Spatial dimensions within hierarchy of influences: How re-conceived notions of space in networked societies impact Latin American journalists

Abstract

Local, national, regional and global networks of power intersect in this digital era, raising questions of how re-conceived notions of space in networked societies impact journalism. This study surveyed journalists (n = 1094) from 20 Latin American countries to explore how spatial dimensions are influencing how journalists’ roles are perceived in the region, within the hierarchy of influences model. It identified the disseminator/informational role – a role traditionally less common among journalists in Latin America – as most impacted by the spatial shifts at the organizational level (geographic scope), social-institutional level (geo-cultural regions) and social systems level (social network structures). As journalists’ work becomes connected with extra-national networks, their perceptions of roles shift, with relevant consequences for journalistic practices.

Keywords

Journalism Latin American journalism journalist's roles space survey transnational journalism hierarchy of influences model networked society

News stories increasingly move fluidly across national borders, driven by technological advancements, the internet and other global forces. In Latin America, this transnational fluidity is evident in regional news stories that cross national borders like immigration, corruption and drug trafficking. Throughout the region, news outlets especially digital-native news sites, are moving beyond the confines of a national scope and seeking to serve a transnational Iberoamerican audience (Higgins Joyce and Harlow, 2020; Salaverría, 2016), with journalists having formed collaborative networks that operate virtually, in a transnational space (Heft et al., 2019). Shared languages and cultures and similar media systems, coupled with this digital era of increased global connectedness, have given rise to news media operating in ‘global, transnational, cultural-linguistic spaces, geo-cultural regions, nation, global metropolises, states/provinces and localities’ (Straubhaar, 2007: 80). Participation in transnational spaces varies from more active engagement, such as in the case of collaborative transnational investigations, to more passive activities, such as consuming news and social media produced in other countries. Little is known, however, about how these changing information flows and spaces in which journalists operate might impact journalists’ perceptions of their roles and responsibilities.

A growing body of research comparatively analyses differences in journalists’ role perceptions in different regions of the world (Hanitzsch, 2011; Willnat et al., 2017), with some focusing on Latin America (Mellado et al., 2012); however, these studies fail to address increased transnational fluidity and the influence of spatial dimensions experienced by journalists. Might journalists working within transnational networks adapt their role perception to align more closely with those of their transnational collaborators, as opposed to those associated with their national counterparts? How might encountering and interacting with messages and news stories originating from outside of the national boundaries impact how journalists perceive their roles? To fill this gap in the literature, this study uses Reese and Shoemaker's hierarchy of influences model (2016) to examine how shifting spatial dimensions in Latin American newsrooms might be influencing journalists’ role perceptions.

Reese and Shoemaker (2016) identified a hierarchy of influences, or five different levels affecting journalists and their practice: individual characteristics, news routines, organizational-level concerns, institutional issues and larger social systems. With the ever-changing ways local, national, regional and global networks of power intersect in this digital era of globalization and transnational media (Castells, 2013), it is worth questioning of how notions of spatial dimensions might be potentially transforming how the hierarchy of influences operates in today's media ecology.

In particular, we consider how spatial influences might predict journalists’ role perceptions in Latin America. With this in mind, this study uses a survey of journalists from Latin America to shed light on how increased transnational communication flows are contributing to changing role perceptions throughout the region. Such a study is important for shedding light on how changes in spatiality, marked by increased connections with transnational actors with social media, regional and global media enterprises and transnational collaborative journalism networks, might influence journalists’ role perception, and therefore journalistic practices and news production processes.

Literature review and theory

Journalistic role perception

The news of the day is presented across the globe through a series of journalistic decisions of selection, exclusion and emphasis. Journalists’ socially constructed representation of the reality at hand, and a series of influences and barriers, all impact what and how news is presented (Reese and Shoemaker, 2016). The most prominent factor shaping how journalists conduct themselves is their perception of the role news media play in society (Zhu et al., 1997). Research has established that journalists’ role perceptions influence news production processes (Willnat et al., 2017), and while some roles are shared across borders (Deuze, 2005; Hanitzsch, 2005; Weaver et al., 2007), the social, political, economic and cultural specificities of a country also matter, differentially influencing journalists’ ideologies and practices (Hanitzsch, 2011; Weaver, 1998).

Journalists’ roles have mostly been studied from one of two perspectives: normative and analytical. The normative tradition draws on Lasswell's (1960) seminal study on the functions of journalism, or the potential societal contribution that journalism can offer, such as surveillance of the social system, correlation of different segments of society, transmission of social norms and entertainment. The analytical tradition of Weaver and Wilhoit (1986, 1996) characterizes journalists’ roles according to their core philosophies, such as interpreter, disseminator, adversarial and populist mobilizer. Journalists’ roles have been analysed within the United States, as the seminal Weaver and Wilhoit (1986) study, but also cross-nationally.

Hanitzsch and Vos (2018) distinguished between 18 roles, grouped within six basic functions of journalism, accounting for politically oriented roles of journalism in Western and non-Western societies: critical-monitorial (monitor, detective, watchdog); advocative-radical (missionary, advocate, adversarial); developmental-educative (change agent, educator, moderator); collaborative-facilitative (facilitator, collaborator, mouthpiece); informational-instructive (disseminator, curator, storyteller); and analytical-deliberative (analyst, access provider, mobilizer). Weaver and Willnat (2012) surveyed journalists from 31 countries and found varying role perceptions across the globe. Cross-national studies have consistently found that how journalists identify themselves is influenced by their cultural context. However, journalists’ role perceptions are not necessarily static, being subject to ‘appropriation and contestation’ (Hanitzsch, 2017: 2). Changes in journalists’ working environment, social environment and, as tested in this study, spatial dimensions under which journalism operates, have the potential to influence how journalists perceive their roles.

