Effects of Media Companies’ Organizational Nature and Journalists Autonomy and Position on Internal and External Influences: Evidence From Spain

Abstract

Internal and external influences are crucial to understanding how news organizations work. Their impact at the organizational level and their resolution at the level of practice permeate journalism discourses on autonomy and ethics. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, this article examines how organizational and individual-level factors predict the likelihood of suffering internal editorial influences and external political and commercial ones. Based on a secondary analysis of Spanish data from the World of Journalism project, we first find that journalists working at public news organizations are more prone to suffer internal editorial influences than journalists working at private/commercial ones. Second, we find a negative association between journalists’ autonomy and both types of influence, but a positive relationship between temporary news-workers and internal editorial influences. Finally, we find a cleaved moderation effect of journalists’ position on the relationship between age and internal editorial influences, and a contributory moderation of gender on the relationship between autonomy and both types of influences.