Professional role perceptions among Iraqi Kurdish journalists from a ‘state within a state’

Abstract

Twenty years after a foreign intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan during Saddam Hussein’s authoritarian rule, this study found that Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions appear, to an extent, to reflect liberal democratic news media values. The study used the hierarchy-of-influences framework to examine determinants of professional role perceptions among Iraqi Kurdish journalists (N = 175), who interacted with democratic institutions more than a decade longer than the rest of the country. The ‘Watchdog’ role perception model was the strongest of eight models in the study with influences including Western news media training, Internet use frequency, and ‘democrat’ political ideology over ‘Nationalist’. Furthermore, the ‘Islamist’ ideology had a stronger influence than ‘democrat’ on ‘Watchdog’ role perceptions, potentially indicating these perspectives, at times, may be embraced by groups not within the ruling parties.

Keywords

Democratic institutions hierarchy of influences Iraqi Kurds journalism professionalism professional role perceptions

For more than a decade, the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq has not had the level of violence plaguing the rest of the country (The Economist, 2013). And since Kurdistan received autonomy from the authoritarian regime of Saddam Hussein in 1991, the region has been described as a ‘state within a state’ and a ‘democratic enclave’ (Bengio, 2012; Gilley, 2010), where journalists and others fled for safety (Cazes, 2003; O’Leary, 2002; Zanger, 2001, 2004). Although some scholars have suggested that ‘the impact of post-Saddam Iraq on the cause of democratization’ is a negative model not to be emulated in the region (Selim, 2012: 53), others have viewed the Iraqi Kurdistan case in the north of the country over the years as a region that, in part, has ‘experience with self-rule, civil rights, and a transition to democracy’ (O’Leary, 2002: 20).

Given that news media can play a critical role in new democracies (Hughes, 2007) and the ‘interrelationship between press freedom and democratic governance is long established’ (Freedman, 2011: 3), this exploratory study examines democratic political development through the proxy of Iraqi Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions. Iraqi Kurdistan was more than a decade ahead of the rest of the country in terms of building democratic institutions, including non-state press, Internet access, satellite television access, and the first internationally certified elections in 1992 that were considered fair and free (Zanger, 2001, 2004; Reporters Without Borders, 2010). The Kurdish region was the recipient, along with the rest of Iraq, of a nearly half-billion-dollar liberal democratic news media development project, largely financed by the United States and its allies from outside of the region after the fall of Saddam Hussein (Ricchiardi, 2011).

Although some have described Iraqi Kurdistan as ‘a beacon of democracy’, others have noted the region is ‘backsliding’ and on a ‘downward spiral’ (Qadir, 2007: 19). Reports indicate that conditions for journalists in the Kurdish region have deteriorated (Freedom House, 2013: 7). In 2011, the year of the US military withdrawal from Iraq and the year of this study, there were 359 attacks on news media outlets and journalists in Kurdistan (Abdulla, 2014: 2).

In this study, we take a constructivist approach to examine the impact of a hierarchy of influences (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996, 2014) on Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions. The research was conducted two decades after Saddam Hussein withdrew the central government from the three northern governorates in the region after advancing an extermination policy on thousands of Kurds, the second largest ethnic group in the country following Iraqi Arabs. Our exploratory study has three overarching research questions that could be conceptually tested in other post-authoritarian states with similar interventions: (1) To what extent do Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions reflect liberal democratic values from outside countries’ investments in news media training in Iraq? (2) What factors influence Kurdish journalists’ ‘watchdog’ role perceptions as a proxy for democratic values in the profession? and (3) What factors tend to influence Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions of being a ‘loyalist’ or other roles?

Our research inquiry builds on the conception of Iraqi Kurdistan as a type of ‘democratic enclave’ (Gilley, 2010: 392) (Figure 1). For the years following the 1991 Gulf War, Gilley (2010) categorized Kurdistan as an ‘interventional’ democratic enclave, among those that ‘arise due to explicit and direct efforts by foreign states to create or protect democratic freedoms in some geographic region of an authoritarian state’ (p. 392). Given this history of intervention in the region along with the multi-billion dollar US-financed ‘democracy promotion’ program throughout the country (Epstein et al., 2007: 9), which included news media training, our study investigates the spectrum of professional role perceptions of Kurdish journalists through eight models. This contribution extends the work of Pintak and Ginges (2008, 2009), who examined challenges to journalists in other countries in the region and developed a professional role typology for Arab journalists. We also build on work of other scholars who have examined professional role perceptions in other regions of the world (Mwesige, 2004; Pihl-Thingvad, 2014; Ramaprasad, 2001; Ramaprasad and Hamdy, 2006; Ramaprasad and Kelly, 2003; Skovsgaard et al., 2013).

Figure 1.

Kurdistan Regional Government Boundary at the time of the study.

The following sections examine the context of journalism in Iraqi Kurdistan, the historical environment for democratic institutions, the concept of professional role perceptions, and the hierarchy of influences model.

Historical context

Iraqi Kurds were noted to have used the power of the press’ platform in their struggle in the last years of the Ottoman Empire toward the end of World War I, an effort that continued through the years of the monarchy (1921–1958; Al-Deen, 2005; Zanger, 2001). The successive regimes in the post-1958 Republican period in Iraq attempted to destroy Kurdish identity in the north, a region that now has about 5.2 million residents (Al-Deen, 2005; Kurdistan Regional Government, 2014a; Zanger, 2001). By the end of the 1970s, the central government’s control of journalists became increasingly violent, and Iraq’s war with neighboring Iran from 1980 to 1988 was said to have ravaged the region and was used as a ‘pretext for a complete take-over of the Iraqi media by the state’ (Cazes, 2003: 4).

