scores tend to also be high in indulgence, valuing leisure and personal freedom. Alternately, in cultures with high scores of restraint, leisure is not a priority, and maintenance of order is valued.

The understanding of the relationship between the conceptualizations of autonomy and culture is as varied and contested as the definition of culture itself (Kim, 2009). The deep structures of national cultures as defined here certainly impact both individual and structural autonomy. The value of autonomy is influenced by if not dependent on cultural orientations (Lauk & Harro-Loi, 2017). Some argue that the very principle of autonomy is “contaminated by American or Eurocentric values” (Salles, 2002, p. 9) and thus not appropriate across other contexts and cultures. Autonomy exists in a paradox in relationship to power and to fundamental cultural values and beliefs. This complex landscape is rich for exploration in relation to the profession of journalism and professional autonomy.

The literature indicates the notion of autonomy, particularly as it relates to newspaper journalism around the globe, could be explored further, which leads us to the following research questions:

Research Question 1 (RQ1):

To what degree do newspaper journalists report having the freedom to select the stories they work on and the freedom to decide which aspects of a story to emphasize?

Research Question 2 (RQ2):

To what extent do Hofstede’s six dimensions of national culture predict higher/lower journalistic autonomy among newspaper journalists?

Research Question 3 (RQ3):

To what degree do newspaper journalists report their autonomy has increased or decreased over time?

Research Question 4 (RQ4):

To what extent do Hofstede’s six dimensions of national culture predict reported change in journalism autonomy?

Method

This project involves 52 countries for which there was complete data across four datasets: the 2012-2016 Worlds of Journalism Study (WJS) wave, the Hofstede Center, the U.N. Human Development Index, and the EIU Democracy Index.

The Sample

The Worlds of Journalism Study has sought since 2006 to expand scholarly understanding of journalists around the world. For the second round of data collection (2012-2016), research teams in all 67 WJS countries operated from a standardized survey instrument that was collaboratively developed before being translated into the appropriate language or languages for a particular national context (Laurer & Hanitzsch, 2019). More than 27,500 journalists completed the survey, and the countries included represent about 75% of the global population. The method of data collection varied by country and circumstance, with face-to-face, phone, email, and online surveys all being used. Attempts were made in each country to systematically represent that country’s news organizations and the journalists working there. Although the original WJS sample included journalists from across different media, the current study focuses only on newspaper journalists. In the survey for the original dataset, participants indicated the kind of medium they worked for. The options included “Daily newspaper,” “Weekly newspaper,” “Magazine,” “Television,” “Radio,” “News agency,” “Online outlet (stand-alone),” and “Online outlet (of an offline outlet).” The current study only includes data from respondents who selected “Daily” or “Weekly” newspaper (N = 9,891).

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

All six of Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture—power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence—were employed in this study. Each dimension is measured on a scale of 0 to 100 where higher scores reflect greater relevance of the dimension in the country. Other scholars have frequently relied on Hofstede’s dimensions and the underlying theoretical lens, as evidenced by the fact a citation analysis of global public relations articles found Hofstede was the ninth most cited author between 2000 and 2009 and again the ninth most cited author between 2010 and 2019 (Ki et al., 2021). Ki et al. (2021) credit Hofstede with demonstrating that national cultures are quantifiable and comparable. The data for this study were obtained from the Hofstede Center website in early 2020. A subset of countries was selected for analysis based on the availability of data for all six dimensions as well as inclusion in the WJS2 study as well as having available data from the United Nations and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The intersection of data led to the inclusion of 52 countries in this analysis (see Table 1).