Journalists’ professional role has been studied within the Latin American context, with the most prominent roles shifting across countries and over time (Mellado et al., 2012, 2016, 2017; Schmitz Weiss, 2015). For example, Chilean journalists have been shown to be neutral reporters, while those in Mexico were more active and adversarial (Wilke, 1998), and those in Brazil identified both with neutral disseminator and interpretive and adversarial roles (Herscovitz and Cardoso, 1998). Interventionist roles, where journalists set the public agenda also are valued across the region, although the level of support differs by country (Oller et al., 2017). Country has been shown to be a particularly strong significant predictor of most of the roles analysed in the region (Mellado et al., 2017). Schmitz Weiss (2015) found that country differences helped explain why the interpretative role was particularly relevant in Brazil and the populist mobilizer particularly relevant in Mexico at the time.

Such research on role perceptions across Latin America, though, is ‘very sporadic’ (Mellado et al., 2012: 62), allowing our present study to contribute to an emerging focus of research. Those studies that have been done point to factors predicting how different professional roles materialize. For example, macro-factors like country, social inequality, crime and corruption, as well as media concentration, clientelism and parallelism, all have found to contribute to role perceptions (Mellado et al., 2017; Schmitz Weiss, 2015). Organizational-level factors, such as whether the journalists work for mainstream or alternative media (Harlow, 2019), and individual-level factors, such as the professionalization of journalists (Mellado et al., 2017) also have been shown to make a difference in which roles Latin American journalists find most salient. Much of this work, though, fails to consider role performance at a transnational level (Jiménez-Martínez, 2021), or to explore how changing spatial flows in journalistic practices might influence role conceptions.

Scholars studying journalists’ roles in Latin America have found an inclination towards more active, participatory roles, such as the watchdog (Mellado et al., 2017) and populist mobilizer (Schmitz Weiss, 2015) roles. More neutral bystander roles, such as disseminator role, have been more closely associated with journalists in the United States and other Western countries (Herscovitz, 2004; Weaver and Willnat, 2012). Our study, therefore, focuses on the dyadic roles of active participant and passive disseminator, and the influence of transnational spatial dimensions on these roles.

In recent years, a growing number of scholars (Mellado, 2015; Mellado et al., 2016, 2018; Tandoc et al., 2013) have come to identify that journalistic role conception – how journalists see their place and function in society and how they identify themselves – and role performance – how these roles are enacted in the practice or journalism – don't always align. Mellado and colleagues analysed news content and surveyed journalists producing that content in Latin America, Western Europe and Asia to see if role conception matched to journalistic performance. They found that journalists tended to place more importance on the public-service role than did content published in outlets where they worked, thus identifying gaps between perceptions and practice. Much of this scholarship suggests that the gaps lie between the individual and the organizational levels of the hierarchy of influences model. At the individual level, journalists’ roles take into consideration their autonomy, while at the organizational level, policies and structures delineate journalists’ practices (Reese, 2001). Studies have shown that, in Latin America, outer layers of the hierarchy of influences model, specifically institutional influences, are especially powerful (Hanitzsch and Mellado, 2011). This present study thus builds on this existing research to account for how concepts of space examined within the hierarchy of influences might relate to journalistic roles within the Latin American context.

Media sociology and hierarchy of influences

The various factors that influence and constrain the work journalists produce can be conceptualized within five different levels of analysis within a hierarchy of influences model (Reese and Shoemaker, 2016). These factors, according to Reese and Shoemaker (2016), include individual characteristics, news routines, organizational-level concerns, institutional issues and larger social systems. At the individual level, journalists’ roles take into consideration their autonomy in news judgment, but this autonomy is constrained by a series of interrelated factors, including at the higher levels in the influence model such as organizational and social institutional.

Technological advancements have enabled major shifts in the profession and have contributed to the emergence of spatially oriented concepts influencing journalists’ news production. For example, events and issues are covered from a global perspective (Berglez, 2008), journalists can work in transnational collaboration to uncover investigations, (Hellmueller and Konow-Lund, 2019) and social media, given its borderless nature, facilitate a ‘global–local orientation to the world that allows individuals to engage in virtual community-building,’ (Sobré-Denton, 2016: 1715). These spatial shifts in reporting practices are most notably manifest through transnational journalism, such as transnational media outlets that consider ‘more than one nation as the home audience’ (Grieves, 2012: 8), or transnational investigative collaborative projects, like the Panama and Paradise papers (Lewis, 2018). In Latin America, independent digital outlets have been at the forefront of such efforts to create journalist networks that are useful not just for reporting (Cueva Chacón and Saldaña, 2021) but also for safety, resilience and the strengthening of independent journalism – what Ganter and Paulino (2021) conceptualized as ‘positive dependence.’ Research on this move towards transnational, often digital, journalism recognizes the impacts of fluid borders on journalists, news content and even audiences (Higgins Joyce and Harlow, 2020), thus pointing to the need to further understand this spatial turn.