Saddam Hussein’s regime launched a Kurd extermination policy that included using chemical weapons (O’Leary, 2002). The Iraqi Army carried out orders that destroyed 2000 villages, and Kurdish authorities placed the number of those killed and disappeared at more than 180,000 people (Human Rights Watch, 1993; McDowall, 2000). By 1991, a UN Security Council resolution was adopted to protect the Kurds with a ‘no-fly’ zone; Saddam Hussein later withdrew the central government from the north.

Free from the Ba’ath regime, the oil-rich Kurdistan witnessed a media explosion in the 1990s, while the rest of the country was under the control of Saddam Hussein. Unlike Saddam Hussein’s Iraq at the time, satellite dishes were unregulated and Internet access expanded (Cazes, 2003: 8; Zanger, 2001).

In 2003, fighters from the Kurdish region, known as peshmergas, fought alongside the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq (Freedom House, 2004: 2). One decade later, Van Wilgenburg (2013) wrote, ‘Since the invasion of Iraq – viewed by the Kurds as liberation – the once-persecuted Kurds have seen their homeland transform itself from a cut off, underdeveloped area to a hotbed of economic prosperity and security’ (p. 1). Yet, 10 years after the US-led occupation of the country, Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani acknowledged, the region has ‘a long way to go in every aspect from rebuilding to democracy to human rights’ (The Report Company, 2013: 1).

Democratic norms and the press as an institution of accountability

Based on political scientist Robert Dahl’s conception of ‘competitive institutions’, Gilley (2010) identified Iraq’s Kurdistan as an interventional democratic enclave, noting that historically these subnational regions tend to be ‘largely overlooked’ in the literature (p. 389). Scholars have written about the impacts of ‘democracy by design’ related to interventions by external actors advancing democracy (Dimitrova and Pridham, 2004: 93). Others have studied democratic norm diffusion and the constraints of political development in post-authoritarian and autocratic environments (Hughes, 2007; Leeson and Dean, 2009; Relly, 2012; Tang and Iyengar, 2011).

The role of an independent and free press and its association with democratic governance have long been theorized (Dahl, 1989; Hughes, 2007: 79). As far back as the 1960s, scholarship examined news media’s association with ‘nation building’, with later findings demonstrating that the role of the press in consolidating democracies was ‘greatly underestimated’ and the role of the news media in building democracy ‘varied considerably’, with some examples of news media reverting back to autocratic traditions (Freedman, 2011; Randall, 1993: 625, 644).

Iraq’s Kurds are acutely aware of the press’ role in society. When Iraqi Kurds rebelled against the government in Baghdad after the Gulf War in 1991 and the uprising was crushed by the Republican Guard, a reported three million Kurdish citizens fled to nearby countries (Berwari and Ambrosio, 2008: 896) and credit foreign correspondents and photojournalists with life-saving reporting as Iraqi Kurds ‘huddled starving on the freezing but closed Turkish border trying to escape the wrath of the Iraqi regime’ (Zanger, 2004: 151).

Professional role perceptions in a global context

In recent years, researchers have examined whether journalists in other countries view professional roles through a ‘shared set of professional parameters or imperatives’ (Mwesige, 2004; Pihl-Thingvad, 2014; Pintak and Nazir, 2013: 642; Ramaprasad, 2001; Ramaprasad and Hamdy, 2006; Ramaprasad and Kelly, 2003; Skovsgaard et al., 2013), and some scholars have noted the ‘limits of homogenization’ or secularization of news media system models (Hallin and Mancini, 2010: 154). Waisbord (2013) noted that ‘hybrid professional cultures’ reflect ‘the tensions of globalization between the forces of homogenization and heterogeneity, and the dynamic character of cultural formation and change’ (p. 229). Thus, our study acknowledges the literature that demonstrates these role perceptions vary by region, culture, political ideology, religion, ethnicity, and many other factors (Gross, 1996; Hanitzsch, 2006, 2007; Kim and Hama-Saeed, 2008; Pintak, 2014: 483–484; Waisbord, 2013).

Our study builds on the work of Weaver et al. (2007) who spent more than three decades (p. 137) examining perceptions of professionalism in journalism practice in the United States, research that grew out of a seminal sociological study in the 1970s (Johnstone et al., 1976). Through an expanded battery of role-related items in surveys that began in 1982, this work tracked changes over time of journalists’ perceptions and attitudes toward their roles and values (Weaver et al., 2007; Weaver and Wilhoit, 1986, 1996; Weaver and Willnat, 2012). This research and that of other scholars has led to a host of empirical typologies of professional roles, or ‘ideal types’, which sociologist Max Weber noted ‘exist in reality but do not exist in their pure form’ (Donsbach, 2008: 2).

Ramaprasad and Hamdy (2006) created a category of items through factor analysis that represented ‘the continuum of media roles in a democracy’ (p. 311). Other scholars point out that ‘different conceptions of democracy imply different normative expectations’ on journalists, leading to varying conceptions of democracy and professional role perceptions (Skovsgaard et al., 2013: 26–27).

Hierarchy of influences model

Shoemaker and Reese (1996, 2014; Reese, 2001) describe the hierarchy of influences model as a framework that stretches from the ‘macro to the micro’ to explicate ‘the different levels of meaning associated with the concept of professionalism’ (2014, pp. 8–9). At the center of the model is the individual (micro) level, followed by news media routines level, the organizational level, the extra-media (or social institutions) level, and the macro-layer of analysis representing ideological influences in this study.

Individual-level influences

Shoemaker and Reese (2014) point out that demographic is ‘the most basic and visible background profile of a profession’ (p. 211). Given the complicated nature of an environment in which there has been major regime change, we utilize demographic characteristics of journalists as controls. The literature is mixed on the influence of gender, age, and education (Gross, 1996; Hanitzsch, 2006, 2007; Kim, 2010; Reese, 2001; Shoemaker and Reese, 1996; Weaver et al., 2007) as potential factors influencing professional role perceptions.

