Is journalism just a job? Findings on journalists’ career motivation, news efficacy and news avoidance from structural equation modeling in China

With the profound transformation of Chinese journalism under the commercialized trend of thoughts, there is a debate on whether Chinese journalists still maintain the public service ideal or just regard it simply as a job. In other words, is journalism a “vocation” or a “profession”? Therefore, it is necessary to conduct an empirical study on journalistic roles. Drawing on the self-determination theory, this study constructs a framework of “career motivation–news attitude” to build a bridge between role orientations and performance, in order to comprehensively understand the Chinese journalistic roles. In this study, a quota sampling survey ( n = 1000), multiple linear regression (MLR), and structural equation modeling (SEM) are used to examine the influence of advocacy and utilitarian motivations on news efficacy and news avoidance, corresponding to news production and consumption attitudes. Furthermore, the study divides the journalistic roles in China into four categories: purposive advocate professionals, dedicated advocate professionals, workaday journalists, and adrift journalists. The results show that advocacy motivation, or the public service ideal, is more significant than utilitarian motivation in the journalistic roles. The former is associated with higher news efficacy and lower news avoidance, while the latter is only associated with higher news avoidance. The study also discusses the demographic factors of journalistic career motivations.