Media and Corruption: The Other Way Round : Exploring Macro Determinants of Journalists’ Perceptions of the Accountability Instruments and Governmental Pressures

This article reverses the direction of the causal link between corruption and media, in particular, journalism, as it has been commonly investigated in communication studies. Few existing studies have explored the effects of corruption on journalists’ practices and self-conceptions. Based on a comparative survey of 1,764 journalists in 12 European countries and two Arab states, conducted in 2011 and 2012, this article investigates how perceived corruption—considered as an extra-media macro determinant—affects journalists’ perceptions of Media Accountability Instruments (MAI) impact and of governmental pressures on journalism quality. The empirical results obtained show that the more widespread corruption is in a country’s public sector, the lower the journalists’ perceptions of the MAI impact and the higher their perceptions of government pressures.