News media routines influences

Media routines have been described as ‘repeated practices, forms, and rules that media workers use to do their jobs’ (Shoemaker and Reese, 2014: 165; Tuchman, 1972). Kim (2010) noted ‘differences in medium’ have been found to influence journalists in their gatekeeping role (p. 487). Thus, we submit, occupational characteristics depending on platform could influence professional role perceptions. We also examine routines-level influences through a proxy for news media development, given that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on this in Iraq (Epstein et al., 2007; Ricchiardi, 2011).

Organizational-level influences

Organizational influences tend to encompass policies within the newsroom and how the enterprise is structured (Shoemaker and Reese, 2014: 8). Breed (1955) examined overt and indirect means that news outlets use to constrain the workforce. In recent times, in the Middle East region, organizational challenges have been cited as key issues for journalists (Pintak and Ginges, 2008, 2009; Price et al., 2007). Kim (2010) found work for state or non-state media made a difference in the profession, yet others found no influence (Relly et al., Forthcoming).

Extra-media-level influences

Shoemaker and Reese (1996) suggest that the extra-media level includes influences on journalists outside of news organizations. Among those influences, we include those that have been cited as issues or areas of support for journalists in Kurdistan and the region, including state control and government corruption, business interest pressures, the Internet, and interests outside of the law through a proxy, violence.

Government control and corruption

We study government control because it was ranked the second ‘most significant challenge’ among journalists in the region (Pintak and Ginges, 2008: 201). Furthermore, public corruption was ranked among the top four challenges for journalists in the Middle East (Pintak and Ginges, 2008). Corruption has been a major policy issue in Kurdistan according to Berwari and Ambrosio (2008), who noted that after the safe haven was established in 1992, ‘dominance by the two political parties led to a system of corruption and patronage’ (p. 900). Hallin and Mancini (2004) explored external forces from politics and business extensively, noting that these influences thwarted press autonomy in the polarized pluralist media system.

Commercial pressures and religious pressures

Research in Iraq has found that business and religious pressures influence the news media (Kim and Hama-Saeed, 2008). Scholars also have found pressure from business can tamp down accountability journalism (Jamieson and Campbell, 1992).

Physical violence

Studies have found that violence influences watchdog journalism in zones of conflict (Kim, 2010; Kim and Hama-Saeed, 2008). In recent years, violence toward journalists in Kurdistan has risen, although it is not as dramatic as the rest of the country (Abdulla, 2014).

Internet

Studies have shown that frequency in use of the Internet may advance democratic values in a society (Best and Wade, 2009; Groshek, 2009; Nisbet et al., 2012). And Castells (2010) noted a relationship among networked society, the new public sphere, and a global civil society (p. 36).

Ideological-level influences

As Deuze (2005) noted, scholars studying the process of professionalization suggest that it is ‘a distinctly ideological development’ (p. 444). And in Weaver and Willnat’s (2012) analysis of research on the profession in 31 countries, in which limitations of the research were acknowledged, such as variation in years of participant recruitment, methodologies, and response rates, they wrote that many of the differences ‘seem to reflect societal influences, especially cultural and political system differences’ (pp. 2–4, 544). As Shoemaker and Reese (2014) suggest, the term ideology in the hierarchy represents ‘societal-level phenomenon’, which is a complex level of influence to examine (p. 70). Given that the study is being carried out in a post-authoritarian environment with strong liberal democratic investment in media development and democracy promotion from the United States and other countries (Epstein et al., 2007; Ricchiardi, 2011), as well as neighboring autocratic elements that may influence media development in Kurdistan, the study examines ideological-level influences on professional role perceptions.

Method

We conducted our study between 20 July 2011 and 26 August 2011, the year the US military withdrew from Iraq. We constructed our initial questionnaire in English. An Iraqi Kurdish national who was fluent in both Kurdish and English, who had worked with foreign correspondents, translated the questionnaire into Kurdish. The Kurdish questionnaire was then back-translated into English by another Kurdish national who had worked as a journalist and was fluent in both languages. We then pre-tested the questionnaire and revised the English version, accordingly. Finally, we translated the revised sections and back-translated those sections.

Kim (2010) has suggested that non-probability samples are appropriate when there is no official documentation of journalists in the country or when the research is carried out in zones of conflict. Thus, we distributed 220 Kurdish-language questionnaires to a purposive sample of Iraqi Kurdish journalists, and 175 journalists responded for an 80 percent response rate, which is high. We attribute this to the familiarity with the Kurdish journalist organization that assisted with distributing the survey and a long history in the region of interacting with researchers and others from outside of the country (Zanger, 2001).

We used hierarchical regression to examine key potential determinants at five levels (individual, news media routines, organizational, extra-media, and ideological) that may have influenced Iraqi Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions.

Criterion variable measurements

Given Western investment in news media development in Iraq, we utilized the top conceptual categories for professional roles in the United States (Weaver et al., 2007): Watchdog (adversarial), Disseminator, Interpreter, and Populist Mobilizer, of which all but the latter were included in Pintak and Ginges’ (2008) typologies for the region outside of Iraq. Further, we added ‘Change Agent’ and ‘Guardian’ from Pintak and Ginges’ two categories that emerged from their Arab journalist data. For the ‘Development’ role item in our study, we looked to the work of Ramaprasad and her colleagues on perceptions of journalists’ functions in Bangladesh, Egypt, and Tanzania (Pintak and Ginges, 2008, 2009; Ramaprasad, 2001; Ramaprasad and Hamdy, 2006; Ramaprasad and Kelly, 2003; Ramaprasad and Rahman, 2006; Rugh, 2004). And similar to Pintak and Ginges (2008), we utilized Rugh’s (2004) description of ‘Loyalist’, with its most noteworthy characteristic being ‘loyal to and supportive of the regime in power’ regardless of news outlet ownership (p. 59).