Table 1

Country Means for Variables of Interest (N=52)

Country	Democracy*	UN HDI*	Power distance	Individualism	Masculinity	Uncertainty	Long term	Indulgence
Albania	5.91	0.80	90.00	20.00	80.00	70.00	61.00	15.00
Argentina	7.02	0.85	49.00	46.00	56.00	86.00	20.00	62.00
Australia	9.01	0.94	38.00	90.00	61.00	51.00	21.00	71.00
Austria	8.54	0.91	11.00	55.00	79.00	70.00	60.00	63.00
Bangladesh	5.73	0.61	80.00	20.00	55.00	60.00	47.00	20.00
Belgium	7.93	0.93	65.00	75.00	54.00	94.00	82.00	57.00
Brazil	6.96	0.75	69.00	38.00	49.00	76.00	44.00	59.00
Bulgaria	7.14	0.81	70.00	30.00	40.00	85.00	69.00	16.00
Canada	9.08	0.93	39.00	80.00	52.00	48.00	36.00	68.00
Chile	7.84	0.85	63.00	23.00	28.00	86.00	31.00	68.00
China	3.14	0.75	80.00	20.00	66.00	30.00	87.00	24.00
Colombia	6.62	0.76	67.00	13.00	64.00	80.00	13.00	83.00
Croatia	6.93	0.85	73.00	33.00	40.00	80.00	58.00	33.00
Czech Republic	7.94	0.89	57.00	58.00	57.00	74.00	70.00	29.00
Denmark	9.11	0.94	18.00	74.00	16.00	23.00	35.00	70.00
Egypt	3.18	0.70	70.00	25.00	45.00	80.00	7.00	4.00
El Salvador	6.64	0.66	66.00	19.00	40.00	94.00	20.00	89.00
Estonia	7.85	0.88	40.00	60.00	30.00	60.00	82.00	16.00
Finland	9.03	0.93	33.00	63.00	26.00	59.00	38.00	57.00
France	7.92	0.90	68.00	71.00	43.00	86.00	63.00	48.00
Germany	8.64	0.94	35.00	67.00	66.00	65.00	83.00	40.00
Greece	7.45	0.88	60.00	35.00	57.00	100.00	45.00	50.00
Hong Kong	6.50	0.94	68.00	25.00	57.00	29.00	61.00	17.00
Hungary	6.84	0.84	46.00	80.00	88.00	82.00	58.00	31.00
Iceland	9.58	0.95	30.00	60.00	10.00	50.00	28.00	67.00
India	7.74	0.63	77.00	48.00	56.00	40.00	51.00	26.00
Indonesia	7.03	0.70	78.00	14.00	46.00	48.00	62.00	38.00
Ireland	8.85	0.93	28.00	70.00	68.00	35.00	24.00	65.00
Italy	7.98	0.89	50.00	76.00	70.00	75.00	61.00	30.00
Japan	7.96	0.91	54.00	46.00	95.00	92.00	88.00	42.00
Latvia	7.37	0.86	44.00	70.00	9.00	63.00	69.00	13.00
Malaysia	6.43	0.80	100.00	26.00	50.00	36.00	41.00	57.00
Mexico	6.55	0.77	81.00	30.00	69.00	82.00	24.00	97.00
Netherlands	8.92	0.93	38.00	80.00	14.00	53.00	67.00	68.00
New Zealand	9.26	0.94	22.00	79.00	58.00	49.00	33.00	75.00
Norway	9.93	0.96	31.00	69.00	8.00	50.00	35.00	55.00
Philippines	6.84	0.70	94.00	32.00	64.00	44.00	27.00	42.00
Portugal	7.79	0.85	63.00	27.00	31.00	99.00	28.00	33.00
Romania	6.68	0.82	90.00	30.00	42.00	90.00	52.00	20.00
Russia	3.31	0.83	93.00	39.00	36.00	95.00	81.00	20.00
Serbia	6.71	0.80	86.00	25.00	43.00	92.00	52.00	28.00
Singapore	6.14	0.94	74.00	20.00	48.00	8.00	72.00	48.00
South Africa	7.56	0.71	49.00	65.00	63.00	49.00	34.00	63.00
South Korea	7.97	0.91	60.00	18.00	39.00	85.00	100.00	29.00
Spain	8.30	0.89	57.00	51.00	42.00	86.00	48.00	44.00
Sweden	9.45	0.94	31.00	71.00	5.00	29.00	53.00	78.00
Switzerland	9.09	0.95	34.00	68.00	70.00	58.00	74.00	66.00
Tanzania	5.58	0.51	70.00	25.00	40.00	50.00	34.00	38.00
Thailand	5.09	0.79	64.00	20.00	34.00	64.00	32.00	45.00
Turkey	5.12	0.83	66.00	37.00	45.00	85.00	46.00	49.00
United Kingdom	8.31	0.93	35.00	89.00	66.00	35.00	51.00	69.00
United States	8.11	0.93	40.00	91.00	62.00	46.00	26.00	68.00

Democracy and UN HDI values reflect measures from 2015.