Reese and Shoemaker (2016) noted that this spatial turn accompanies the ‘shifting media boundaries, with less fixed and linear variable-oriented concepts: networks, fields and spheres’ (Reese and Shoemaker, 2016: 390). Using the different levels of the hierarchy of influences model, this study considers the influence of spatial shifts on Latin American journalists’ perceptions of their professional identity roles. Figure 1 illustrates how the hierarchy of influences model as originally proposed by Shoemaker and Reese (2014) relates to the different spatial dimensions of influence within a hierarchy of influences analysed herein. For example, at the social systems layer of the hierarchy we examine social network structures that are digital and transnational; at the institutional layer, we explore the geo-cultural influences in a region/country; and at the organizational layer, we consider the geographic focus of the newsroom (i.e. regional, national and transnational). Figure 1 helps to make these hidden facets of spatiality implicit in the various layers of the hierarchy of influences model as it applies to this study.

Figure 1.
Hierarchy of influences model.

Globalization forces and technological advancements bring about socio-spatial networks of power (local, national, regional and global) that are open-ended (Castells, 2013). The movable boundaries of these networks rely on the competition of values and interests as they intersect these different levels of localities such as the local, the regional, the national and the transnational (Castells, 2013). Communication and information flow across and within these different levels of localities, interacting in a hybrid and multilayered influence structure (Higgins Joyce, 2011; Kraidy, 2005). If the printing press at an earlier point and television of the 50s and 60s have been instrumental in the creation of ‘imagined communities’ that paved the way for national identities and nationalism (Anderson, 2006), the digital technology paves way to new kinds of dispersed imagined communities, bound by virtual communication and virtual spaces (Beetham, 2006). These spatial shifts then, expand the definition of the hierarchy of influences of journalistic production to include the social connections and communication processes that occur in a network society, across and at the intersection of local, national and global dimensions.

This spatial shift is more than fixed geography or a place, but the overall spaces in which news work is done. The ‘place’ versus ‘space’ debate has been ongoing in the academy (Milgram et al., 1972; Tuan, 1977; Wilken, 2008). Place dictates a specific location whereas space encompasses not only a location but can also include an area, whether it is physical or virtual. Usher called for the importance of focusing on place as an important variable in journalism research, for example, the rural and urban divides in access to news and information and the kind of news available in these different places (2019). While we acknowledge that the shifts in journalism as it relates to places is important, this study argues for the importance of considering shifts in journalism as it relates to spaces. Digital technology and network communication allow for a mixing of local, place-based issues with distant, and even transnational, space-based influences in journalists’ practice. Technology, and indeed media, such as social media, allow for new spaces of journalism work, with connections, reporting sourcing and indeed, audiences, which can be operating and interacting at various levels of localities, the local, the national, regional and transnational.

As Frith (2015) noted, ‘Hybrid spaces are physical spaces merged with digital information, and the two affect each other’ (Frith, 2015: 81). Thus, the focus of this study is not only on place, but the greater spatial shift in the journalists’ work that goes beyond the physicality of their job to include the virtual and digital dimensions of their work, including transnational influences.

Transnational influences materialize differently in journalists’ work: from transnational networks of collaborative journalists working to investigate global issues and the growth of transnational news organizations (like those originating from the regional Connectas), to social media use by journalists, which exposes them to both transnational nodes (sources, actors, audiences and others, to name a few) and more localized nodes. Journalists working in a digital environment are enabled to connect easier and faster with sources and content originating from beyond national boundaries (Schmitz Weiss and Higgins Joyce, 2009). Social media networks have also enabled greater connections across national boundaries for journalists, and the formation of virtual transnational communities through these networks. In Latin America, journalists have embraced social media for the purpose of engaging with sources and with their audiences, who overall are heavy consumers of social media (Saldaña et al., 2017). In doing so, journalists are exposing and interacting with national and transnational flows of communication, often transversally as journalists can simultaneously connect and interact with transnational and local nodes in the same communication instance. Journalists are therefore more often and more frequently exposed to influences that transcend national boundaries.

Media in Latin America

Changes in Latin America's political systems have brought changes to journalism, as the region moved from strict censorship more common in an era of dictatorial regimes, to less overt censorship but still influential forces, and often intimidations, in the era of populism and strongmen politics of recent years. The media landscape is marked by historical policies that have led to the concentration of privately owned media and close ties between the media and political elites (Guerrero and Márquez-Ramírez, 2014) that have resulted in restrictions on journalists’ autonomy (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos, 2002). While some scholars have claimed that forces like globalization have tended to weaken such relations (Hallin and Papathanassopoulos, 2002), Waisbord (2014) argued that, in Latin America, the focus on globalization overlooks the prevailing relevance and influence of national actors and policies (Waisbord, 2014).

Journalism in Latin America also has faced declines in advertising and traditional funding, as well as massive layoffs, prompting news organizations to shift their efforts to an online environment. Hundreds of digital-native news organizations have come online in Latin America in recent years (SembraMedia, 2018), helping spur a period of innovation in news coverage, journalistic business models and the creation of collaborations with other national, and often transnational, networks of journalists to tell stories that cross borders (Higgins Joyce, 2018; SembraMedia, 2019).

With this in mind, this study explores Latin American journalism at various spatial dimensions to understand the relation to the hierarchy of influences in journalists’ perception of their professional identities and roles.

In considering the organization-structural level of the hierarchy of influences model, and spatial shifts within this level, we posit the following research questions:
RQ1a: How does geographic scope of the newsroom influence journalistic role perceptions?

RQ1b: How does working with transnational collaborative networks influence journalistic role perception?

In considering the institutional level of the hierarchy of influence model, such as government and other powerful institutions that influence journalism production, we ask:
RQ2: How do geo-cultural regions within Latin America influence Latin American journalistic role perceptions?

In considering the larger systems level of the hierarchy of influences model, such as global network structures, we propose the following research question:
RQ3: How does social media use influence Latin American journalistic role perceptions?