The criterion item in the questionnaire for a ‘Watchdog’ role was ‘It is the job of a journalist to investigate claims made by the government’. The item for ‘Disseminator’ read, ‘It is the job of a journalist to get information to the public as quickly as possible’, and the item for ‘Interpreter’ was ‘It is the job of a journalist to provide analysis of complex problems’. We also used a modified version of one of Weaver et al.’s (2007) ‘Populist Mobilizer’ items, among the top four role perceptions in the United States, which stated in our study, ‘It is the job of a journalist to give ordinary people a chance to express their views about government affairs’ (p. 144). Our modified version of an item from Pintak and Ginges’ (2008) typology for ‘Change Agent’ reads, ‘It is the job of a journalist to set the political agenda’. For ‘The Guardian’, we used, ‘It is the job of a journalist to protect religion’. For ‘Development’, we used, ‘It is the job of a journalist to support development in the country’. And for ‘Loyalist’, ‘It is the job of a journalist to advance the policies of government’. We used a 7-point Likert scale for responses with 1 representing ‘strongly disagree’ and 7 representing ‘strongly agree’.

Explanatory variables

Individual-level influences

For the individual level, we used age, gender, and education as control variables. We recoded age into the following categories: 17–29, 30–39, 40–49, >50. Gender was coded as 0 = male and 1 = female. We recoded highest level of education as follows: (1) some primary school or primary school degree, (2) some secondary school or secondary school degree, (3) diploma (2 years of college) – journalism or other/some college, (4) Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science, and (5) graduate degree (Master of Arts, Master of Science, or a doctorate).

News media routines-level influences

News media platform is an explanatory variable at the routines level. The item read, ‘What form of media do you work in most?’ A number of respondents chose multiple platforms. Our recoded categorical indicator for news media platform utilized the following categories with the ‘broadcast’ category as the reference group: (1) broadcast, (2) print, (3) news agency, (4) online, and (5) multiple platforms. The news media platform variable is in column ‘1a’ for each model in Table 2. We used Western journalism training as a proxy for news media platform to test the influence of training on role perception. The item read, ‘Have you been trained by or worked with Western journalists?’ Our coding responses were as follows: yes = 1 and no = 0. Table 2 contains Western journalism training at the routines level in every model in column ‘1b’.

Organizational-level influences

The questionnaire asked participants to provide a response on a Likert-type scale for how significant news media ownership challenges are in the workplace (Pintak and Ginges, 2008). The response choice was on a 5-point scale with 1 = completely insignificant and 5 = most significant. We grouped news outlets as follows: state = 0 and non-state = 1.

Extra-media influences

We used Pintak and Ginges’ (2008, 2009) items that were extra-media challenges facing the profession in the Middle East outside of Iraq. Our questionnaire used a 1 to 5 Likert-type scale with 1 being completely insignificant and 5 being most significant for the item asking how significant the following challenges were to journalists: ‘(1) Government control over the media, (2) Corruption in government institutions, (3) Commercial company pressures, (4) Physical violence against journalists, and (5) Religious group pressures’.

We used the proxy of Internet use frequency as a potential determinant of an extra-media-level influence on role perception (Best and Wade, 2009; Groshek, 2009; Nisbet et al., 2012). The item stated, ‘In your reporting during a typical week, you use the Internet’ … We collapsed the responses into the following categories: 1 = never, 2 = 1–3 days a week, 3 = 5–7 days a week, 4 = every day, and 5 = several times a day.

Ideological-level influences

We test the influence of political ideology on professional role perceptions among Kurdish journalists, given that political parties have long pushed the ideological agenda in the Kurdish region, that news media training was in the liberal democratic model, and that media were an opposition group propaganda tool before the region became autonomous from the Ba’athist regime of Saddam Hussein (Cazes, 2003; Kim and Hama-Saeed, 2008: 581; Reporters Without Borders, 2010; Ricchiardi, 2011; Zanger, 2001, 2004). We utilized Pintak and his colleagues’ (Pintak and Ginges, 2008, 2009; Pintak and Setiyono, 2011) item, which states, ‘Politically, which philosophy best describes you?’ with modified response options as follows: ‘Arab nationalist, democrat, Islamist, Kurdish nationalist, nationalist, and other’.

Results

We examined the strength of 14 explanatory indicators at five levels within Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchy of influence model to study factors that may impact perceptions of professional role conceptions among Iraqi Kurdish journalists (N = 175). Respondents’ ages ranged from 19 to 66 years with the mean of 31.43 years (standard deviation [SD] = 8.27 years). A total of 38 Kurdish journalist respondents identified as women (22.1%) and 134 Kurdish journalist respondents identified as men (77.9%). Nearly three-fourths (74.5%) of the respondents had attended college and 25.5 percent had a secondary school education or less. Broadcast journalists represented 31.9 percent of the respondents, 43.6 percent worked for print, 6.7 percent for news agencies, 4.3 percent represented digital journalism, and the remainder (13.5%) worked in multiple platforms. A majority of journalists in the study were employed by non-state news media (84.5%) and 15.5 percent worked for state-run media. Nearly two-thirds (64.1%) were trained by Western journalists. Nearly three-fourths (71.9%) of the journalist respondents used the Internet at least daily, one-fourth (25%) logged on less than daily, and 3 percent indicated that they never utilized the Internet.

In Table 1, we have provided the mean, SD, and frequency distribution for role perceptions of Iraqi Kurdish journalists. A majority of journalists ‘agreed’ or ‘strongly agreed’ with the ‘Interpreter’ role (70.4%) of providing analysis for complex problems, the ‘Populist Mobilizer’ role of giving ordinary people a chance to express their views about government affairs (70%), the ‘Disseminator’ role of sending information to the public as quickly as possible (67.2%), the role of supporting ‘Development’ (66.2%), and the ‘Watchdog’ role of investigating claims made by the government (55.5%). Kurdish journalists were less inclined to ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ with a ‘Change Agent’ role of setting the political agenda (15.3%), ‘Guardian’ role of protecting religion (19.1%), or ‘Loyalist’ role of advancing the policies of government (34.3%).