Independent Variables

Human Development Index

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) produces the UN Human Development Index (HDI), which is a composite statistic used to measure and rank countries’ levels of human development. It was introduced in 1990 to expand the measurement focus of a country’s development beyond economic growth to include human well-being. The HDI measure encompasses three dimensions—standard of living, human health, and education—and is presented on a scale from 0 to 1. The UNDP makes the data available online (UNDP, n.d.). The scores from 2015 for the 52 countries included in the analysis were used and the range was from .53 to .95 (M = .85, SD = .10). Higher HDI scores reflect populations that have higher levels of education, higher per capita gross national income, and longer lifespans. HDI was used as a control variable in the analyses. (See Table 1.)

Economist Intelligence Unit—Democracy Index

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is a research and analysis firm owned by The Economist Group that produces the Democracy Index, which is an annual assessment of the state of democracy in 165 independent states (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2024). The data reported in 2015 for the 52 countries were used in this study as a control variable. The Democracy Index is based on five categories including civil liberties, political participation, and political culture. The level of democracy is based on a scale of 1 to 10 where higher scores indicate a greater presence of democratic characteristics. For the 52 countries included in the analysis, the mean was 7.79 (SD = 1.46). The range is then divided into four categories representing a range of democratic regimes: “full democracy” (8.01-10.00), “flawed democracy” (6.01-8.00), “hybrid regime” (4.01-6.00) and “authoritarian regime” (0.0-4.0). The range for the 52 countries included in the analyses was 3.14 to 9.93. The Democracy Index was used as a control variable in the analyses (see Table 1.)

Dependent Variables

Journalistic Autonomy

Journalistic autonomy as perceived by newspaper journalists was measured using two questions from the WJS: “In thinking about your work overall, how much freedom do you personally have in selecting news stories you work on?” and “How much freedom do you personally have in deciding which aspects of a story should be emphasized?” The responses were measured using a five-point scale (1 = no freedom at all, 2 = little freedom, 3 = some freedom, 4 = a great deal of freedom, and 5 = complete freedom) and averaged to create the index (M = 3.87, SD = .79, r = .66).

Perception of Change

The newspaper journalists’ perceptions of changes in autonomy were measured using a single item from the WJS survey:

Journalism is in a state of change. Please tell me whether you think there has been an increase or a decrease in the importance of the following aspects of work in [add country]. 5 means they have increased a lot, 4 means they have somewhat increased, 3 means there has been no change, 2 means they have somewhat decreased, and 1 means they have decreased a lot.

Although journalists were asked about 10 different items, the current study uses just one: “Journalists’ freedom to make editorial decisions.” The mean was 2.9 (SD = .98). (See Table 4.) It is worth noting that although the question doesn’t specify over what period of time things have changed, the previous question in the survey, which addressed changes in journalism influences, specified the period was five years. It seems reasonable to assume that at least some respondents had this particular time frame in mind.

Findings

The means and standard deviations for Hofstede’s dimensions among the 52 countries included in the analysis are as follows: power distance (M = 51.65, SD = 23.18); individualism (M = 53.34, SD = 23.70); masculinity (M = 50.61, SD = 22.34); uncertainty avoidance (M = 59.56, SD = 22.08); long-term orientation (M = 51.16, SD = 21.69), and indulgence (M = 50.88, SD = 21.09).