In light of the social-institutional influences that traditionally have held strong influence over Latin American newsrooms, and recent studies that have shown that this level of influence, which includes government and powerful elites, remains strong in Latin America (Schmitz Weiss, 2015), this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H1: Social-institutional influence is more likely to predict perceived journalistic roles in Latin American than other spatial-related levels of influence (organization structure and larger system levels).

Method

This study surveyed journalists, educators and students from 20 Latin American countries (n = 1573), from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Only journalists were included in this analysis (n = 1094) to examine the influence of experienced shifts in spatial proximity on the perception of journalistic roles. Respondents to this online survey, administered via Qualtrics, were recruited from a universe of approximately 15,500 subscribers of a non-profit outreach program of this Research Unit (name omitted for the blind review process), resulting in a 10% participation rate. The non-profit provides professional training (most of those either free of or for low cost) both online and in-person, most geared towards Latin American journalists. This non-probability sample presents some bias that needs to be taken into consideration, such as the educational nature of the non-profit where the original list of the sample originates, and the heavy emphasis on digital journalism and new journalism techniques and technologies. In addition, it is important to consider the bias in participation, given that a census of the subscriber population was recruited, but only a segment chose to participate, potentially leading to a non-response bias. Studies indicate a series of demographic (Cull et al., 2005), psychological factors (Groves et al., 1992) and research-specific factors predispose certain groups to participate in surveys and others not to, but the extent of that bias varies greatly. In addition to the sample bias mentioned earlier, we expect that women were more likely to respond and those who have extended participation in the programs (as opposed to occasional). Table 1 shows the demographic and professional characteristics of the surveyed journalists,

Table 1.
Demographic and professional characteristics of Latin American journalists surveyed.

Gender Female 51%

Male 49%

Type of news/platforms Digital-native/Online only 43%

Newspaper 21%

Radio 9%

TV 8%

Magazine 7%

Other 13%

Age M = 40, SD = 10.8

Years working in news M = 12, SD = 7.2

The questionnaire was translated by native speakers of Portuguese and Spanish and sent to potential respondents in their native language (Portuguese or Spanish), accommodating for appropriate procedures of international and comparative research.

After administering a pre-test, email invitations were sent to the census of database subscribers. The survey was then conducted from 1 December to 30 December 2017, with a total of three email reminders sent to increase survey participation.

Measures

To answer our research questions and hypothesis, respondents were asked how much they agreed, on a 5-point scale, from less to more, with 11 different statements derived from cross-nationally tested scales on journalist's role perception (Hanitzsch, 2007; Hanitzsch et al., 2011; Harlow, 2019; Schmitz Weiss, 2015). The statements for the scale included ‘Journalists should never give their opinion in stories,’ ‘Journalists should never participate in political protests,’ ‘Journalists should always remain objective and neutral,’ ‘Journalists should avoid activism,’ ‘Journalists should be watchdogs for democracy,’ ‘Journalists should give voice to the voiceless,’ ‘Journalists should defend social justice,’ ‘Journalists should set the political agenda,’ (removed for not loading properly) ‘Journalists should set the public agenda,’ (removed for not loading properly) ‘Balance is more important than objectivity,’ (removed for not loading properly) and ‘Transparency is more important than objectivity’ (removed for not loading properly). An exploratory factor analysis was conducted, and four items were removed for not loading properly or for low communalities. A Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy for the remaining seven items factored was 0.69, above the recommended value of 0.6, and the Bartlett's test of sphericity was significant [χ² (1076) = 1822.014, p > 0.001]. The communalities were all above 0.3 (Table 2), further confirming common variance among the items. Therefore, a factor analysis was deemed suitable for the seven items, and a principal components analysis was used, with varimax rotation.

Table 2.
Factor analysis of journalistic role perception among Latin American journalists.

Components

Disseminator/Informational Advocate/watchdog Communality

Journalists should never participate in political protests 0.827 0.683

Journalists should avoid activism 0.805 0.648

Journalists should always remain objective and neutral 0.726 0.543

Journalists should never give their opinion in stories 0.636 0.406

Journalists should give voice to the voiceless 0.836 0.700

Journalists should defend social justice 0.856 0.738

Journalists should be watchdogs for democracy 0.710 0.534

Eigenvalue 2.370 1.883

% of total Variance 34% 27%

Cronbach's α 0.744 0.725

Mean (SD) 3.20 (1.07) 4.46 (0.744)

Note: Rotated component matrix, varimax rotated, KMO = 0.69. Barlett's test of sphericity (χ² = 1822.014, p < 0.001). Means are based on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

The factor analysis yielded two factors explaining a total of 61% of the variance (Table 2). The first main factor was identified as disseminator/informational, with an eigenvalue of 2.370 and explaining 34% of the variance. This factor was labeled disseminator/informational due to the high loadings of the following items: Journalists should never give their opinion in stories, Journalists should avoid activism, Journalists should always remain objective and neutral and Journalists should never give their opinion in stories. It follows Hanitzsch and Vos’ definition of the disseminator role, which falls into the informational-instructive function of journalism, ‘based on the idea that journalists should, and can, report things “as they are,” they tend to see themselves as detached bystanders, adhering to strict neutrality’ (2018: 153). The second factor was identified as advocate/watchdog, with an eigenvalue of 1.883 and explaining 27% of the variance. This factor was labeled advocate/watchdog due to the high loadings by the following items: Journalists should defend social justice, Journalists should give voice to the voiceless and Journalists should be watchdogs for democracy. These roles fall on the opposite side of Hanitzsch and Vos’ wheel of journalistic role (2018: 153), indicating journalists’ more active participation in political discourse. The watchdog role is assertive, with journalists ‘proactively scrutinizing political and business leaders, they provide an independent critique of society and its institutions’ (Hanitzsch and Vos, 2018: 154). Meanwhile, the adjacent advocate role is marked by journalists’ support for specific societal groups – typically disadvantaged or marginalized – and their causes.