Table 1.

Mean, SD, and frequency distribution for professional role perceptions of Kurdish journalists.

Professional role perceptions	Mean/SD	Strongly disagree (%)	Disagree (%)	Somewhat disagree (%)	Neither agree nor disagree (%)	Somewhat agree (%)	Agree (%)	Strongly Agree (%)
Interpreter: It is the job of a journalist to provide analysis of complex problems (N = 172)	5.53 (1.65)	4.7	4.1	6.4	2.9	11.6	41.3	29.1
Populist Mobilizer: It is the job of a journalist to give ordinary people a chance to express their view about government affairs (N = 173)	5.53 (1.64)	5.2	5.2	2.3	3.5	13.9	42.8	27.2
Disseminator: It is the job of a journalist to get information to the public as quickly as possible (N = 174)	5.53 (1.74)	4.0	5.7	6.9	4.6	11.5	29.3	37.9
Development: It is the job of a journalist to support development in the country (N = 166)	5.49 (1.68)	6.0	3.6	4.2	3.6	16.3	36.7	29.5
Watchdog: It is the job of a journalist to investigate claims made by the government (N = 173)	5.14 (1.88)	8.1	7.5	3.5	6.4	19.1	28.3	27.2
Loyalist: It is the job of a journalist to advance the policies of the government (N = 175)	4.27 (1.81)	8.0	16.0	9.1	15.4	17.1	27.4	6.9
Guardian: It is the job of a journalist to protect religion (N = 173)	3.34 (2.0)	22.5	22.5	10.4	16.8	8.7	8.7	10.4
Change agent: It is the job of a journalist to set the political agenda (N = 171)	2.85 (1.87)	31.6	27.5	7.6	8.2	9.9	13.5	1.8

SD: standard deviation.

Table 2 demonstrates the factors influencing professional role perceptions for eight criterion indicators. We first report hierarchical regression on the top professional role conceptions selected by Kurdish journalists: ‘Interpreter’, ‘Populist Mobilizer’, ‘Disseminator’, advancing ‘Development’ and ‘Watchdog’.

Table 2.

Hierarchy of influences on Kurdish journalists’ professional role perception in the year of the US withdrawal from Iraq.

Variable	Interpreter		Populist Mobilizer		Disseminator		Development		Watchdog		Loyalist		Guardian		Change Agent
	1a	1b	1a	1b	1a	1b	1a	1b	1a	1b	1a	1b	1a	1b	1a	1b
	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	B
Individual
Age	−.02	−.02	.00	.00	−.01	−.01	−.04	−.04	−.07**	−.07**	−.03	−.03	−.03	−.03	−.03	−.03
Gender (female high)	.34	.35	.07	.06	−.49	−.50	−.18	−.19	−.18	−.17	.06	.09	.07	.09	.88*	.89*
Education	.34	.34*	.09	.10	.02	.03	.17	.18	.13	.14	.08	.07	.30	.29	.01	.00
R² (%)	.05	.05	.00	.00	.01	.01	.03	.03	.09**	.09*	.01	.01	.03	.03	.06	.06
Media routines (reference group: broadcast)
Print	.43	–	.48	–	.66	–	.70*	–	.54	–	−.51	–	−.68	–	−1.10**	–
News agency	.28	–	−.12	–	−.34	–	−.82	–	1.35*	–	.89	–	−.62	–	.82	–
Internet	.06	–	−.44	–	−.30	–	.78	–	−.23	–	−.38	–	.14	–	−.59	–
Multiple platforms	1.14**	–	.74	–	.30	–	.14	–	.74	–	−.35	–	−.35	–	−.60	–
R² change (%)	.06	–	.04	–	.04	–	.07	–	.05	–	.04	–	.03	–	.09*	–
Western training	–	.59*	–	.18	–	.74*	–	.16	–	.69*	–	.08	–	.48	–	−.29
R² change (%)	–	.03*	–	.00	–	.04*	–	.00	–	.03*	–	.00	–	.01	–	.01
Organizational
Ownership challenges	.18	.17	.27*	.27*	.04	.04	.18	.15	.36**	.35**	.04	.05	.10	.11	.26*	.28*
State and non-state Media	−.30	−.27	.70	.71	.12	.30	.72	.96*	.42	.43	.26	.12	.28	.27	.03	−.18
R² change (%)	.03	.02	.08**	.08**	.00	.01	.05*	.06*	.08**	.08**	.00	.00	.01	.01	.03	.04
Extra-media
Government control	.02	.04	.02	.01	−.04	−.07	−.09	−.12	−.02	−.02	.17	.23*	.12	.16	.08	.12
Government corruption	.17	.19	.09	.10	.09	.14	.02	.05	−.13	−.11	−.35*	−.40*	−.33	−.33	−.23	−.30
Commercial pressures	.32*	.27	.42**	.43**	.45**	.45**	.25	.28	.26	.22	−.25	−.27	.14	.04	.08	.05
Physical violence against journalists	.02	.03	.17	.17	.29*	.27*	.29*	.27*	.23*	.21	.43**	.42**	.30*	.32*	.17	.20
Religious group pressures	.03	−.02	−.23	−.26*	−.17	−.18	−.19	−.20	−.26*	−.27*	−.20	−.18	.09	.09	.02	.08
Internet use	.16*	.21**	.10	.13	.12	.10	.11	.12	.18*	.20*	.20*	.22*	−.08	−.09	−.02	−.04
R² change (%)	.11*	.12*	.13**	.15**	.15**	.15**	.11*	.13**	.12**	.11**	14**	.16**	.07	.09	.02	.04
Ideological (political ideology reference group: democrat)
Islamist	.31	.36	.46	.40	−.49	−.50	−.54	−.76	.92	1.01*	−.70	−.46	1.49*	1.64**	−.14	.18
Kurd nationalist	−.19	−.19	−.29	−.32	.07	.05	−.66	−.68*	.11	.03	−.30	−.22	.85*	.91*	.30	.39
Nationalist	−1.41*	−1.49*	−1.31	−1.37*	−2.17**	−2.25**	−1.27	−1.22	−1.69*	−1.96**	−.03	.21	.49	.49	1.12	1.24
Other	.37	.36	.21	.10	−.43	−.42	−.02	.06	−.44	−.49	−.77	−.83	−.99	−.73	1.35*	1.27*
R² change (%)	.04	.05	.04	.04	.06	.07*	.04	.05	.07*	.09**	.02	.02	.10**	.11**	.05	.04
Total R² (%)	.28**	.27**	.29**	.28**	.27**	.27**	.29**	.27**	.41***	.40***	.21	.19	.24*	.25**	.25*	.19
Total adjusted R² (%)	.15**	.17**	.17**	.17**	.14**	.17**	.17**	.16**	.31***	.32***	.08	.08	.10*	.14**	.12*	.07

