Societal roles of online journalists in Slovenia and Serbia: Self-perceptions in relation to the audience and print journalists

Vobic, I., Milojević, A. (2012). Societal roles of online journalists in Slovenia and Serbia: Self-perceptions in relation to the audience and print journalists. Participations, Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, 9(2), 469-491.

Abstract: This paper investigates and compares how online journalists of the Slovenian print media Delo and those of the Serbian Novosti perceive the societal role of journalism and how they negotiate their perceptions with processes of audience involvement in the news, which have been intensified due to continuous articulations between newswork and technological innovations enforced in recent years. Despite the particularities of the normative development of Slovenian and Serbian journalism, as well as their rather distinctive empirical realities in the last two decades, there are surprisingly many similarities in online journalists’ negotiation of societal roles at both print media organizations. Audience involvement at Delo and Novosti is mostly regarded as an indication what people are interested in, which implies that exchanges between newsrooms and members of the audience are foremost monologue in character. At the same time, Delo’s online journalists indicate that online departments at respective print media organizations are underestimated in relation to print departments, and not regarded as equal. Novosti’s online journalists, however, do not stress their subordination in relation to in-house print colleagues, but acknowledge that they perform as a rather isolated department. The study also shows that institutional power has been recently at least to a degree reorientated because of newsroom integration, which has been institutionally encouraged and brought occasional cooperation of print and online staffers, processes, and contents.