The scales were tested for internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha and yielded acceptable levels: 0.74 for disseminator/informational and 0.73 for advocate/watchdog. Composite scores were created for each of the two factors, with higher scores indicating greater agreement with that journalistic role.

This study then set out to analyse how influences stemming from shifts in space, which emphasize local, national and transnational interactions, can impact the perception of such roles. To answer RQ1a spatial influences within the organization structure level of the hierarchy of influences were measured through geographic scope of the news organization respondents worked for. Those who were currently working for a news organization (n = 1019) reported working for a local (19%), regional (24%), national (43%) or international (13%) media outlet. A one-way ANOVA test was conducted with geographic scope as the independent variable and role perception as the dependent variable. Still at the organization level but considering the relationships between organizations that take place with transnational collaborations, RQ1b analysed the influence of participating in an investigative reporting collaboration with news organizations from another country (transnational collaboration) on role perception. That question was asked only for those who worked in news organizations that included an investigative reporting unit, considering that many, and certainly the most prominent, transnational collaborative projects in Latin American journalism have been investigative in nature (n = 96), representing roughly 9% of the total sample. From the queried journalists, 45% had participated in a transnational collaboration. To answer RQ1b, an independent t-test was conducted with transnational collaboration as the independent variables and role perceptions as the dependent variable.

To analyse how social institutions, at a regional level, influenced the perception of journalists’ roles in Latin America (RQ2) and to provide an interregional comparative analysis, this study utilized a geo-cultural categorization, broadly adapted from the Council of the America's (2020) Latin American regional categories while also taking into consideration language and historical background differences. Straubhaar identified geo-cultural regions, as related to media and communication, as ‘geographically linked cultures with common or similar languages, shared histories and geographic proximity’. Further, in regions such as Latin America, strong sets of pre-global and pre-colonial forces also exist tying together groups in shared cultures beyond national boundaries, making it important for us to consider variations in role perceptions according to geo-cultural region. From our original sample of the 20 Latin American countries where Spanish and Portuguese are official languages, we created 5 geo-cultural regional categories, as follows: Andean Region (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela) with 25% of respondents; Brazil (Brazil), with 33% of respondents; Central America and Caribbean (Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Puerto Rico), with 11% of respondents; Mexico (Mexico), with 20% of respondents; and Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay), with 11% of respondents. To answer RQ2, a one-way ANOVA test was conducted with the geo-cultural regions as the independent variable and role perception as the dependent variable.

For RQ3, to analyse how social systems/global network structures influence the perception of Latin American journalistic roles, we used social media use as a proxy for global networks. While not all social media interactions are transnational, scholars have conceptualized social media as a major enabler of connections within a global network of actors (Castells, 2010). This study aggregated professional uses of 12 social network platforms, creating an average social media use measure (M = 2.78). Measured on a scale of 1 to 5, respondents were asked how often they used the following social media platforms for work: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack and Live. The scale was tested for internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha and yielded an acceptable value of 0.66. A Pearson correlation was run between the aggregated social media measure and perceived journalistic roles.

Our hypothesis suggests that social influence (operationalized as geo-cultural regions) is more likely to predict perceived journalistic roles in Latin America than other spatial-related levels of influence. This was tested using two multiple linear regressions with geographic scope, social media use and geo-cultural regions as predictors for each of the two roles (advocate/watchdog and disseminator/informational). It did not include transnational collaboration network participation since the question only applied for a limited segment of our sample.

Results

This study sought to address how changes in spatial relations within the different levels of the hierarchy of influences impact journalistic role perceptions. Results show that Latin American respondents perceive the advocate/watchdog role to be the most important role for journalism (M = 4.46, SD = 0.74)), followed by the disseminator/informational role (M = 3.20, SD = 1.07). This finding is consistent with previous studies of journalists’ role in the region, where the journalist’s voice and civic roles are emphasized, whereas the disseminator/informational role, highlighting objectivity, is more commonly associated with journalist's roles in Western commercial media systems, like the United States.

Within the organizational structure level, spatial influence was measured through geographic scope of news organizations to answer RQ1. Our study found that, in Latin America, surveyed journalists’ role perception varies significantly by geographic scope of the news organization. An analysis of variance showed that the geographic scope of the news organization where our surveyed journalists worked was significantly related to the disseminator/informational role [F (3.1014) = 4.82, p < 0.01] but not the advocate/watchdog role [F (3.1011) = 1.123, p = 0.339], which was consistently high across geographic scope (Table 3). A Tukey post hoc test revealed that surveyed journalists working for international news organizations (M = 3.35) and surveyed journalists working for national news organizations (M = 3.33) were significantly more likely to perceive the disseminator role as relevant than their local (M = 3.07) and regional (M = 3.09) counterparts.

Table 3.
Journalistic role in Latin America by geographic scope of the news organization respondents worked for.