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

The ‘Interpreter’ was the only model in which the coefficient for education at the individual level was significant. For this model, journalists working in multiple platforms were a significantly stronger predictor of this role perception when compared with broadcast journalists at the routines level. Commercial pressures and frequency of Internet use were positive influences at the extra-media level. The only ideological-level factor that demonstrated an influence on the ‘Interpreter’ role of the press was ‘democrat’ over ‘Nationalist’. The strongest Interpreter model was 1b contributing 17 percent of the variance, R² = .27.

In both ‘Populist Mobilizer’ 1a and 1b, there were not any influences on the individual or routines level. Challenges at the organizational and extra-media levels included ownership challenges, commercial pressures, with religious pressures being inversely related to ‘Populist Mobilizer’ for 1b. The extra-media level demonstrated the strongest influence in both models. The ‘democrat’ category on the ideological level had a stronger and more significant influence on the role perception of ‘Populist Mobilizer’ than ‘Nationalist’ in 1b. The strength of both models for ‘Populist Mobilizer’ was similar, with 1a being slightly stronger by contributing 17 percent of the variance, R² = .29.

For the ‘Disseminator’ model, there were no individual- or organizational-level influences. Western journalism training was one of the strongest factors at the routines level (1b). As a whole, influences at the extra-media level were the strongest with commercial pressures greatest in both models and physical violence the next strongest in 1a. In both models at the ideological level, ‘democrats’ over ‘Nationalists’ influenced attitudes toward the ‘Disseminator’ role conception. The strongest of the two models is ‘Disseminator’ 1b, contributing 17 percent of the variance, R² = .27.

For ‘Development’ role perceptions, there were no significant influences at the individual level, print over broadcast media influenced the routines level, and Western training did not have an influence. At the organizational level, this is the only model in which the state and non-state media indicator had an influence, with non-state media producing a significant influence on ‘Development’ model 1b. Extra-media-level factors exhibited the strongest influence, with only physical violence against journalists significantly influencing those perceptions. ‘Democrats’ at the ideological level had a significantly stronger influence than the ‘Kurdish Nationalist’ category for ‘Development’ role perception 1b. The strongest of the two models, 1a, contributed 17 percent of the variance, R² = .29.

The variables influencing the professional role perception in Model 1a for ‘Watchdog’ were the younger end of the age scale, news agency media over broadcast news media, and ownership challenges at the organizational level. At the extra-media level, physical violence against journalists, religious group pressures, and the Internet were significant influences with the extra-media level having the strongest influence, contributing 12 percent of the variance. At the ideological level, Kurdish journalists who chose ‘Islamist’ over the reference group, ‘democrat’, as their primary political ideology had a significantly stronger influence on the watchdog role of the profession. ‘Democrats’ had a stronger influence on ‘Watchdog’ role perceptions than ‘Nationalists’. Both ‘Watchdog’ models were the strongest of the role perceptions, with Model 1a contributing 31 percent of the variance, R² = .41. Western journalism training exhibited a strong influence on the routines level. Watchdog 1b contributed 32 percent of the variance, R² = .40.

‘Change Agents’, ‘Guardians’, and ‘Loyalists’ garnered slightly more than one-third (or less) of Kurdish journalists’ responses for ‘strongly agree’ or ‘agree’ for professional roles. As a whole, the ‘Loyalist’ model, which was defined as advancing the policies of government, was not significant. It is interesting to note that across models at the individual level, gender (female) only influenced role perception in one model, ‘Change Agent’, that of setting the political agenda. The strongest ‘Change Agent’ model was 1a, contributing 12 percent of the variance toward that role perception, R² = .25.

The professional role perception of ‘Guardian’, serving to protect religion, did not have any influences on the individual, routines, or organizational levels; however, physical violence against journalists at the extra-media level and ‘Islamist’ and ‘Kurd Nationalist’ had stronger influence over the ideology of ‘democrat’ in 1b (and nearly as strong in 1a). The strongest model, 1b, contributed 14 percent of the variance, R² = .25.

Discussion

Our study was conducted two decades after the authoritarian regime of Saddam Hussein withdrew from Iraqi Kurdistan. We utilized that critical juncture as a benchmark to study Kurdish journalists’ professional role perceptions as a proxy for the democratic institution of the press from that autonomous region, where the government has indicated a commitment to building democracy. Further, compared with the rest of Iraq, Kurdish journalists have had more than a decade more time away from the brutal Ba’ath regime (Reporters Without Borders, 2010: 4) and have had longer contact with foreign correspondents, Internet access, and the rest of the world (Zanger, 2001, 2004).