Research Question 1

The first research question (RQ1) enquired about newspaper journalists’ perceptions of how much freedom they had to select stories they reported on and aspects of the stories they can emphasize. The results indicated that, on a 5-point scale, the mean for selecting stories was 3.83 (SD = .86) and for deciding emphasis the mean was 3.93 (SD = .86) (See Table 2).

Table 2

Autonomy: Distributions Associated With Responses to Two Items: Freedom to Select Stories and Decide Topics of Emphasis

Response Option	Selection	Emphasis
	(N = 9,891)	(N = 9,888)
no freedom at all	1.3%	1.2%
little freedom	4.8%	4.4%
some freedom	23.7%	20.2%
a great deal of freedom	48.3%	47.0%
complete freedom	20.6%	25.9%

Research Question 2

The second research question (RQ2) examined how Hofstede’s cultural dimensions predict the newspaper journalists’ perceptions of autonomy. For this analysis, a hierarchical regression model was developed using two blocks. The first block included two control variables, the Human Development Index (HDI) and the Democracy Index (DI). The second block included the six cultural dimensions. Both blocks in the model of perceptions of autonomy were significant. In the first block, the HDI and DI were positive predictors suggesting newspaper journalists in more developed countries that are stronger democracies are more likely to carry a greater sense of autonomy in their work. In the second block, individualism and uncertainty avoidance were positive predictors of autonomy (and the strongest in the model). Power distance, masculinity, and long-term/short-term were small, negative predictors. Collectively, the UN HDI and cultural dimensions explained 4.6% of the variance for perceptions of autonomy (See Table 3).

Table 3

Hierarchical Regression Models for Newspaper Journalists’ Perceptions of Autonomy and Changes in Autonomy. (N = 9845 From 52 countries)

Predictor Variables		Autonomy			Changes in Autonomy
Predictor Variables	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
Block 1
UN HDI	.34	.10	.04***	−2.68	.15	−.28***
Democracy Index	.08	.01	.14***	.05	.01	.07***
Block 2
UN HDI	−.09	.13	−.01	−1.60	.19	−.16***
Democracy Index	.03	.01	.06**	.09	.01	.13***
Power Distance	.00	.00	−.06***	.00	.00	.07**
Individualism	.00	.00	.12***	.00	.00	− .10***
Masculinity	.00	.00	−.03**	.00	.00	.04**
Uncertainty Avoid.	.00	.00	.12***	.00	.00	−.09***
Long-term Orientation	.00	.00	−.03**	.00	.00	−.08***
Indulgence	.00	.00	.01	.00	.00	−.05**

Note: Autonomy: Block 1 R² = .03, Δ R²=.02 for Block 2, Model R² = .05.

Changes: Block 1 R² = .06, Δ R²=.01 for Block 2; Model R² = .07.

p < .05 **p < .01 *** p < .001.

Research Question 3

The third research question (RQ3) enquired about newspaper journalists’ perceptions of whether their autonomy has changed over time. The results indicated that, on a 5-point scale, the mean for perceptions of change was 2.90 (SD = .98; see Table 4).

Table 4

Distribution Associated With Responses to Perceptions of Change in Autonomy. (N = 7035)

Response Option
decreased a lot	5.2%
somewhat decreased	17.5%
did not change	30.2%
somewhat increased	13.1%
increased a lot	4.1%

Research Question 4

The fourth research question (RQ4) asked which Hofstede’s dimensions predict newspaper journalists’ perceptions of changes in their autonomy to make editorial decisions. Another regression model with the same construction as the first was used to address the question. The two blocks in the model were significant. HDI in the first block was a small, negative predictor indicating newspaper journalists in more developed countries are more likely to perceive a decrease in the freedom to make editorial decisions. In the second block, power distance and masculinity were small, positive predictors of perceptions of change, indicating that, in cultures that are greater in power distance and masculinity, newspaper journalists are more likely to report a perceived increase in the freedom to make editorial decisions. However, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, long-term/short-term orientation, and indulgence were small, negative predictors indicating newspaper journalists with higher levels of these cultural dimensions are more likely to perceive a decrease in autonomy to make editorial decisions. Overall, the dimensions and control variables explained 6.7% of the perception of change (See Table 3).

