What is journalism?
Many people I’ve talked to over the years have had an “I know it when I see it” approach to journalism.
Also, many journalists have this attitude, and it has even been said that “the identity of journalism as a profession lives on the assumption of “I know it when I see it” (Donsbach, 2010, p. 38; Harcup & O’Neill, 2017, p. 1470).
In some cases, especially online on social media, the approach is to point at an article or something and say #ThisisnotJournalism (Simons, 2022, p. 66).
With my research I am analysing serious youtubers to see if they produce journalism. So, for me, “I know it when I see it” is not acceptable. I need definition to assess youtubers with.
So here it is. My definition:
Journalism is the editorially independent activity of collecting and interpreting newsworthy information and regularly publishing media content that reports or comments on such information for some portion of the public (Hall, 2025).
Maybe you have a better definition for journalism, and I’d love to see it.
Now, this is a definition of journalism that I came up with. However, I don’t think it is good enough to assess youtubers with. It’s too much of a low bar. Youtubers would probably meet this definition way too easily.
I came up with a better definition. One that is actually for public interest journalism. I will share that definition below. But first I think it is worth going over the journalism studies literature and what it says about journalism. After all, why should I be coming up with journalism definitions when there is decades of research on this topic?
So, what does the academic literature say about what journalism is?
Well, put simply, it’s chaos! Or rather, Journalism studies has been described as “theoretical anarchy” (Ahva & Steensen, 2020, p. 50).
It has no dominant theories, understandings, or set of accepted definitions. This is “despite an enormous body of literature dealing with the values, practices, and impact of journalism” (Zelizer, 2009, p. 34). Journalism scholars “have not produced a coherent picture of what journalism is” (Zelizer 2009, p. 34).
A large-scale analysis of research published between 2000 and 2013 in two of the leading journalism-focused journals found “more than 100 different theories guiding the research” (Steensen & Ahva, 2015, p. 13). Digital has only increased the anarchy. With the spread of the internet and digital platforms, digital journalism emerged as a distinct area of study. A study of 140 abstracts from the journal Digital Journalism by Steensen et al. (2019, p. 330) found that the “theoretical richness” of journalism studies continues into the digital realm as “59 different theories” were found in their sample.
This theoretical richness has come about due to the highly inter-disciplinary nature of journalism studies. Theoretical perspectives come predominantly from sociology and political science, but also from cultural studies, language studies, history, and increasingly business, economics, law, technology and philosophy (Ahva & Steensen, 2020, p. 49; Steensen & Westlund, 2021, p. 9; Zelizer, 2004, p. 8). Each theoretical perspective brings its own assumptions about what journalism is and how this multifaceted phenomenon should be understood.
To confuse the issue, if it wasn’t already confusing, terms like journalism, media, the press, and fourth estate, are often used interchangeably. Also, most journalism studies research papers do not include definitions for such terms. In my review of the literature less than 30% of journalism studies papers and books include definitions for key journalism related terms.
However, the different theoretical perspectives have led to quite a few different journalism definitions. So let’s now look at some journalism definitions that are in the literature and see what you think.
Mitchell Stephens writes that, “journalism is the activity of collecting, presenting, interpreting, or commenting upon the news for some portion of the public” (Stephens, 2014, p. xiii).
This definition, like many of them, focuses on journalism as an activity, or set of activities. Michael Koliska and colleagues (2023) give another example of an activity-based journalism definition, though the term they define is journalist, not journalism. “Journalists gather, filter and select information to offer their audiences a sense of orientation in an increasingly complex world” (Koliska et al., 2023, p. 3)
These definitions are quite easy for youtubers to qualify for, so I didn’t use them.
In his book, Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press, Michael Schudson said that “Journalism is the business or practice of regularly producing and disseminating information about contemporary affairs of public interest and importance” (Schudson, 2011, p. 3). This definition is again based on activities, but it raises the bar a little by including “public interest”.
Malik & Shapiro include independence into their definition. They also explicitly include commentary - “journalism comprises the activities involved in an independent pursuit of, or commentary upon, accurate information about current or recent events and its original presentation for public edification” (Malik & Shapiro, 2017, p. 16).
Some definitions I decided were not useful for assessing youtubers because they were a bit too vague. For example, in the book Worlds of Journalism, journalism is “a discursive social institution that spawns a kaleidoscope of journalistic cultures, which are manifested as products of local societal and professional contexts” (Hanitzsch, Hanusch, et al., 2019, p. 16).
Other definitions I rejected because they were a bit too circular, for example – one study wrote that they “understand journalism as any form of professional journalism within institutionalized settings, irrespective of journalistic beat and employment type, including freelance journalists” (Degen et al., 2024, p. 403).
Journalism studies had no consensus on what journalism is. So I asked myself, what is journalism supposed to do? What is the purpose of journalism?
I found the purpose of journalism in political science theoretical perspectives where journalism is supposed to be an institution that is concerned with “the defense of democracy” (Christians et al., 2009, p. 19) and it works to “establish or sustain” democracy (Schudson, 2008, p. 12).
Normative conceptualisations of journalism, from a political science perspective, say that it supports democracy by performing a number of societal functions, also called roles (Schudson, 2008; Schultz, 1998). The exact articulation, or number, of these functions is not agreed upon, though there are core functions that are widely agreed on.
While scholars may expand, split, or combine democratic functions of journalism in their writing, there are “classic and enduring functions and values of journalism as an institution” (Djerf-Pierre et al., 2019, p. 236).
