A Negotiative Theory of Journalistic Roles

In probing how journalists negotiate the perceived discrepancy between their social role orientation and role performance, we arrive at a negotiative theory of roles. The theory is based on an inductive study where we combine classic theoretical frameworks of role theory with conceptual approaches of discursive institutionalism and Hochschilds’ theory of feeling rules. We examined journalists’ narratives from qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 Swiss newspaper journalists, who were asked to interpret the perceived gap—found in previous studies—between journalism ideals and journalism practice. The results compelled us to revisit role theories and to consider a number of overlooked or under-utilized analytic features of social roles to propose refinements to the concepts of journalistic roles and role performance. This resulted in a negotiative theory of roles that focuses attention on intra- and interpersonal discourse as well as what we call “role work.”