Discussion

By combining Worlds of Journalism Study and Hofstede Center data from 52 countries, we sought to understand the global landscape of journalistic autonomy at newspapers and how it is changing. We also sought to understand the degree to which those two things are influenced by democracy, development, and national culture.

Global Autonomy

At least when it comes to the stories they work on and the aspects of those stories that are emphasized, newspaper journalists across the globe have a good deal of freedom. Nearly 73% of newspaper journalists said they had at least some freedom to select the stories they work on and more than one in five said they had complete freedom. Slightly more than 73% of newspaper journalists said they had at least some freedom in deciding which aspects of a story to emphasize, and more than one in four said they had complete freedom. When comparing our data on newspaper journalists to that of Hamada et al. (2019) that included all sectors of journalism (such as broadcast and online), newspaper journalists appear to have ever so slightly more freedom than their counterparts (1.3% more to select stories and 2.6% more to emphasize aspects of a story).

Autonomy and Culture

Although a majority of newspaper journalists have at least some autonomy to select stories and determine the emphasis of those stories, the extent of that freedom varies. A pair of cultural dimensions—individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance—emerged as the best predictors of autonomy among newspaper journalists. The more “I focused” a country is, the more likely a newspaper journalist in that country is to report they have freedom to choose their own stories and to determine the focus of those stories. This finding is not surprising, as values underlying individualism and autonomy appear to be overlapping. Somewhat less expected was the relationship between autonomy and uncertainty avoidance. The less comfortable the citizens of a nation are in dealing with ambiguity, the more freedom its newspaper journalists appear to have to choose their own stories and determine the focus of those stories. This relationship may relate back to the larger ethos of journalism. If the superordinate goal of journalism is to disseminate information and information seeking is part of the core practice, then to avoid uncertainty, journalists may find themselves needing to take matters into your own hands and operate more independently to do that. And given that one characteristic of high uncertainty avoidance cultures is that they are highly rules-based, it seems likely that journalists in these cultures take comfort in being guided by ethical standards and newsroom policies that they take for granted rather than see as impinging on their freedom. Power distance is the third strongest predictor journalistic autonomy. That is to say, the more accepting of inequality a society is, the less freedom its newspaper journalists will have. Although that relationship is not surprising, the fact the two are not more strongly correlated is somewhat surprising. This may be explained by the fact that collective cultures tend to be higher in power distance and it seems as though individualism/collectivism has slightly greater influence on journalistic autonomy and in the opposite direction than does power distance. This possibility has implications we shall return to shortly. Also somewhat surprising was the relatively modest contribution democracy made to the analysis. Hamada et al. (2019) examined the broad range of journalists (i.e., beyond those at newspapers) and observed that democracy was more strongly correlated with autonomy than any of the other 12 variables considered (i.e., while also factoring in human development and six cultural dimensions). In the current analysis, the contribution of democracy was more modest than we might have expected. This finding should give pause to those who assume that increased democracy will automatically translate into more freedom for journalists. Although having a stronger or healthier democracy certainly contributes to greater journalistic freedom, it is only part of the answer. In collective cultures, journalists may continue to defer to others and to choose in-group harmony over their own independence.

Shifts in Autonomy

Our data support the notion that journalism autonomy is dynamic and continually negotiated. Almost a quarter of journalists said their freedom had increased in recent years. It is worth remembering that only journalists who had been in the industry for at least five years were asked this question. It seems likely that the longer journalists have been in the business, the more willing they are to assert themselves and the more trust their supervisors are willing to place in them. It is also the case that beat reporters typically have more autonomy than general assignment reporters. The fact that experienced reporters are likely to transition from general assignment reporting to beat reporting probably at least partially explains why some journalists reported strengthened autonomy. On the other end of the spectrum, nearly a third of journalists who answered the question said they had less freedom than earlier in their careers. However, it is worth noting that the decline in freedom among newspaper journalists does appear to be somewhat smaller than in the larger sample, with Hanusch et al. (2019) finding that editorial autonomy had gone down in about half the countries. This would seem to suggest that newspaper journalists have been somewhat spared. However, it is also worth noting that (a) we have considered somewhat fewer countries (because Hofstede data aren’t available everywhere that Worlds of Journalism data are available) and (b) our unit of analysis for this particular measure was the individual journalist rather than the country of the journalist.

