In the context of global events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, source diversity in journalistic news is widely recognized as a factor in fostering public trust in journalism and enhancing the legitimacy of news media. Source diversity is an emerging issue in journalistic news media, which challenges established practices of relating discourses, actors and issues to audiences. The project aims to understand how editors and journalists in the most important national Danish news media conceptualize source diversity, how they view their roles and responsibilities, and which initiatives editors and organisations adopt to support source diversity in news coverage.
The first two phases of the study are grounded in semi-structured interviews with news editors, editors-in-chief, and journalists. Drawing on these findings, the final phase involves an experiment conducted with journalism students at DMJX. The project provides empirical evidence for journalism studies by exploring perceptions and barriers to source diversity from both editorial and journalistic perspectives. It also contributes to journalism education by fostering awareness of source diversity in journalistic practice, while highlighting the inherent dilemmas and challenges involved.
The PhD project is led by Kresten Roland Johansen and supervised by Christoph Raetzsch as part of a collaboration between the Danish School of Media and Journalism (DMJX) and Aarhus University. Kresten has an MA degree in History of Ideas and Political Science from Aarhus University. At DMJX, he teaches courses in data journalism and in how to integrate and critically evaluate scientific sources within journalistic practice. He is author of several studies examining the use of expert sources in Danish news media, and co-author of the book “A new survey shows – or does it? [En ny undersøgelse viser - eller gør den? 2013, with Lars Fiis]” and has previously worked at the Danish Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting (DICAR).
