Journalism of the 21e century: the role of journalism in society according to Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Venezuelan socialists

Running Head – Latin American Socialists on the Role of Journalism

JOURNALISM OF THE 21

CENTURY

THE ROLE OF JOURNALISM IN SOCIETY ACCORDING

TO BOLIVIAN, ECUADORIAN AND VENEZUELAN

SOCIALISTS

Guifré Margarit i Contel

Master’s Thesis

Graduate School of Communication Master’s Programme Communication Science

Dr. Michael Hameleers 28th of June 2019

Abstract

This paper focuses on the study of journalistic role perceptions. In contrast to much existing work, that considers the opinions of journalists on this matter, we will be looking at the points of view of politicians. Considering the different theories that highlight the influence of

external factors to the journalistic profession, this seems like a necessary step to take in role studies. The politicians chosen for the actual analysis are socialist politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. The research will consist on a qualitative analysis of secondary interviews, press conferences and speeches given by these politicians. The results will show how these three different groups of socialist politicians have some structural differences in their conceptualisation regarding the role of journalism in society: Bolivians prefer a multicultural journalism, Ecuadorians defend one based on the distribution of information, and Venezuelans conceive a journalism that promotes socialist and revolutionary values and ideals.

Keywords

Role studies, journalistic roles, Latin America, Socialism of the 21st Century, qualitative analysis

Journalism of the 21st Century

The Role of Journalism in Society According to Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Venezuelan Socialists

With the turn of the century different parts of Latin America found itself immersed in a deep change on their political landscape. The rise of a new left-wing political current, that

challenged the neoliberal policies that had been the rule for decades in the area, became the common characteristic of it. In some countries that tendency even got to hold public office like in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela (Stoessel, 2014).

One of the shared signs of identity throughout this new left is its confrontation against the established media system and their will to reform it. That is why in the present study, taking as a reference the hierarchy of influences model designed by Reese and Shoemaker (2016) and various studies on the role of journalism that mention the influence of politics on

journalists, we will try to expose the role/s that some examples of this movement perceive as essential to perform this activity. This political expression bases the need of intervening and regulating the media system to challenge a press that, according to Kitzberger (2012), is perceived as the mouthpiece of the establishment, constructors of neoliberal common sense and essential to the maintenance of the status quo.

They consider that to be the result of a media system formed under the dictatorial and

authoritarian regimes of the previous century which created huge media conglomerates close to those in power (Guerrero & Marquez Ramírez, 2014) which, at the same time, as Waisbord (2013) specifies were linked to the US. And also as a consequence of the deregulatory

policies that came after the establishment of democracy, especially the neoliberal policies of the 90’s that “led to unprecedented change in the Latin American media landscape;

expansion, concentration, and commercialization gave media institutions a new relevance in social and political life [...] and thus reinforce a wider complex of social and political inequalities” (Kitzberger, 2012, p. 125).

Consequently, the opposition of these politicians to the present media system has caused great levels of animosity between those established conglomerates, which they view as solely representing the upper classes (Kitzberger, 2012), and themselves. So far the result of this change in the course of communication policies, even though if it may be consider kind of abrupt because no one was asking for it (Campo & Crowder-Taraborrelli, 2018), has been received with mix feelings “whereas some groups applauded the process of media reform, others have strongly criticized it” (Waisbord, 2011, p. 99).

Therefore we will try to understand which one is the type of journalism, based on its role in society, that some of these Latin American left-wing politicians prefer. To do so, this thesis will rely on a qualitative text analysis of 91 interviews, press conferences and speeches. The thesis will proceed in the following steps: first, a review on previous literature on role studies; second, an extensive exposition of the research methods used; next, the presentation of the results; and finally, a discussion on some of the implications of such findings, like a deeper understanding on how these politicians might understand the role of journalism in society and its possible influence on the profession.

Theoretical Background Political influence on the journalistic roles

As we’ve seen, the political sphere might have an impact on either perception or performance of journalistic roles. This relates very well with what Reese and Shoemaker (2016) have come to define as the social institutions level of their hierarchy of influences model. That level

refers to the different external factors, beyond the media organizations, among which we find the political ones that may have an impact on media institutions, or the other way around. From previous research we can identify two different moments during what Hanitzsch and Vos (2017) define as The Process Model of Journalists’ Roles in which this political influence is more explicit.Before getting into those we should clarify that this model establishes five different analytical categories, regarding these journalistic roles, that are normative and

cognitive, belonging to a major role orientation category, practiced and narrated, which

belong to role performance, and finally one that connects the orientation with the performance part defined as role enactment (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2017).

Anyway, the first situation of influence would be on the beginning of this process, during the development of the normative role orientation which focuses on defining “what journalists

should do” (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2017, p. 118). To accept this possibility is necessary to

conceive journalism as a social institution and the development of its roles as a shared discourse, the same way that Hanitzsch and Vos do by understanding these roles

conceptualisation through the discussion between different actors (2017, 2018). In fact, it is from those two same academics that we conclude that “social actors, particularly those whose social power derives from perceptions of legitimacy, such as political and social leaders and journalists, have a stake in articulating journalism’s social role [...] journalistic roles,

particularly normative roles are essentially stable discourse scripts that have emerged through an interchange among internal and external actors” (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2017, p. 121).

We may also find influences later in the process on the role performance category, which is understood as the “collective outcome of concrete newsroom decisions and different

journalistic styles, considering different constraints that influence the practice of the

“inevitable gap between what journalists think of their roles in society and the roles they actually perform when reporting on a story” (Mellado et al., 2017, p. 948), such explanation has been come to know as gap model (Mellado et al., 2017; Scherr et al., 2018). Hence, some research has shown a connection between how do journalists perceive their role and the content that they produce, other research has shown no relationship between the two (Mellado, 2015). Therefore these changes and limitations to journalistic content could very well be originated on the political atmosphere of a specific national context (Mellado, 2015). In conclusion, this study will try to analyze which roles this new Latin American leftist movements consider that journalism should enact in society. This seems like an interesting step to take on the research of role studies because, even though previous studies on the field admit the existence of this influence of external factors (on our case political ones), the usual approach taken focuses on the journalistic sphere. Thus meaning that it usually revolves around the opinion of professionals who work on the sector (like journalists and editors) or the analysis of what those produce (the various news pieces).

