JRP Project

The Journalistic Role Performance Project (JRP) is a cross-national, theory-driven endeavor established in 2013 to systematically analyze the state of journalistic cultures in the new media landscape across the world. The main goals of our Project are twofold. On the one hand, we aim to explain how different dimensions of professional roles materialize in the news in different organizational, institutional and social settings. On the other hand, our study aims to deeply address the disconnection between professional and/or normative ideals and journalistic practices, explaining the gap between the importance that journalists and the media give to different professional roles, and journalistic role performance. Under that umbrella, our project will provide scientific knowledge and empirical information to researchers, students, practitioners, the media as well as international institutions, to understand the complexities of the profession, as well as the influence that different internal and external factors have on the practice of journalism worldwide. Thanks to the effort of different high-quality scholars from 19 countries, the first wave of our JRP project (2013-2018) analyzed the performance of professional roles in more than 35,000 news of print media. Likewise, the project studied the existing gap between the journalists’ attitudes and their professional practice. More than 800 journalists were surveyed. Our consolidated current network, including more than 45 countries from America, Asia, Europe, The Middle East, Africa and Oceania, is currently organizing the second wave of the Project. Our project defends and encourages truly scientific collaboration and collective publishing. The field work for our second wave will start in 2020.