WJS 2021–2024

Mapping journalism’s hostile environment

The third wave of the Worlds of Journalism Study is currently in its final stage. Researchers from 75 countries have conducted surveys of journalists based on a common conceptual and methodological framework. This time, the survey featured questions on — among others — journalists’ safety, editorial freedom, journalistic roles, influences on news production, and increased precarization of journalistic labor. First results will be available in Spring 2025.

The Worlds of Journalism Study was founded in 2010 to assess the state of journalism throughout the world. The study’s main objective is to help journalism researchers, media practitioners and policy makers better understand the worldviews and changes that are taking place in the professional views of journalists, the conditions and limitations under which journalists operate, and the social functions of journalism in a changing world.

A joint effort of researchers from around the world, the project aspires to the highest standards of scientific collaboration and collective publishing. In so doing, WJS has become a driver of comparative research in journalism studies, and an institutional home for those who engage in it. The basic principles of cooperation are formulated in the study’s Statute. The study is hosted at LMU Munich and is funded by multiple organizations.

WJS 2012–2016

Transformation of Journalism

The second wave of WJS has continued and extended the work carried out through a pilot study in 2007–2011. Breaking all records in comparative media research, the study brought together researchers from 67 countries from around the world. In an unprecedented collaborative effort, the project network interviewed over 27,500 journalists based on a common methodological framework.

The questionnaire elicited views of journalists on several issues journalists and news organizations face today, such as journalism’s place in society, ethics, autonomy and influences on newsmaking, journalistic trust in public institutions, and the transformation of journalism in the broadest sense.

Publications

Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F. Ramaprasad, J., & de Beer, A. S. (2019). Worlds of Journalism: Journalistic Cultures Around the Globe. New York: Columbia University Press.

Slavtcheva-Petkova, V., Pogson, M., & Karadjov, C. (2025). Media Capture, Survival of the Corruptest and Journalistic Agency: The Case of Bulgaria. The International Journal of Press/Politics.

Thurman, N., Henkel, I., Thäsler-Kordonouri, S. & Fletcher, R. (eds.) (2025). UK Journalists in the 2020s: Who they are, how they work, and what they think. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

The new Safety of Journalism Index (SFI) is a joint initiative between the University of Liverpool and the Worlds of Journalism Study. Covering 73 countries, the SFI uses data from WJS3 and UNESCO’s Observatory of Killed Journalists. It ranks countries on four dimensions of safety: physical, psychological, digital and financial.

The index is hosted on the one-stop open-access platform safetyofjournalists.org launched in co-operation with UNESCO for the benefit of the key stakeholders in the process of implementation of the UN Action Plan on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, such as civil society, academics, journalists, journalism students, and international organizations.