Approach for the study

The study will focus on Latin America and left-wing politicians/governments of that area. The reason on selecting this part of the world is based on what other studies have mentioned of the prevailing western-liberal bias that has been usually conditioning studies, as Mellado et al. (2017, p. 945) mention: “most comparative research, at both the institutional and the empirical level, has had a restrictive focus on known and familiar countries—that is, the United States or those in Western Europe—and has rarely incorporated those from a broader range of regions (i.e., Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa, or Asia)”. On the other hand, the interest on left-wing politicians is basically for what it has been said about their recent importance on that area and their reforming stance against the established media system.

But obviously Latin America is too big and saying that the opinions analyzed will be those of left-wing politicians is too vague. Hence, we should narrow these delimitations to clarify and make the research more feasible. Therefore, we should select some countries in which

perform our research and those will be: Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. Why these three? One of the reasons is the underrepresentation of these countries on these types of studies. That is mainly the case of Bolivia but also Venezuela, which has studies on the nation-building role of TeleSUR (Zweig, 2017) and the role of journalism connected to populism (Samet, 2016) but not specifically on role conceptions, and with the slight exception of Ecuador that seems more usual in research on role studies (Oller, 2015; Mellado et al., 2017), journalistic quality (Odriozola-Chéné & Rodrigo Mendizábal, 2017) and objectivity (Oller et al., 2014).

But, the main motivation for selecting these three countries is the connection of the different left-wing politicians of these countries under the same ideological umbrella: Socialism of the

21st Century. This ideological stream was conceived by Hugo Chávez in the 2005 World

Social Forum to conceptualize the alternative way to the capitalist model that Latin America should follow (Vidal Molina et al., 2018). This ideology conceives the human as a social being that reaches his/her highest development by being the main actor in a participatory-delegated democracy and defends a planned economy, conducted through decentralization, putting the human at the center, respecting nature, and opposing consumerism, while

promoting the social property of the means of production (Harnecker, 2010). The diffusion of these principles has been developed over the three countries that concern us under different labels: Socialismo Comunitario in Bolivia with Evo Morales (MAS-IPSP, 2014), Socialismo

del Buen Vivir in Rafael Correa’s Ecuador (PAIS, 2012) and Socialismo Bolivariano in the

Venezuela of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro (PSUV, 2012).

Precisely those three governments were defined together by Stoessel (2014, p. 2) as a type of “nationalist, strident and closed” left and they also happen to be three of the countries where

“public confrontation between presidents and the media has been a salient feature of politics” (Kitzberger, 2012, p. 127).

To sum up, the context of the study will be limited within the borders of Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and the units of analysis will be the opinions of the politicians belonging to this

Socialism of the 21st Century ideology, from now on simply referred to as socialist politicians.

In these countries, we will be focusing on the role of journalism in society, and consequently how do these Latin American socialist politicians conceive it. The way we will be

understanding this role of journalism is the same way that Hanitzsch and Vos (2017, p. 123) do: “as a shared discourse, as discursive constructions of journalism’s identity and place in society” and that “most generally allude to a set of normative and cognitive beliefs as well as real-world and perceived practices of journalists situated and understood within the

institutional framework of journalism”.

From all the different categories, previously presented, on The Process Model of Journalists’

Roles (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2017) our study would belong to the normative role orientation area

since it will refer “to how journalists are expected to meet the aspirations and ideals of the public” (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2017, p. 124), in our case from the politicians point of view.

Finally, the role classification taken as the basis for our investigation, instead of the

commonly used disseminators, interpreters, adversarials and populist mobilizers (Weaver & Wilhoit, 1991 and 1996; Beam et al., 2009; Carpenter et al., 2016), will be the more recent one develop by Hanitzsch and Vos (2018) that divides journalism in the domain of political life in six major different categories, presenting at the same time three roles for each, which are: informational-instructive (disseminator, curator and story-teller), analytical-deliberative (analyst, access provider and mobilizer), critical-monitoral (monitor, detective and

developmental-educative (change agent, educator and mediator) and collaborative-falicitative (facilitator, collaborator and mouthpiece). For a clearer visualization of all of these options the original

figure from Hanitzsch and Vos (2018, p. 153) is provided in the Appendix as Figure 1. The reason to choose this model is that according to the authors “existing catalogues of media functions and services for political life do not sufficiently account for the variation in political cultures and socio-cultural value systems around the world. We therefore suggest a

conceptual structure of journalistic roles that we believe is more attuned to the global diversity of co-existing visions of journalism” (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018, p. 152).

So once we’ve understood the limits of our study, represented by the socialist politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and the subject at stake which is the role of journalism, as conceived by Hanitzsch and Vos (2017, 2018), we reach the following research question:

RQ1: How do socialist politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela perceive the

role of journalism in society?

Although we should also add that, since we are looking at three different countries, we have to take into account the cross-national nature of the study, considering the effects that the national difference might have between politicians of this same ideology and their opinions on the role of journalism, which it is of great use in a region that according to Mellado et al. (2016, p. 9) is “far from homogenous as different roles and indicators of role performance tend to vary across countries and reflect the region’s hybrid media systems and ambiguous journalistic cultures”. This way we will see if there is ideological homogeneity between politicians, regardless of the country, or rather that different countries bring us different interpretations on journalistic roles. This is how we get to the second research question:

RQ2: What are the differences between socialist politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and

Methods

This is a qualitative study in which we analyze interviews, press conferences and speeches of socialist politicians, specifically presidents and communications ministers/secretaries from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela (a full list of all the names by country and public office position is provided on Table 1 in the Appendix), to get their insights on the role that

journalists should perform in society. The reasons for using these two positions, president and communications ministers/secretaries, is that the former is the main representative of the movement and the latter, due to her/his position, might be the most productive. We need to say that the data is of secondary nature, meaning that they are already expressed opinions by the politicians on different media outlets. The reason behind that is the incapacity of the researcher to perform those interviews with the interested population.

The following steps have been taken: initially the collection of the data from YouTube; second the transcription of this data; and lastly the analysis of all that has been collected and prepared. On the next paragraphs those different steps will be explained in much more detail.