Political scientists suggest it is a challenge to build political and social institutions of democracy in post-conflict environments, and we acknowledge the polity and history in Iraqi Kurdistan are complicated (Diamond, 2006: 97). However, we argue that such a study is germane for a number of reasons, including that the region is undergoing changes that could influence the nature of journalistic work in the future. Hundreds of attacks against journalists have been documented in the Kurdistan region since the US withdrawal from the country, and at the same time investigative journalism is being conducted in the region and the government is pledging support for a conducive environment for journalism practice (Abdulla, 2014: 2; Mahoney, 2014).

Our analysis examines key predictors of professional role perceptions, with a particular emphasis on news media development and other factors that either may advance or thwart democratic values. We study how these role conceptions compare with the West, where most of the investments in news media development originated, and with other regions.

Interestingly, we found that Kurdish journalists chose three (Interpreter, Populist Mobilizer, and Disseminator) of the top four role conceptions of US journalists (Interpreter, Watchdog/Adversarialist, Disseminator, and Populist Mobilizer) (Weaver et al., 2007: 151–153) who practice, largely, in the liberal democratic model. The ‘Interpreter’ role, as has been noted in the setting of a democracy, ‘can be articulated as an ideal for discussing and challenging existing knowledge of complex problems, international developments and government policy’ (Pihl-Thingvad, 2014: 3; Weaver et al., 2007), while the ‘Populist Mobilizer’, or ‘public journalism’ perspective, of ‘giving ordinary people a chance to express their views about government affairs’ has been linked with ‘democratic theory’ (Weaver et al., 2007: 145).

Pihl-Thingvad (2014) aptly described the conceptual underpinning of the ‘Disseminator’ role as ‘the news media’s social obligation to society to transmit high quality news to citizens’ to inform so that they ‘can participate in democracy’ (p. 3).

The top fourth role conception of Iraqi Kurdish journalists in the study was the role of advancing ‘Development’, which was a conceptualized alternative to Western-based models promoted by several governments in the decades of the 1960s and 1970s in Asia (Waisbord, 2013). According to Waisbord (2013), this model advanced ‘that journalism had to serve development goals’ in a country (p. 192). Other scholars have examined journalists’ role perceptions in regions in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia and have also found, among other characteristics, a national ‘development journalism’ perspective in the practice (Mwesige, 2004; Ramaprasad, 2001; Ramaprasad and Hamdy, 2006; Ramaprasad and Kelly, 2003). We note that Pintak and Ginges’ (2008) typology from the region bands together ‘support national/regional development’ along with encouraging ‘political reform’ in a ‘Change Agent’ category with less than one in two journalists (44%) considering it ‘most important’. Waisbord (2013) noted that critics have suggested that ‘Development’ journalism is an example of ‘government control of news, a veiled attempt to justify formal and self-censorship in newsrooms on the grounds of the need to serve higher social purposes’ (p. 192). We note that this was the only model in our study that showed non-state-run news to be a significant influence on a criterion variable, potentially demonstrating a focus of ownership and economic interest or the possibility of influences of political party ownership on journalists’ role perceptions. According to Mahoney (2014),

The papers try to play a watchdog role, probing corruption and mismanagement, but they are in a [perilous] financial state, not just because print circulation is plummeting but also because government and businesses friendly with government are no longer placing advertisements with them. (p. 2)

However, it is important to note that the extra-media indicator of ‘government control’ was not a significant predictor of the ‘Development’ role perception as the literature suggested, which presents a more complicated perspective on this potential dynamic.

It is important to note that although media have been used as a tool historically, in the Kurdish region, ‘Loyalist’ tendencies of advancing government policies and protecting religion in the ‘Guardian’ role were ranked low among role conceptions indicating potential influence from Western or other journalism models, or simply fatigue with old local models. This, in part, contrasts with Rugh’s (2004) characterization of the overall Iraqi media, in general, in the pre-2003 years, with news media that would not criticize or attack major regime policies (p. 31).

The impact of the hierarchy of influences framework on role conceptions in this study was ‘weak’ (low effect sizes) across all models with the exception of the ‘Watchdog’ role, a hallmark of the liberal democratic journalism model. We suggest that the framework that we tested for ‘Watchdog’, with adjustments, may be a candidate for future research that uses models with a watchdog gatekeeping criterion variable, one that other scholars indicate should be developed further (Bennett, 2004). The significant predictor indicator for ‘Watchdog’ role conception at the individual level was age (younger) and at routines level, Western journalism training/or news agency over a broadcast platform. At the organizational level, ownership challenges were associated with strong ‘Watchdog’ role perceptions as was the extra-media challenge of physical violence against those in the practice. The latter factors, we suspect, may have a relationship that requires further investigation. Both are counter-intuitive. Yet, recognition of employer challenges and pressures in a news outlet may signal journalists’ awareness, potentially, of the liberal democratic norm of news media autonomy and independence and the constraints that may stymie accountability journalism.

Furthermore, at the extra-media level, the significant and positive influence of violence on perceptions of the professional role of ‘watchdog’ may reflect those in the practice who practice this type of work; accounts have demonstrated that investigative journalists in the region have been the subject of violence, including death (Freedom House, 2003–2013). At the extra-media level, as well, religious group pressures were inversely related to ‘Watchdog’ role conceptions.

