A National Survey on the Professional Role Conceptions of Journalists in Kenya

Abstract

The professional role conceptions of journalists have for many years remained a central strand in journalism studies. The present research investigates the professional role conceptions that Kenyan journalists perceive to be the most important in their work. Similarly, the professional role they consider the most important is further analyzed in relation to demographics (age, gender, education, contract type, media type, and media ownership). Findings from a national survey of 504 Kenyan journalists indicate that “providing citizens with information” is the most important role (61.3 percent), followed by “advocate for social change” (51.7 percent). The other major roles include to “support official policies” (46.9 percent), “motivate people to participate in civic activities” (45.6 percent), and “act as watchdog of government” (35.3 percent). The most important role—providing citizens with information—is backed across all demographics with a strong mean of 4.4 on a five-point scale ranging from 1 (“not important at all”) to 5 (“extremely important”). However, the difference of means across all the analyzed demographics are not statistically significant.

KEYWORDS:

• journalists
• Kenya
• Kenyan journalists
• professional roles
• survey

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author thanks Professor Lars Willnat for his insightful feedback on the paper.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by The Aga Khan University Graduate School of Media and Communications, Nairobi, Kenya.