Data collection and sampling

First, we selected which socialist politicians we would be looking for. Following the idea of purposive and theoretical sampling that allows the researcher to select an specific group of interest for the research (Bryman, 2008) we filtered the selection to presidents and those assigned to communications positions (Ministro/a de Comunicación in Bolivia; Secretario/a

Nacional de Comunicación in Ecuador; and Ministro/a del Poder Popular para la Comunicación y la Información in Venezuela).

Once we had all the names, we proceeded on searching their opinions on our subject of interest. To find those we followed the same routinary pattern of search and selection. This routinary pattern was developed first of all by selecting one website from which the several

opinions could be searched: YouTube. The videos selected for analysis are all the full interviews, press conferences or speeches presented among the first 25 videos after using a certain set of keywords. Those keywords, which were in Spanish because considering that those politicians are all from mainly Spanish speaking countries it is presumed to be more productive, were different for presidents and for politicians assigned to communications: “Entrevista completa Nombre” (in English “Full Interview Name”) for the presidents; “Ministro/a de Comunicación Nombre” (“Communications Minister Name) for the Bolivian and Venezuelan representatives; and finally “Secretario/a de Comunicación Nombre” (Communication Secretary Name) for Ecuadorians. The reason why for ministers and secretaries we were more concrete is that during their political career they might had other charges that wouldn’t be interesting for our research and this way we narrow the search.

All the gathered data was then classified by country and politician to make comparisons easier. Initially, the total amount of videos was 248. After deleting the repeated ones, and those that didn’t provide any valuable output, the number dropped to a total of 91. From these 91, a list with the information details of all the videos that have been referenced in the Results section, a total of 21, is provided as Referenced Data in the Appendix.

Transcription

The next step was transcribing the interviews. The videos were not transcribed in its entirety but instead more selectively, only transcribing the parts that to a certain extent focused on the topic that concerned us (opinions about the media, the press, journalism…), leaving out things that revolved around other aspects of politics and society not relevant for us.

The transcriptions, once again, were done in Spanish, meaning that any exact citations from those interviews that may appear in the following sections of the study have been translated from Spanish to English by the researcher.

Analysis

All the collected (and transcribed) data was uploaded to the software Atlas.ti in order to perform the qualitative analysis.

Specifically, the analysis has been a mix between a deductive and inductive approach. First of all the data was analyzed in a deductive manner establishing the different roles present on the responses based on the 6 principal and 18 secondary roles (Figure 1 in Appendix) from Hanitzsch and Vos (2018), using those as codes. Then a more inductive analysis was

conducted to estipulate the different particularities that might appear for the different cases (a list with all the codes, divided between deductive and inductive, is provided as Code List in the Appendix). For example if we found a statement which defended that journalists should defend the interests of indigenous groups, deductively, we would code it initially as Advocate and during the second reading, using an inductive approach, we would add the code

Indigenism, which gives us more detail to the first code.

To ensure the presence of a certain degree of reliability on the research, an independent deductive analysis (therefore based on the initial part of the analysis) was performed by an external researcher, without any previous knowledge on the field, on 25% of all transcriptions (23 randomly chosen transcriptions). A list with the roles explained plus a figure that

classifies them was provided to this person so he could perform the task adequately, the content of this sort of coding agenda or guide was extracted exactly (word by word) from the descriptions and figure developed by Hanitzsch and Vos from pages 152 to 156 of their 2018’s article, a copy of it is provided in the Appendix as Coding Guide. Mostly there was agreement in all codes with just a few exceptions, mainly caused for some sentences that could be easily interpreted in different ways as they presented different roles and

Results

This study focuses on socialist politicians’ opinions on each one of the roles established by Hanitzsch and Vos (2018). Consequently the sub-sections for this part will be the following six major roles: informational-instructive, analytical-deliberative, critical-monitorial,

advocative-radical, developmental-educative and collaborative-facilitative (Hanitzsch & Vos,

2018). For each sub-section the views of politicians from the different countries will be presented, commenting on their similarities and/or particularities, and connected to some of the 18 more specific roles that Hanitzsch and Vos (2018) conceptualized.

Informational-instructive roles envisioned by socialist politicians

Regarding this first category, which conceives journalism as a profession that should consist of being an informer, only socialists from Ecuador are close to it.

In this country socialist politicians promote more openly this “distributor of information” role for journalism. The one person who predominantly defends this role is President Correa, who over and over insists on the citizen’s right to information while also criticizing the media that according to him take a more active political role. A clear case of this was shown on a

ATVLima where he had the following exchange with an interviewer:

Interviewer: The problem is that good journalism is a category that governors usually

don’t define well because… the work of journalism is to criticize the power.

Rafael Correa: But, but those are the absolute and indisputable truths. Who… lets

elaborate a bit, who told you that? Why? Isn’t the job to inform?

The last question, when Correa says “Isn’t the job to inform?” (ATVLima, 2012), was

intended to be rhetorical and it was meant to be understood that informing is precisely the role of journalism. At the same time Correa promotes this more informational type of performance when, in several interviews, attacks that media which according to him is also politically active by taking the side of certain economical elites that use the media that they own for their own interests (we’ll get deeper into that when talking about the advocative-radical category). So far it’s clear that Ecuadorian politicians seem quite favorable toward this informational-instructive type of role. Yet, the question remains which of the three specific roles within this framework (disseminator, curator and storyteller) should be performed? The answer to this it is only reflected in the meanings conveyed by former Secretary of Communication Patricio Barriga. More specifically, he gives us insights into this aspect when recalling old experiences from his time as a journalist: “we simply reproduced without any kind of journalistic

processing, without any kind of will of informational quality what those authorities for example said, the authorities of that time. That was an extremely official type of information that in the end didn’t have that needed journalistic processing which is demanded by the citizens to have all the necessary elements, including those to make their own decisions on their personal lives” (C.C.R.E.A, 2017). Therefore, we could interpret that the most fitting role would be the curator one. Hence, it isn’t too official like the disseminator or too politically active as the storyteller and considers the activity of the journalist as one of “identify, organize, and repackage information into deliverable packages and make it available for their users” (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018, p. 153).