These classic enduring functions, or core democratic functions of journalism, include informing citizens about public interest issues (Couldry, 2017, p. 27; Richardson, 2006; Schudson, 2008, p. 13), holding power to account (Hanitzsch, Vos, et al., 2019, p. 186; Schudson, 2008, p. 14; Schultz, 1998, p. 22; Wilding et al., 2018, p. 20) and providing a space for public deliberation and expression of public opinion (Braun & Gillespie, 2011, p. 385; Habermas, 1992; Schudson, 2008, p. 20).
I based my definition of public interest journalism on these three core democratic functions.
And I ended up with this definition of public interest journalism:
Public interest journalism is the editorially independent activity, guided by ethical considerations, of collecting and interpreting verifiable information on public interest issues and regularly publishing media content that investigates, reports on, or analyses accurate information for some portion of the public so that the public may better engage in political decision making or public sphere deliberation.
It is this, high bar definition that I used to assess youtuber. Though this definition can be used to assess any media creator, not just youtubers. If a youtuber meets this definition, then it is quite uncontroversial to say that they are journalism producers.
So what do you think of my definition of public interest journalism? Let me know in the comments.
Also, if you want to read more about this topic check out the reference list below.
This article, and the video on which it was based, is from my PhD research at the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney.
Reference list
Ahva, L., & Steensen, S. (2020). Journalism theory. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), The Handbook of Journalism Studies (2nd ed., pp. 38–54). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315167497-3
Braun, J., & Gillespie, T. (2011). Hosting the public discourse, hosting the public: When online news and social media converge. Journalism Practice, 5(4), 383–398. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2011.557560
Christians, C., Glasser, T., McQuail, D., Nordenstreng, K., & White, R. (2009). Normative theories of the media: Journalism in democratic societies. University of Illinois Press. http://choicereviews.org/review/10.5860/CHOICE.47-1837
Couldry, N. (2017). Reconstructing journalism’s public rationale. In C. Peters & M. Broersma (Eds.), Rethinking journalism again: Societal role and public relevance in a digital age (pp. 21–34). Routledge.
Degen, M., Olgemöller, M., & Zabel, C. (2024). Quality journalism in social media – what we know and where we need to dig deeper. Journalism Studies, 25(4), 399–420. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2024.2314204
Djerf-Pierre, M., Lindgren, M., & Budinski, M. A. (2019). The role of journalism on YouTube: Audience engagement with ‘superbug’ reporting. Media and Communication, 7(1), 235–247. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v7i1.1758
Donsbach, W. (2010). Journalists and their Professional Identities. In S. Allan (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism (pp. 38–48). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203869468-7
Habermas, J. (1992). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger & F. Lawrence, Trans.). Polity Press.
Hall, C. J. (2025). Platform journalism on YouTube: A democratic functions approach to analysing journalism on digital platforms. Australian Journalism Review, 47(1), 97–115. https://doi.org/10.1386/ajr_00178_7
Hanitzsch, T., Hanusch, F., Ramaprasad, J., & de Beer, A. (2019). Worlds of journalism: Journalistic cultures around the globe. Columbia University Press.
Hanitzsch, T., Vos, T., Standaert, O., Hanusch, F., Hovden, J. F., Hermans, L., & Ramaprasad, J. (2019). Role Orientations: Journalists’ Views on Their Place in Society. In T. Hanitzsch, F. Hanusch, J. Ramaprasad, & A. de Beer (Eds.), Worlds of Journalism: Journalistic Cultures Around the Globe. Columbia University Press.
Harcup, T., & O’Neill, D. (2017). What is news? News values revisited (again). Journalism Studies, 18(12), 1470–1488. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1150193
Koliska, M., Moroney, E., & Beavers, D. (2023). Trust through relationships in journalism. Journalism Studies, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2209807
Malik, A., & Shapiro, I. (2017). What’s digital? What’s journalism? In B. Franklin & S. A. Eldridge II (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies (pp. 15–24). Routledge.
Richardson, J. E. (2006). Analysing newspapers: An approach from critical discourse analysis. Palgrave Macmillan.
Schudson, M. (2008). Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press. Polity Press.
Schudson, Michael. (2011). The sociology of news (2nd ed.). W.W. Norton & Co.
Schultz, J. (1998). Reviving the fourth estate: Democracy, accountability and the media. Cambridge University Press.
Simons, M. (2022). This is not journalism. Meanjin, 81(2), 66–85. https://doi.org/doi/10.3316/informit.523580824791738
Steensen, S., & Ahva, L. (2015). Theories of journalism in a digital age: An exploration and introduction. Digital Journalism, 3(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2014.927984
Steensen, S., Grøndahl Larsen, A. M., Hågvar, Y. B., & Fonn, B. K. (2019). What does digital journalism studies look like? Digital Journalism, 7(3), 320–342. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1581071
Steensen, S., & Westlund, O. (2021). What is digital journalism studies? Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429259555
Stephens, M. (2014). Beyond news: The future of journalism. Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/step15938
Wilding, D., Fray, P., Molitorisz, S., & McKewon, E. (2018). The Impact of Digital Platforms on News and Journalistic Content. University of Technology Sydney.
Zelizer, B. (2009). Journalism and the academy. In T. Hanitzsch & K. Wahl-Jorgensen (Eds.), The handbook of journalism studies (pp. 49–61). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203877685-10
Zelizer, Barbie. (2004). Taking journalism seriously: News and the academy. Sag