In terms of why journalistic autonomy seems to be decreasing for more people than for whom it is increasing, our data offer some clues. Changing journalistic autonomy was negatively correlated with human development. That is to say, journalists in more developed countries were more likely to see their freedom diminish than journalists in less developed countries. With news organizations around the globe in varying degrees of crisis, it appears that being in a more highly developed country does seem to be a challenge for newspaper journalists. It may very well be that these journalists in these countries had more freedom to lose in the first place. Democracy also seems to play a role. Although journalism autonomy has been exported all over the world, it has not necessarily taken root to the same degree in less democratic countries. To the degree that autonomy is constantly being challenged, it would appear that it is harder for journalists to stand their ground in less democratic contexts.

Shifting Autonomy and Culture

In terms of cultural dimensions that predict changing journalism autonomy, three—individualism/collectivism, long-term/short-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance—stand out as negative predictors of change, that is a tendency toward weakening of journalistic autonomy. The more individualistic a country is, the more likely its newspaper journalists were to experience a decrease in (or perhaps maintenance of) their level of freedom. Conversely, the more collective a culture, the more likely its newspaper journalists were to report improvement in the range of freedom. This does not entirely make intuitive sense. One might assume that individualistic cultures would continue to push for more freedom. At the same time, it is somewhat surprising that journalists in collective cultures would continue to see their freedom improve. The greater degree to which people in a particular country seek to avoid ambiguity, the more likely newspaper journalists in that country are to report they have lost journalistic freedom. The interesting thing about this finding is that it means that uncertainty avoidance is positively correlated with journalism autonomy but newspaper journalists in cultures that are less comfortable with uncertainty appear to be reporting a loss of freedom over the previous years. We can think of two plausible explanations that probably overlap. The first is regression to the mean. If one is already in a situation where they have a good deal of freedom, then they have more to lose than to gain. Second, if we assume autonomy is constantly being contested, one may reach a point where agreeing to give up some freedom may be less anxiety producing than digging in one’s heels without knowing the outcome. It is the difference between a known risk and an unknown risk. Finally, the more people in a particular country take a long-term approach, the more likely newspaper journalists there are to report they have seen their freedom decrease. This is consistent with the notion that long-term oriented societies are less normative and more pragmatic. Whereas journalists in more short-term countries may feel more compelled to dig in their heels when their autonomy is contested, journalists who take a longer-term approach may come to believe that “this too shall pass” and choose acquiescence.

Limitations

First, it is important to acknowledge that survey data are particularly valuable for identifying relationships such as correlations but are not effective for establishing causation. It can be argued that media shared pervasively within a culture can have some influence on society and, in turn, influence the national culture. This reciprocal kind of connection between media and society as well as the broad, macro concept of national culture make the kind of analysis undertaken in this study challenging. Given the research regarding culture and the science of predictive statistics, the benefits of studying potential cultural influences on journalism outweigh the challenges.

An analysis of this nature would not be possible without the publicly available data provided by the Hofstede Center, the Worlds of Journalism Study, the UN, and the Economist Intelligence Unit. The effort to combine these data sets and examine the data where they intersect means the scope of the perspective is more limited than what any single dataset provides. In addition, adapting data that were collected with other ideas in mind also means there is greater reliance on single items or interpreting measures in a manner that applies to the research goal but may not be the ideal choice. There are also aspects of both national culture and journalism culture that get lost in translation. That said, the observations stemming from these analyses still have value and may even underestimate the relationships between national culture and journalistic autonomy. Addressing cultural influences is always challenging from a quantitative perspective. There may be other, more effective approaches to measuring culture that could be applied to the research objective herein, but the important relationships we have observed could well be more robust than reported here.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Steve J. Collins

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