For the rest of the countries this informational approach is not at all the most predominant, solely once it is mention by, former Communications Minister from Venezuela, Delcy

Rodríguez on an interview for Venezolana de Televisión in 2013 where she mentions “I think that it is been a long time since the press stop to fulfill their role of communicator and

informer and simply they turn into political parties”. Like with Correa we see this criticism to the active political role that the press is taking on, but we won’t consider Venezuela as fitting to this category as later on will see that they are more focused and supporters of other ones. Together, the results indicate that Ecuadorian socialists perceive as a main role of journalism the distribution of information. Meanwhile socialists from the other two countries don’t seem that interested on this role, and there focus points towards other ones that we will see later on.

Analytical-deliberative roles envisioned by socialist politicians

The analytical-deliberative characteristic, according to Hanitzsch and Vos (2018), envisions journalism taking a more active political role accepting opinionated journalism (analyst), engaging the people on public debate (access provider) and/or trying to act as an agent of empowerment encouraging people to actively participate in the political domain (mobilizer). In this case several politicians, regardless of country, show quite an interest for some of these activities, especially Ecuadorians and Venezuelans while on the other hand Bolivians present some but not as much. The support of Ecuadorians and Venezuelans, from whom we’ve previously mentioned that are quite critical with the active political role of the media, is because this more active role that the media is supposed to perform in this section still doesn’t get to the point of taking a certain side which is their main concern.

The fact is that socialists from Ecuador and Venezuela share quite a similar perspective on this matter, both of them being quite prone to defend the access provider and mobilizer roles, especially the former. In both countries several references to a more open journalism that harbors debate and diversity of opinions from the citizens is defended. For example,

Ecuadorian Secretary of Communication, Fernando Alvarado considers that communication should be “responsible so all the populations, all the villages and all the human beings from our geography can access and have adequate channels, through which the different

socio-economic sectors can express themselves with the maximum amount of freedom” (CadenaPresidenciaEC1, 2009). At the same time Ernesto Villegas, who was Minister of Communications both with Chávez and Maduro, mentions the following: “The people not only has to watch TV, they have to see themselves on TV, and this to mention only one platform, because they also have to see themselves on the radio, on the newspapers” (Vive Andes, 2013). It is clear from this how politicians from both countries seem favorable to a more plural media that would rely on the voice of citizens.

Another meeting point between socialists of these countries is on the mobilizer role. On this case one of the many communications Minister that Venezuela had in the past years, Andrés Izarra, defends “the use of the communication as a process of empowerment of the people, of the collectivity, the same participative process that Venezuela is living has very much to do with the communicational empowerment of communities and population” (PRODU2

, 2008). While in Ecuador, Correa’s second Secretary of Communication, Julia Ortega mentioned: “information is not of private property, it is a public good, and because of that it has to be turned into a resource to enable citizen participation” (presidenciaecuador3

, 2007).

After seeing this connection between Venezuelan and Ecuadorian socialists, now we should refer to the opinions that Bolivian socialists have on this matter. On one side for the access provider role they consider one particular case on which someone could demand to appear on the media, which they share with Ecuadorian socialists. This is in the case of the right to reply, used when someone feels that has been wrong by some information and demands responding to it, which is expressed by Gisela López (Abya Yala TV, 2018), former Minister of Communications, from Bolivia and Secretary Barriga (El Ciudadano4, 2017) from Ecuador.

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The particularity that Bolivian socialist present is their acceptance of a more opinionated type of journalist, which fits the analyst role. As Iván Canelas, first Minister of Communications of Bolivia, said during a conference: “in Bolivia the journalist has the possibility, if he/she works on a newspaper, to write whatever he/she wants, without previous censorship, in the same size than an editorial, in the newspaper, he/she can do it; on television they have three minutes; on the radio, if I don’t remember wrong, five minutes. Anyway it is something that guarantees to the journalist, also in the media where he/she works, being able to communicate freely their opinion” (Gobernación de Cochabamba5

, 2015).

To summarize, we see a distinction between socialists from Ecuador and Venezuela with those from Bolivia in the ways that politicians perceive the analytical-deliberative role. While the formers are supportive of a journalism based on popular inclusion and mobilization, the latter is more understanding on the fact that journalist can be opinionated.

Critical-monitorial roles envisioned by socialist politicians

This category is one of the least talked about. In any case to briefly put it this is a category that considers journalism as a Fourth Estate, as a critic and the one who tries to hold

accountable the political sphere, classifying between three different roles: monitor, detective and watchdog (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018).

The politicians that have some sort of opinion on this subject are Ecuadorians and

Venezuelans. As we’ve seen earlier their position doesn’t seem to be really supportive with this type of activity. This is more evident when we see former Ecuadorian Secretary Chuji saying “we believe in criticism, dissidence is a right and is part of democratic dynamics and… and this hasn’t been suspended and it is not the intention of the Government to silence them, on the contrary, we consider that opposition is and has to be legitimate but inside the respect

5

of the laws and Constitution” (presidenciaecuador, 2007). In the case of Venezuela they also consider criticism as legitimate but instead of being controlled by law it is by something much more spiritual and ideological like the support of the Revolution, as Andrés Izarra mentioned on teleSUR tv: “it is clear that they stand with the revolution, they exercise criticism, they complain, they say the problems that might be, and they stand with Chávez and the

Revolution” (2013). So, we see how in both cases they presumably accept criticism but inside a certain frame, in Ecuador respect for the law and in Venezuela support of the Revolution. Still, at the same time, they seem quite supportive of one of the three role types contained in this category. This is the detective role which is the one that relies more on investigation and verification of facts, as Venezuelan Minister Luis José Marcano said on Venezolana de Televisión (2016): “We believe that journalism, that communication, the exercise of social communication in our country, but specially on the public media, has to base itself more and more on the principle of investigation, the principle of searching the truth on its different aspects”, similar declarations we find from Ecuador made by Barriga: “the contrast, the verification, the profound investigation of facts has allowed us to have a higher level of journalism than the one we had before” (C.C.R.E.A, 2017).

Perceptions of the critical-monitorial category reveal a limited acceptance of it from Ecuadorians and Venezuelans, for the former the limit is the law while for the latter is the support to the Revolution. Still they both accept an investigative type of journalism.