As in the other models, we examined the extent that political ideology is linked to ‘Watchdog’ role perceptions in Kurdistan, for as Hallin and Mancini (2004: 21) suggested, news media systems to an extent reflect divisions within societies and this may impact distinct professional role perceptions. We found that the political ideology of ‘democrat’ more strongly influenced role perceptions of ‘Watchdog’ than did ‘Nationalist’. This would fit with the Pintak (2010) definition of ‘democrat’ that we used for this study, which is journalists identifying with the role of a democratic institution in society, which has ‘accountability’ journalism embedded in its expanded historical meaning. Further, Islamist ideology strongly and positively influenced role perception of ‘Watchdog’, which is that it is the job of a journalist to investigate claims made by the government. Islamists, known to critique ‘the establishment and status quo’ (Oxford Islamic Studies, 2014), in general, find themselves in opposition to the two dominant, secular-leaning, Kurdish political parties that have long controlled politics and the economy in the Kurdish region. The various Islamist groups in Kurdistan have a range of ideologies and have been the receptor of a host of reactions from Kurdish authorities over the past two decades ranging from neutral to being persecuted, depending on the political nature of the group. Pintak (2014) pointed out that ‘Islamic values play an important and unifying role within the hierarchy of influences that shape worldview among journalists in the Muslim world’ (p. 498). Our findings were not nuanced enough to tease this out.

We also note that across models, Western training and the political ideology of ‘democrat’ were a strong influence in the professional roles found historically in the United States: ‘Interpreter’, ‘Watchdog’, and ‘Disseminator’. Further, neither Western training nor ‘democrat’ ideology was an influence on roles that have not been linked historically with US news media: ‘Development’, ‘Loyalist’, ‘Guardian’, and ‘Change Agent’. The role conception of ‘Populist Mobilizer’, which recently was introduced in Weaver et al.’s (2007) typologies, was not influenced by Western training, yet was by the primary ideology of ‘democrat’. In examining the phenomenon of political parallelism in a general but not party-specific way, using Pintak and Ginges’ (2008, 2009, 2011) indicators, we found, as Hallin and Mancini (2004) suggested, that political orientations may influence ‘journalistic role orientation’ (p. 28).

This research has limitations. Although the variables chosen for the hierarchy of influences model did indicate strength in predicting the watchdog model, the same predictors used for the other seven models were much weaker. This allowed us to differentiate, as we had hoped, between predictors and the role perception of democratic accountability journalism (‘Watchdog’) and the other models. However, it was not as illuminating for examining influences on other professional role perceptions. Furthermore, our predictor variables for role perceptions were singular and macro-level determinants, which this study suggests should be developed further for deeper levels of nuance. Although Western journalism training significantly influenced perceptions of the ‘Watchdog’, ‘Disseminator’, and ‘Interpreter’ professional roles, which most commonly are associated with liberal democratic countries and not the other role perceptions, the predictor is categorical in nature and should be developed further so that the extent of training and its direct relationship to a host of watchdog perspectives can be measured. And although the researchers made every attempt to include the Iraqi Kurdish perspective in developing and testing the questionnaire, there always is the oft chance that concepts may be interpreted differently than the researchers intended.

Given the dynamic nature of the political context of Iraqi Kurdistan, in general, and journalistic work, specifically, in the region, future research should examine the degree to which political parallelism is a factor in news coverage among Kurdish journalists. The relationship between violence, democratic values, and watchdog journalism should also be further explored, given our findings and the reports (Abdulla, 2014) that indicate a ‘mountain of impunity looms over Kurdistan journalists’ (p. 1).

Finally, this study found that 20 years after the foreign intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan, a purposive sample of Kurdish journalists indicate that professional role perceptions in the region appear to largely mirror democratic liberal news media models. The ‘Watchdog’ model was the strongest in the study with influences that included Western news media training, Internet use frequency, and ‘democrat’ political ideology over ‘Nationalist’ and, interestingly, ‘Islamist’ ideology over ‘democrat’, which merits further exploration. One of the exceptions among role conceptions mirroring Western journalism training was strong perceptions of the role of the journalist in advancing development, which is not unexpected given the region’s plans for crude oil exports (Kurdistan Regional Government, 2014b) and the growth that is expected to follow.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mariwan R. Hama and Ziad al-Ajili for their assistance with this project and the anonymous reviewers for their valued input.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biographies

Jeannine E Relly (PhD 2008, Arizona State University) is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism at The University of Arizona. She holds a courtesy appointment with the School of Government and Public Policy and is an affiliated faculty member of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at The University of Arizona. Her research focuses on press–state relations, democratic institutions, freedom of expression and access to information in countries in conflict and political transition, and formal and informal institutions related to the policy issue of public corruption. She has conducted more than a half-dozen cross-national studies and case studies focused on journalists in conflict zones and politically transitioning countries. Her work has been published in the International Journal of Press/Politics, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Government Information Quarterly, Digital Journalism, Asian Journal of Communication, Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, and other publications. She recently was a fellow for The Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and the co-recipient of an Emerging Scholars Program award through the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

Maggy Zanger (MSL 1989, Yale Law School; MA 1985, The University of Arizona) is a professor of practice at the University of Arizona School of Journalism and an affiliated faculty member of the university’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Southwest Initiative for the Study of Middle East Conflict. She is project director of a 3-year partnership project with Nangarhar University in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to assist in developing a new journalism department. Her research focuses on international journalism and the Middle East in particular, with an emphasis on Iraq, the Kurds, and crises reporting. Before coming to The University of Arizona, she was Iraq country director for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a London-based media development organization, and started journalism training programs in Baghdad and Sulaymaniyah. She also taught journalism at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, and worked at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. She was assistant editor of the Washington, DC-based Middle East Report magazine.

Shahira Fahmy (PhD 2003, Missouri School of Journalism) is a tenured faculty in the School of Journalism at The University of Arizona. She holds an adjunct/courtesy joint appointment with the Department of Communication and another one in the School of Middle Eastern & North African Studies (MENAS) and works closely with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES). Her research is situated in the general areas of global reporting and visual journalism with a specific focus on the Middle East. She has been particularly interested in issues that intersect these domains in the context of wars and conflicts in the region. Native fluency in four languages combined with Middle Eastern, European, and US citizenships, she has served as an international guest editor, international keynote speaker, and lectured on global reporting and visual journalism around the world. She is the associate editor of Mass Communication & Society and currently has 140-refereed books, journal articles, special issues, and conference presentations on the national and international levels.

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