Journalist - Source Relationship and Changing Professional Roles in the Era of New Media Diversity

Abstract

Around the globe the connectivity between journalists and their news sources has been
transformed due to the expanding digital technology, inclusion of public relations
practitioners in sourcing and rise in the roles performed by citizen in journalism. Such
influence of digital and social media forms has greatly influenced the professional roles
performed by the journalists. On the other hand, it is controlling the system in such a
way that the spread of voices of authoritative and others is becoming a challenging task
to handle. This competition among the sources has blurred the boundaries between
audience, producer, and consumer by minimizing the distinction between opinions
based and factual reporting and making working practices difficult for journalists. As
such, changes the roles performed by journalists are greatly affected by making their
decision-making ability a challenging task to handle. They have created a more complex
relationship between the journalists and their sources and framing of the issues by the
media. The current study aims to review how various research studies have examined
the inter relationship that exists between the journalists and their sources in the era of
new media and social networking and how such relation has played role in framing the
issues by the journalists.