Advocative-radical roles envisioned by socialist politicians

The advocative-radical is probably the key category in this study for two reasons: one, it is the role in which we see the type of journalism these politicians oppose to; and two is also

reason being the most talked about category by the politicians it’s been preferable to be much more selective going for the most recurrent topics that exemplify best their views.

First of all, we have the common opposing view to any kind of journalism that according to these politicians is built on values related to the capitalism model such as elitism, financial and private interests, and imperialism. Here we include the previous interpretation of active political role as taking sides, which would be specially fitting with two of the specific roles of this category which are the advocate, understood as the spokesperson of a specific group, and the missionary, which focuses on promoting certain values (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018).

In the case of Bolivia, Evo Morales, during an interview for CNN en Español, said to the journalist: “I know how you represent the empire and not the people. I know that you

represent the structures of the capitalist system and imperialist, you are in your right to do so, here you’re also respected. You haven’t respected nor where you’ve been born nor you defend the people, that’s our difference” (2013). Here we see how Morales mentions respect to the journalist’s or media’s stands but not without openly criticizing them.

In Ecuador it was President Correa who, during an interview with journalists from different countries on RT en Español, made an absolute criticism to the whole capitalist model of communication with the following words: “Do you know in hands of who are the media? Which guarantees do we have? And you understand, please, objectively that some journalist is going act against the interests of the owner of the business and is going to lose his job. In those hands are we, part of the liberation of our people is in alternative media that make real communication, that do not defend interests. And here we have a very deep problem, I insist, the capitalist model of communication: businesses with lucrative purposes performing a right is a contradiction in itself” (2013).

Then on the case of the Venezuelan socialist opinion we could use one that directly gives us they’re response to this capitalist model of journalism providing us with their alternative. This statement was made by Minister Marcano who in 2016 on an interview for Venevisión said: “Let’s see, during the last years we’ve planned the generation of a communicational scheme in tune with the circumstances and needs of the Venezuelans. During all these years we have accomplished breaking the hegemony of the system to which we oppose. I mean, the capitalist system rule the world, today its… its… mechanisms rule in Venezuela, we’re not in a

socialist model, we’re from the Bolivarian Revolution going to a socialist model, and that basically implies a confrontation of values. The communication in a confrontation of values plays a very important role, I mean, the values that we promote which are linked to equality, which are linked to inclusion, which are linked to solidarity require a communicational platform. That through the let’s call it communicational instruments, but basically the cultural instruments, allows us to create the subjective conditions needed… subjective and objective needed for the construction of this socialist model. For now what… what the world has and we’ve trying to end in Venezuela is a total hegemony of… of the capitalist system and its media tools”. So here what we have is this criticism of a media that aligns itself with the capitalist interests and precisely to combat that a similar idea but based on a whole different set of values, based on the Bolivarian Revolution and Socialism, is proposed fitting very well the idea of a missionary type of communication.

But, is that the same response than the Bolivian socialists? The answer is no. Bolivian

socialists instead go more for an alternative type of approach mixed between the advocate and the missionary role revolving around the ideas of multiculturalism and anti-racism. As

Minister Marianela Paco reading the Constitution says “Social communication has to contribute to the promotion of moral, ethical and civic values from the different cultures of the country with production, diffusion of multilingual programs and education” (Bolivisión,

2016). This multiculturalism is usually connected to the various indigenous communities the country has, as Minister Amanda Dávila mentions: “We’ve started from the idea that the media… the indigenous communities, and like this the indigenous communities have said so, we don’t want to be invited to an interview, we don’t want them to give us a space in the radio to talk, we want to take ourselves the microphones and talk, manage the radio” (Wilson Martínez Guaca6, 2014).

In the case of this advocative-radical category, we see how all politicians express a

confrontation against journalism that, according to them, follows the capitalist agenda. And then Bolivian and Venezuelan socialists propose an alternative model, based on the same roles that they criticize when used for capitalist purposes. Bolivians go for a mix advocate and missionary role resulting on a type of journalism that defends multiculturalism, providing different media for the interests of each culture (especially indigenous); and Venezuelans support a missionary role that promotes socialist and Bolivarian values.

Developmental-educative roles envisioned by socialist politicians

With this next conception, we find ourselves that there’s not much said about it but, precisely, the little that is commented clearly distinguishes some particularities among countries.

To start we have Bolivians who follow the change agent role understanding journalism as a tool to drive social and political change (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018). We see it on the words of Minister Dávila: “For us the communication is a fighting tool, a fighting tool to strengthen and helping to build a more inclusive State” (Wilson Martínez Guaca, 2014), then she lists several axis of interest like anti-racism, anti-sexism, indigenism and distribution of wealth. Secondly, Ecuadorians take the path of the mediator role, which according to Hanitzsch and Vos (2018, p. 155-156) “serves as a bridge especially in heterogeneous societies by

6

reinforcing social harmony and attachment to society, by forging communality of values”. This can be seen very well connected to the following lines expressed by Secretary Alvarado: “We are compelled to make common the ancestral knowledge, the liberation ideals, the noble and brave spirit of our men and women to construct community. That is why the

responsibility is for two: the State and all the institutions that have to expose and

communicate what they do, execute and plan with the patrimony of the Ecuadorians, not as propaganda but as a public responsibility” (CadenaPresidenciaEC, 2009).

Finally, Venezuelan socialists through the opinion of Minister Yuri Pimentel fit the educator role with the pedagogic function of journalism (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018). He said: “The

Comandante taught us that communication had to be done in a different manner, he broke all

the rules. But it had to do, at least that’s how I see it, that communication had to be useful for the Comandante as long as it was pedagogical, so communication would have to have a pedagogic function of teaching and forming the people” (Venezolana de Televisión, 2014). To sum up, the developmental-educative role might not be a big concern for these politicians but it shows their differences. While Bolivians believe in journalism as a conductor of social change, Ecuadorians focus on its unifying capacities and Venezuelans on the formative ones.

Collaborative-facilitative roles envisioned by socialist politicians

Lastly, a quite complex category to test from the politicians points of view since it is the one that would connect journalist activity and government interests, understanding journalists as partners of them (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018). This is usually an idea that politicians try to distance themselves from as they might be seen to be attacking journalistic independence. But, still some examples and opinions expressed by the politicians analyzed that might be to a certain extent fitting any of the three roles (facilitator, collaborator and mouthpiece) will be tackled.

