Detailed Information on Publication Record
2023
“I Know Which Devil I Write for” : Two Types of Autonomy Among Czech Journalists Remaining in and Leaving the Prime Minister's Newspapers
KOTIŠOVÁ, Johana and Lenka WASCHKOVÁ CÍSAŘOVÁBasic information
Original name
“I Know Which Devil I Write for” : Two Types of Autonomy Among Czech Journalists Remaining in and Leaving the Prime Minister's Newspapers
Authors
KOTIŠOVÁ, Johana (203 Czech Republic) and Lenka WASCHKOVÁ CÍSAŘOVÁ (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution)
Edition
The International Journal of Press/Politics, Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications, 2023, 1940-1612
Other information
Language
English
Type of outcome
Článek v odborném periodiku
Field of Study
50801 Journalism
Country of publisher
United States of America
Confidentiality degree
není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství
References:
Impact factor
Impact factor: 4.800 in 2022
RIV identification code
RIV/00216224:14230/23:00129927
Organization unit
Faculty of Social Studies
UT WoS
000713263400001
Keywords in English
autonomy; autonomy-as-a-value; autonomy-as-a-practice; media ownership; Central and Eastern Europe; journalists
Tags
Tags
International impact, Reviewed
Změněno: 22/11/2022 13:02, Mgr. Blanka Farkašová
Abstract
V originále
This paper examines two different understandings of professional autonomy among journalists currently and formerly working at Mafra, a Czech media house acquired in 2013 by Andrej Babiš, who in 2017 became the Czech Prime Minister. We build on existing research of local trends in media ownership and journalistic autonomy to ask the following questions: What differentiated the experience of journalists who exited the organization after the ownership change from that of those who stayed put? How did the two groups understand professional journalistic autonomy? Based on the thematic analysis of twenty semistructured interviews with ten journal- ists who stayed in the media house after Babiš’s acquisition and ten journalists who left, we argue that in the journalists’ narratives, the two decisions reflect two different notions of autonomy: autonomy-as-a-practice and autonomy-as-a-value. While our findings add to the scarce empirical research on journalists’ lived experiences of the region’s mediascape marked by growing comingling and concentration of political, economic and media power, we also suggest that the autonomy-as-a-practice and journalists’ agency should be further studied as a possible way how to perform and promote journalistic autonomy even in illiberalizing contexts—in Central and Eastern Europe and beyond.