Disseminator/Informational Advocate/Watchdog

Local 3.07 (1.05) 4.40 (0.78)

Regional 3.09 (1.03) 4.53 (0.67)

National 3.33 (1.08) 4.47 (0.76)

International 3.35 (1.11) 4.48 (0.70)

Significance 0.002* 0.339

Note: Cell indicates mean scores: 1 = ‘strongly disagrees’ and 5 = ‘strongly agrees’ (SD in parenthesis).

*p < 0.01, n = 1019.

For RQ1b, which questioned the relationship between transnational collaborative network participation in investigative journalism and role perception, results showed that more surveyed journalists who had participated in transnational collaborations emphasized the disseminator/informational role (M = 3.43, SD = 1.03) than those who had not participated in transnational collaborations (M = 3.32. SD = 1.13), but results were not significant. It also found that fewer of the surveyed journalists who had participated in transnational collaborations emphasized their role as advocate/watchdog (M = 4.44, SD = 1.02) than those who had not participated in transnational collaboration (M = 4.64, SD = .52), but again, differences were not significant.

At the social-institutional level of the hierarchy of influences model, this study analysed the impact of geo-cultural regions on Latin American journalists’ role perceptions for (RQ2). Results showed that the geo-cultural regions where our surveyed journalists lived had a significant effect on both roles (Table 4): disseminator/informational role [F (4.1088) = 19.44, p < 0.001] and advocate/watchdog role [F (4.1086) = 3.33, p < 0.05]. Post hoc Tukey test revealed that surveyed journalists living in Brazil (M = 2.91) and the Southern Cone (M = 2.93) were significantly less likely than those living in other regions to agree with the disseminator/informational role, and surveyed journalists in Mexico (M = 3.39) and the Andean regions (M = 3.32) were significantly more likely to identify with that role. Surveyed journalists living in Brazil (M = 4.52) were significantly more likely than journalists in other areas to agree with the advocate/watchdog role.

Table 4.
Journalistic role by geo-cultural regions in Latin America.

Disseminator/Informational Advocate/Watchdog

Andean region 3.32 (1.07) 4.51 (0.73)

Brazil 2.91 (1.01) 4.52 (0.69)

Central America and Caribbean 3.73 (1.04) 4.51 (0.75)

Mexico 3.39 (1.03) 4.36 (1.80)

Southern Cone 2.93 (1.06) 4.32 (0.78)

Significance 0.000*** 0.021*

Note: Cell indicates mean scores: 1 = ‘strongly disagrees’ and 5 = ‘strongly agrees’ (SD in parenthesis).

p < 0.05, p < 0.01, p < 0.001, n = 1094.

To analyse the influence of global network structures on journalists’ role perceptions for RQ3, this study performed a Pearson correlation between social media use and the two roles identified. Results showed that greater social media use was significantly, correlated with greater agreement with the disseminator/informational role [r (1093) = 0.106, p < 0.01]. Our sample showed no significant correlations between social media use and the advocate/watchdog role [r (914) = 0.041, p = 0.28

Our hypothesis predicted that social-institutional influences would be stronger predictors of perceived journalistic roles than the organization-structural level or global network structure level. This study conducted two multiple linear regressions with the different levels of predictors (organizational-structural level, measured with geographic scope; institutional, measured with geo-cultural regions; system level, measured with social media) of the disseminator/informational role and of the advocate/watchdog role. This study found support for the hypothesis.

The linear combination of the predictors was significantly related to the disseminator/informational role [F (8.868) = 9.448, p < 0.001]. The multiple correlation coefficient was 0.248, and approximately 6% of the variance of agreement with the disseminator/informational role can be attributed to the linear combination of the predictors (Table 5). At the social-institutional level, all regions in our sample with the exception of Mexico were significant predictors of the disseminator/informational role, confirming our hypothesis. Being from Brazil (β = −0.115, p < 0.01) and being from the Southern Cone (β = −0.131, p < 0.001) was negatively associated with the disseminator/informational role while being from Central America and the Caribbean was positively association with the disseminator/informational role (β = 0.103, p < 0.01). The organizational-structural level, measured with geographic scope, was also a significant predictor of the disseminator/informational role, (β = 0.066, p < 0.05), but weaker than the socio institutional level.

Table 5.
Summary of linear multiple regression analyses for variables predicting disseminator/informational and advocate/watchdog roles.

Disseminator/Informational Advocate/Watchdog

Β SE Β β T p B SE Β β T p

Geographic scope 0.074 0.038 0.066 1.970 0.049 0.001 0.027 0.001 0.041 0.967

Social media 0.067 0.043 0.053 1.548 0.122 0.047 0.031 0.054 1.537 0.125

Dummy region (Brazil) −0.315 0.106 −0.115 −2.970 0.003 0.05 0.075 0.027 0.671 0.502

Dummy region (Central America and Caribbean) 0.327 0.117 0.103 2.787 0.005 −0.034 0.083 −0.016 −0.412 0.681

Dummy region (Mexico) 0.061 0.097 0.025 0.632 0.528 −0.170 0.069 −0.099 −2.470 0.014

Dummy region (Southern Cone) −0.418 0.118 −0.131 −3.546 0.000 −0.172 0.083 −0.078 −2.056 0.040

R ² 0.61 0.017

F 9.448** 2.426*

*p < 0.05, **p < 0.001.

The linear combination of the predictors was significantly related to the advocate/watchdog role [F (6.866) = 1.325, p < 0.05]. The multiple correlation coefficient was 0.13, and approximately 2% of the variance of agreement with the advocate/watchdog role can be attributed to the linear combination of the predictors (Table 5). At the social-institutional level, being from Mexico (β = −0.099, p < 0.05) and being the Southern Cone (β = −0.078, p < 0.05) were significant negative predictors of their advocate/watchdog role. None of the other predictors were significantly associated with that role.