One of these examples is in Bolivia, where former Minister Iván Canelas during an interview for Bolivia TV mentioned that “the media should help us on calming down a bit the people, helping as establish that these is a problem from which no one is guilty, that we will see it on the future exactly what happened” (2018). This positioning would be quite connected to the facilitator type of role that looks on assisting the government to keep unity and stability. At the same time there is need to say that these declarations where made after a flood happened in Cochabamba with several victims. Consequently we could understand this as role

demanded to be performed by the media and journalists during situations of crisis.

The other role that might be identified is the mouthpiece in Venezuelan socialists. This role focuses on the reliance on official sources and countervailing them with the opinions of the people, trying to improve communications between officials and citizens (Hanitzsch & Vos, 2018). This case can be seen in the words of Minister Villegas who in 2012, on Venezolana de Televisión, stated: “we’re going to summon all our friends from the media, and beyond the Venezuelan population, to contribute on bringing to all parts of Venezuela and beyond a better information and a more participative communication process, in which we put in the forefront the action and management of government that so many times is invisible”.

So, lastly, in this final collaborative-facilitative category are especially Venezuelan socialists the most open about it, considering the importance of journalism to work as a mouthpiece to improve communication between citizens and government. The other case is the Bolivians who ask the media to work as facilitators in cases of crisis.

Conclusion & Discussion

In this study, we analyzed how socialist politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, supposedly three sets of politicians that share similar views corresponding to the Socialism of the 21st Century, perceive the role of journalism in society. This study approached role studies

from a different point of view, that of the politicians instead of journalists. Hereby, we advance theories such as the hierarchy of influences model (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016) and

gap model (Mellado et al., 2017; Scherr et al., 2018) that acknowledge the possible existence

of interference by certain powers on the journalistic activity. Latin America, geographically an underrepresented area in studies, was chosen and specifically three groups of politicians that during the last years have been quite opinionated on the role of journalism in society were studied.

To do so, first of all, a thorough review of previous articles on role studies was performed from which the core roles that would drive the analysis were extracted, specifically from the 2018’s article by Hanitzsch and Vos Journalism beyond democracy: A new look into

journalistic roles in political and everyday life. Consecutively a qualitative analysis on

several second-handed transcribed data was conducted to draw the views of the analyzed politicians. The results shed light on the following research questions:

RQ1: How do socialist politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela perceive the

role of journalism?

RQ2: What are the differences between socialist politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and

Venezuela on how they construct the role of journalism in society?

Regarding RQ1, Bolivian socialists believe that, considering the variety of cultures in the

country, different journalists should perform as advocates of different cultures and

communities to represent the multiculturalism of the area and fight against racism. On the other hand, Ecuadorian politicians are more prone of a journalism that takes a neutral stand on things and focuses on mainly distributing information but, at the same time, trying to include the population on the media and incentivizing them to be politically active. And finally, the exponents of Venezuelan Bolivarianism conceive journalism as having the role of promoting

and educating on the values of the Revolution and Socialism while, also, including as much as possible the citizens in the media and encouraging a politically active population.

Therefore, answering RQ2, we could interpret the differences between socialists of Bolivia,

Ecuador and Venezuela by considering the degree of politically active and/or charged type of journalism that they conceive. Ecuadorians would be the least politically charged of them all, as they basically consider that journalists should be distributors of information. On the other extreme, we see Venezuelan politicians who picture journalists as messengers and teachers of certain palette of values and ideals. And between these two Bolivians would occupy their place with a model of journalists that work as spokespersons of various cultural communities. As for the similarities, the main point that they all share, regardless of country, is not a

constructive aspect of journalism but rather their criticism of what they consider to be the present hegemonic capitalist model of journalism. Another important similarity would be Ecuadorian and Venezuelan socialists sharing views like the inclusion of the citizen voice in the media and the mobilization of such citizens as political actors.

The most relevant theoretical implication of these findings is the change of focus from journalists to politicians, which should enable the evaluation of the difference between role conceptions and role performances of journalists like the gap model suggests (Mellado et al., 2017; Scherr et al., 2018). This, considering our research, could be tested in a usually

underappreciated area in studies such as Latin America and more specifically with three different governments that have had their fair share of conflict with the media, such as: Evo Morales one in Bolivia, Rafael Correa’s administration in Ecuador, and the ones by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. In other words, with these results of a

multicultural journalism in Bolivia, informational in Ecuador, and ideologized on socialist and pro-revolutionary values in Venezuela, we could check if journalists in these countries

conceive and/or perform according to these roles, so, this way the degree of influence from these governments would be assessed.

These findings have also some societal relevance considering the effects that a possible clash of interpretations on the roles of journalism among citizens, especially between journalists and politicians, might have on the journalistic profession and democracy as whole. Some may consider that the preferences of politicians could increase (self-)censorship diminishing the quality of the reporting and democracy since, for example, none of the designs proposed by Bolivian, Ecuadorian or Venezuelan socialists is very incline to defend journalism as Fourth Estate. But others might think that one of these alternative models of journalism would be more adequate against the possible excesses that journalists could enact driven by some specific interests, also endangering the health of the profession and democracy.

This study has some limitations that should be addressed in future research. The main limitation is that the data (interviews, press conferences, speeches) comes from secondary sources. This means that the quality, depth and detail of the information is probably less than if it had been gathered from direct interviews with the people of interest, as these would have been conducted with a greater focus and aim to the subject of interest, instead of having to rely on a more interpretative approach of sometimes rather vague or just slightly related information. Therefore in future studies, if possible, the same way it is usually done with journalists, in other role studies, maybe the best way to do it would be to collect the information from direct interviews with the politicians asking for the different roles. Another problem is that sometimes you see differences between politicians of the same country, maybe not substantial but at least of priorities. Meaning that you could see how while one politician would center his/her discourse on one role, a different politician might be more interested in giving their opinion on another. This might be for the different situations in

time that they could find themselves in or simply because they think differently. In the present research, to minimize that, an overall opinion of these politicians was the path followed by taking them as a whole and going for the most recurrent and commonly shared conceptions. But, in future studies, probably a better way to fight that, like with the prior problem, would be conducting directly the interviews with some clear-cut questions for each one of the roles. This way a more cohesive response by these different politicians from the same country could be obtained, and those points of convergence or divergence could be more easily identified. In conclusion this study tried to put into the table one important aspect, that should be taken into account in future research, such as the inclusion of other societal groups to study on besides journalists. Because if we accept the ideas of the hierarchy of influences model (Reese & Shoemaker, 2016) and gap model (Mellado et al., 2017; Scherr et al., 2018), that consider the existence of influence from other forces on journalism, we should ask ourselves what do these forces think about the journalistic activity.

This study focused on socialist politicians from three Latin-American countries: Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela. They all consider necessary the development of an alternative form of journalism to the capitalist one but they present different models: a multicultural type of journalism in Bolivia, an informative one for Ecuadorians, and a revolutionary-socialist in Venezuela. These findings advance our understanding of how politicians in different countries normatively look at journalism, and the extent to which journalists should disseminate reality, mobilize the public, or actively engage in society.

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Appendix Figure 1

Table 1

Analyzed Politicians

Socialist Politicians

Country

Bolivia

President Evo Morales

Ministro/a de Comunicación Iván Canelas Amanda Dávila Marianela Paco Gisela López José Manuel Canelas Jaime

Ecuador

President Rafael Correa

Secretario/a Nacional de Comunicación

Mónica Chuji Julia Ortega Vinicio Alvarado Espinel

Fernando Alvarado Patricio Barriga Venezuela President Hugo Chávez Nicolás Maduro Ministro/a del Poder Popular para

la Comunicación y la Información

Luis Reyes Reyes Julio Montes Alberto Esqueda Ismael Hurtado Nora Uribe Jesse Chacón Andrés Izarra Yuri Pimentel Willian Lara Blanca Eekhout Tania Díaz Mauricio Rodríguez

Ernesto Villegas Delcy Eloina Rodríguez

Gómez Jacqueline Faría Desiree Santos Amaral Luis José Marcano Salazar

Jorge Rodríguez Gómez Table 1 Analyzed Politicians Source: Own Elaboration

Referenced Data

The next list will be divided by country and politician. The structure of the reference information will be as follows: “media outlet – youtube channel – title of the video –

broadcast date – upload date – link”.

Bolivia

- Evo Morales

o CNN en Español – marcelo paredes – POLEMICA ENTREVISTA ISMAEL CALA - EVO MORALES - CNN – 13/08/2013 – 03/10/2013 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A51wrOZp5Ms&t=91s

- Iván Canelas

o Bolivia TV – Noticias de Bolivia – Hablemos Claro: El Gobernador Iván Canelas sobre la Emergencia Nacional en Cochabamba – 07/02/2018 – 08/02/2018 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJWurTzI-9U

o unk. – Gobernacion de Cochabamba – Gobernador Iván Canelas hizo su presentación en las III Jornadas por el Derecho a la Comunicación – unk. – 14/10/2015 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d-GnCHseQ0

o unk. – Wilson Martinez Guaca – MINISTRA DE COMUNICACIONES DE BOLIVIA. Entrevista – unk. – 16/10/2014 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXnkBSN1Ep4 - Marianela Paco

o Bolivisión – Hora 23 Bolivisión – Ministra Marianela Paco habla sobre el futuro de la televisión y radios en Bolivia – unk. – 27/07/2016 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrDTnLv_24o - Gisela López

o Abya Yala TV – Abya Yala Digital – 09/05 Entrevista ministra de Comunicación, Gisela López – 09/05/2018 – 10/05/2018 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqxMGHKBf3M Ecuador

- Rafael Correa

o RT en Español – RT en Español – Entrevista con Rafael Correa, presidente de Ecuador – unk. – 21/08/2013 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmXh538GYSE&t=68s

o ATVLima – El Ciudadano – entrevista del Sr Presidente Rafael Correa con Augusto Álvarez ATVLima – unk. – 03/10/2012 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82tb9NMZ3DE - Mónica Chuji

o unk. – presidenciaecuador – Mónica Chuji hace un llamado a “debatir profundamente” sobre – unk. – 22/05/2007 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-kj5fPg1Z4 - Julia Ortega

o unk.– presidenciaecuador – Posesión de la Secretaria de Comunicación (I) – 20/08/2007 – 21/08/2007 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx5CjpFusIk - Fernando Alvarado

o unk. – CadenaPresidenciaEC – Posesión del Dr. Fernando Alvarado, Secretario de Comunicación – unk. – 06/07/2009 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XR1-8lZk1U - Patricio Barriga

o unk. – El Ciudadano – Intervención de Patricio Barriga, Secretario Nacional de Comunicación en Ginebra – unk. – 01/05/2017 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ5kR9S48ZA

o C.C.R.E.A – TELESUCESOS HD – REALIDAD NACIONAL · 420 LCDO PATRICIO BARRIGA – unk. –30/05/2017 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyuY1ddV0c0 Venezuela

- Andrés Izarra

o teleSUR tv – teleSUR tv – El pueblo es comunicador gracias a Chávez: Andrés Izarra – 07/03/2013 – 07/03/2013 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_ZoLZ1BzZc

o unk. – PRODU – Ministro Izarra: Trayectoria – unk. – 12/07/2018 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgJoYlTzIIk

- Yuri Pimentel

o Venezolana de Televisión – Multimedio VTV – Yuri Pimentel: Lo que hizo Hugo Chávez fue una comunicación directa con el pueblo – unk. –

- Ernesto Villegas

o Vive Andes – ViveTvAndes – Entrevista ministro Ernesto Villegas – 17/05/2013 – 21/05/2013 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS6Jt-RRiC0

o Venezolana de Televisión – Luigino Bracci Roa – Ernesto Villegas en Toda Venezuela VTV, como Ministro de Comunicación e Información – 22/10/2012 – 22/10/2012 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyAljK4Z0PY - Delcy Eloina Rodríguez

o Venezolana de Televisión – delcyrodriguez – Entrevista a Delcy Rodríguez en el Programa José Vicente Hoy – 22/09/2013 – 09/10/2013 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTT_3-n60LQ - Luis José Marcano Salazar

o Venevisión – noticierovenevision – Entrevista Venevisión: Luis José Marcano, ministro para la Comunicación e Información – unk. – 02/03/2016 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuKHJhbK_90 o Venezolana de Televisión – Conectados_Vzla – Entrevista luis Jose

Marcano 52º Aniversario de VTV – 01/08/2016 – 01/08/2016 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4pc9tv2xAM

Code List

Deductive: Access Provider, Adversary, Advocate, Advocative-Radical, Analyst, Change Agent, Collaborative-Facilitative, Collaborator, Critical-Monitorial, Curator, Detective, Disseminator, Educator, Facilitators, Informational-Instructive, Mediator, Missionary, Mobilizer, Mouthpiece, Watchdog.