Discussion and conclusions

This study identified ways spatial dimensions are influencing how journalists’ roles are conceived in Latin America, within the hierarchy of influences model proposed by Reese and Shoemaker (2016). Reese and Shoemaker (2016) identified five different levels of analysis within a hierarchy of influences model, and this study showed how, for our respondents, space-related measures at three of these levels (organization structure, social-institutional and social systems) influenced the individual level, measured as role perception. Our sample indicated that the disseminator/informational role – a role traditionally less common among journalists in Latin America – is most impacted by the spatial shifts in the organizational (geographic scope), social-institutional (geo-cultural regions) and social systems (global, social network structures).

Examining spatial dimensions is important in light of the way new digital technologies have allowed for faster and increased connections among journalists across national boundaries. Journalists can more easily access information from different countries, connect with foreign sources, collaborate with transnational networks to develop stories, and work for organizations outside their home countries. With social and digital media, journalists can participate in communities that are local and global (often at the same time). Ultimately, our study is valuable for methodologically connecting spatial dimensions to the hierarchy of influences, and showing how spatial relations (Castells, 2013) are key to understanding how journalists’ perceptions of their roles and responsibilities are changing with the digitalization and globalization of news organizations and their audiences.

For those roles that traditionally have been associated with Latin American journalists, such as the advocate/watchdog roles, space-related dimensions had no significant effect. While the advocate/watchdog role is, according to our respondents, the one the Latin American journalists are still more likely to identify with most, this study found some relevant associations between spatial dimensions and the disseminator/informational role. For this role, this study found that, at the organization-structure level, geographic scope of the news organization made a difference. For example, surveyed journalists working for a news organization with a national and an international scope were more likely to agree with the disseminator/informational role. Such a finding is important as it demonstrates the way journalistic normative ideals and practices from outside Latin America might be making their way into the region as Latin American journalists increasingly work for outlets with audiences from a broader spatial dimension. While not significantly so, the study also found that surveyed journalists participating in transnational collaborative networks were more likely to agree with the disseminator/informational role, and less likely to agree with the advocate/watchdog roles than those who had not participated in transnational collaborative networks. The demands of working for these outlets point to a potential change in how Latin American journalists see their roles and responsibilities. We argue that geographic scope and participating in transnational networks of collaboration to a lesser extent are critical characteristics of the organization structure (and inter-organization) level of influence that must be taken into account when considering journalistic roles in today's transnational media ecology.

Our study also showed that at the social systems/global network structure level, measured by more frequent use of social networks was significantly and positively correlated with the disseminator/informational role. Social media has no physical boundary, thus providing more spatial influence on a journalist's work. As a result, this shows the significance of this finding in which the blurred spaces social media provides for discussion, debate and information support the evolution of transnational networks in the region.

Altogether, these findings suggest that, for our surveyed journalists, supranational space-related dimensions seem to increasingly push a perception of the relevance of the disseminator/informational role in Latin America. This may reflect bigger changes happening in the journalism practice in this region that warrants further research. It is important to note that while the advocate/watchdog role is still the role with which most journalists identify in Latin America, our survey respondents connecting with international and transnational actors and spaces may be influenced to perceive the disseminator/informational role as more relevant, perhaps indicating a shift to perceive the disseminator/informational role as the more globally (or Western) ‘professional’ or ‘accepted’ way of doing journalism. Future studies should conduct content analyses to examine how this shift relates to news coverage.

Given the strength of institutional actors in Latin America, such as the influence of governments and elite organizations over media in the region (Fox and Waisbord, 2002), this study predicted social-institutional influence, measured here by the space-related measure of geo-cultural regions, would be a strong predictor of journalists’ roles. This study found that, indeed, geo-cultural regions within Latin America were significantly associated with our surveyed journalists’ role perceptions. Future research should continue to explore shifting role perceptions and performance across countries, allowing us to better understand the diversity and similarities of the region's countries.

This study demonstrates the conflict between regional-institutional forces and global-structural forces in shifts and allegiances in how journalists see their role in Latin America. As our hypothesis predicted, regional-institutional forces are still strong influences in role perception. Our study also showed that, for the disseminator/informational role, one not historically associated with Latin American news, global-structural forces are influencing the increased relevancy of this perception. The results of this study may point to a broader notion that while traditional structures and influences remain strong among Latin American journalists, they mask the spatiality of the digital, virtual and augmented world they now work in. The practice of journalism is in a moment of drastic change and self-reflection – a chance to recognize that the traditional forms of influence in the past are not exactly the same today and additional layers of influence are ever more present – virtually, digitally and spatially. The role perceptions that have been measured for decades by scholars may also demonstrate that the influences on journalists’ role perceptions and work, as well as how and where journalists enact such roles, may have deeper nuances than what is on the surface. Transnational and transversal flows might influence role perceptions less associated with the traditions of place.

This study is limited in how social media interactions were measured. While this study accounts for social media use across different platforms, creating an aggregate measure, it does not specify if interactions occurred mainly at a national or a transnational level. Future studies should focus more precisely on transnational interactions of social media to measure global network structure. Our study is also limited in that we relied on a convenience, rather than representative, sample. Our sample was limited to journalists who have connected with the journalism non-profit. While the non-profit has connected and engaged with a wide range of journalists from Latin America, this is certainly not an exhaustive list of working journalists. Journalists currently engaging with the non-profit are more likely to be skilled in digital media and actively seeking further professional development, so that our sample is perhaps biased towards more tech-savvy and professionally trained journalists.

This study also is limited by constraining the analysis of the hierarchy of influences to focus on journalists’ perceptions, rather than routines, which also are a part of the hierarchy. Future studies should investigate the routines level within this spatial dimension

Future research should consider spatial dimensions in exploring how the enactment of journalistic roles aligns with role perceptions, considering previous work points to a gap (Mellado 2015, 2020; Mellado et al., 2016; 2018; Tandoc et al., 2013).

As journalists increased interactions, connections and influences occur at different levels of localities (local, national, regional and transnational), and their work and stories transcend national borders, their roles need to be understood within this expanded spatiality. Stories might still be local, but they are often connected with transnational issues. Journalists work within this transversal space, which is local and transnational simultaneously. In recent years, technology has enabled such connections to evolve, from organic and informal groups formed via WhatsApp to formal connections via organizations such as Connectas. As our study showed, this evolution of transnational networks is transforming how journalists see themselves, and the scope of their work. These spatial shifts are particularly interesting in Latin America, where institutional forces, many operating at the national level, have traditionally held strong influence over how news was produced. Ultimately, we offer greater awareness of what these shifts in journalistic roles and spatial dimensions mean for the region's news production and for the powerful forces that enable and act as barriers to journalism in Latin America.

	Components
Journalists should never participate in political protests	0.827		0.683
Journalists should avoid activism	0.805		0.648
Journalists should always remain objective and neutral	0.726		0.543
Journalists should never give their opinion in stories	0.636		0.406
Journalists should give voice to the voiceless		0.836	0.700
Journalists should defend social justice		0.856	0.738
Journalists should be watchdogs for democracy		0.710	0.534
Eigenvalue	2.370	1.883
% of total Variance	34%	27%
Cronbach's α	0.744	0.725
Mean (SD)	3.20 (1.07)	4.46 (0.744)

	Disseminator/Informational	Advocate/Watchdog
Local	3.07 (1.05)	4.40 (0.78)
Regional	3.09 (1.03)	4.53 (0.67)
National	3.33 (1.08)	4.47 (0.76)
International	3.35 (1.11)	4.48 (0.70)
Significance	0.002*	0.339

	Disseminator/Informational	Advocate/Watchdog
Andean region	3.32 (1.07)	4.51 (0.73)
Brazil	2.91 (1.01)	4.52 (0.69)
Central America and Caribbean	3.73 (1.04)	4.51 (0.75)
Mexico	3.39 (1.03)	4.36 (1.80)
Southern Cone	2.93 (1.06)	4.32 (0.78)
Significance	0.000***	0.021*

	Disseminator/Informational	Advocate/Watchdog
Geographic scope	0.074	0.038	0.066	1.970	0.049	0.001	0.027	0.001	0.041	0.967
Social media	0.067	0.043	0.053	1.548	0.122	0.047	0.031	0.054	1.537	0.125
Dummy region (Brazil)	−0.315	0.106	−0.115	−2.970	0.003	0.05	0.075	0.027	0.671	0.502
Dummy region (Central America and Caribbean)	0.327	0.117	0.103	2.787	0.005	−0.034	0.083	−0.016	−0.412	0.681
Dummy region (Mexico)	0.061	0.097	0.025	0.632	0.528	−0.170	0.069	−0.099	−2.470	0.014
Dummy region (Southern Cone)	−0.418	0.118	−0.131	−3.546	0.000	−0.172	0.083	−0.078	−2.056	0.040
R ²	0.61	0.017
F	9.448**	2.426*

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Vanessa de Macedo Higgins Joyce

Summer Harlow

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Gender	Female	51%
Gender	Male	49%
Type of news/platforms	Digital-native/Online only	43%
	Newspaper	21%
	Radio	9%
	TV	8%
	Magazine	7%
	Other	13%
Age		M = 40, SD = 10.8
Years working in news		M = 12, SD = 7.2

	Components
	Disseminator/Informational	Advocate/watchdog	Communality
Journalists should never participate in political protests	0.827		0.683
Journalists should avoid activism	0.805		0.648
Journalists should always remain objective and neutral	0.726		0.543
Journalists should never give their opinion in stories	0.636		0.406
Journalists should give voice to the voiceless		0.836	0.700
Journalists should defend social justice		0.856	0.738
Journalists should be watchdogs for democracy		0.710	0.534
Eigenvalue	2.370	1.883
% of total Variance	34%	27%
Cronbach's α	0.744	0.725
Mean (SD)	3.20 (1.07)	4.46 (0.744)

	Disseminator/Informational					Advocate/Watchdog
	Β	SE Β	β	T	p	B	SE Β	β	T	p
Geographic scope	0.074	0.038	0.066	1.970	0.049	0.001	0.027	0.001	0.041	0.967
Social media	0.067	0.043	0.053	1.548	0.122	0.047	0.031	0.054	1.537	0.125
Dummy region (Brazil)	−0.315	0.106	−0.115	−2.970	0.003	0.05	0.075	0.027	0.671	0.502
Dummy region (Central America and Caribbean)	0.327	0.117	0.103	2.787	0.005	−0.034	0.083	−0.016	−0.412	0.681
Dummy region (Mexico)	0.061	0.097	0.025	0.632	0.528	−0.170	0.069	−0.099	−2.470	0.014
Dummy region (Southern Cone)	−0.418	0.118	−0.131	−3.546	0.000	−0.172	0.083	−0.078	−2.056	0.040
R ²	0.61					0.017
F	9.448**					2.426*