Inductive: Accumulation, Active Political Role, Aggressiveness, Balance, Capitalism, Citizen Participation, Citizenship Building, Civil Society, Colonialism, Communitarism, Community Building, Development, Dishonesty, Ecologism, Elitism, Emergency, Enhance

Communication, Equilibrium, Financial Interest, Formation, Government Action, Humanity, Imperialism, Inclusion, Indigenism, Informational Right, Informing, Investigation, Legal Division, Libertarianism, Life, Multiculturalism, Neoliberalism, Neutrality, Official Sources, Opinion, Patriotism, Platform, Pluralism, Poor, Popular, Power Control, Power Struggle, Private Interests, Private Property, Processing, Racism, Reform, Regulation, Reply, Respect, Revolution, Right, Role Absence, Rural, Sexism, Socialism, Spirit, State Cooperation, Status Quo, Subscribe Government, Tradition, Traffic, Universities, Violence, Wealth

Redistribution.

Coding Guide

The informational-instructive function most closely pertains to the idea that citizens need to have the relevant information at hand to act and participate in political life. Central to this function is the understanding of journalism as an exercise of information transmission, information (re-)packaging, and storytelling. In the news media, the informational-instructive function is addressed by three roles, two ‘classic’ and one fairly recent:

- The disseminator role is closely associated with the idea of information distribution (Weaver and Wilhoit, 1986). Based on the idea that as journalists should, and can, report things ‘as they are’, they tend to see themselves as detached bystanders, adhering to strict neutrality. Journalists then often depend on official sources, serving society in the capacity of an ‘official register’ or a ‘minute taker’.

- The curator is a relatively new role that has gained relevance in a time when

information is available in abundance and can be shared via social media. The curating journalist finds, organizes, contextualizes, and shares the most relevant content on a given topic (Deshpande, 2013). In other words, curators identify, organize, and repackage information into deliverable packages and make it available for their users. - The storyteller, or narrator, puts the world into perspective by providing explanation,

background, and context – something that often gets lost in breathless 24/7 news. The narrator role places the news of the day into larger narratives that often extend over time, taking into account the past, the present, and the (envisaged) future.

The analytical-deliberative dimension pertains to journalistic roles that are politically more active and assertive by making a direct intervention in a political discourse (e.g. by news commentary), by engaging the audience in public conversation, by empowering citizens, or by providing means for political participation:

- The role of the analyst is primarily focused on providing analyses of events in the news (Johnstone et al., 1972). It places a strong emphasis on subjectivity and opinion, in a much more explicit manner than the storyteller, by tracing causes and predicting consequences.

- The access provider role features participative elements by providing the audience with a platform and a forum to express their views (Weaver and Wilhoit, 1996). In so doing, the access provider aims at engaging the people in public conversation by giving the various stakeholders in society a chance to articulate their interests and thus contribute to public deliberation.

- The mobilizer role puts even more emphasis on political involvement by proactively encouraging audience members to participate in the political domain (Weaver et al., 2007). Embracing this role means to act as agent of empowerment (Romano, 2003) by framing the news ‘in a way that invites people into civic activity and political

conversation’ (Rosen, 2000: 680).

The critical-monitorial function sits at the heart of the normative core of journalists’

professional imagination in most Western countries. This dimension is grounded in the ideal of journalism acting as ‘Fourth Estate’, with journalists voicing criticism and holding powers to account and, in so doing, creating a critically minded citizenry (Christians et al., 2009: 30):

- The monitor is the most passive of the three critical-monitorial roles. This role corresponds with an understanding of journalists as critical observers of political conduct. The monitor role is not an active pursuit; it essentially responds to political misconduct as journalists happen to become aware of it.

- The role of the detective, by way of contrast, is defined through the investigative practices it employs to scrutinize claims and statements of the government and to gather information about issues journalists conceive as suspicious (Meyen and

Riesmeyer, 2012; Weaver and Wilhoit, 1996). Detectives are the prototype of the ‘investigative journalist’, for whom investigative practice is at the heart of their professional identity. Another element of this role is verification, which has become increasingly central to electronic media in routines to authenticate material provided by external sources.

- The watchdog role is even more active and assertive by comparison. Journalists who embrace this role proactively scrutinize political and business leaders; they provide an independent critique of society and its institutions (McQuail, 2000). The watchdog’s legitimacy to act in the political arena is most strongly anchored in journalism’s institutional position vis-à-vis powers that be.

A defining feature of the advocative-radical function is the journalist’s position toward loci of power in society – in other words, their ‘power distance’ (Hanitzsch, 2007: 373). Roles that belong to this domain compel journalists to conceive of themselves as ‘participants’ (Cohen, 1963: 20) in political discourse who bring an ideological bias to the discussion (Statham, 2007):

- Adversary journalists deliberately posture themselves as countervailing force to political authority (Weaver and Wilhoit, 1986). In this tradition, journalists often position themselves as ‘mouthpiece of the people’ (Chan and So, 2005), trying to give ‘the people’ a voice in the news (p. 73). Such a ‘radical’ role entails elements of hostility in the journalists’ positioning toward the government (Christians et al., 2009: 31).

- The advocate considers herself a spokesperson for specific groups of people and their causes or – more generally – for the socially disadvantaged (Janowitz, 1975).

Identification with a particular group is thus essential for this role, with journalists acting as campaigner, as ‘lobbyist’, as a ‘voice for the poor’ (Pintak and Nazir, 2013: