Individual, Organizational, and Societal Influences on Media Role Perceptions: A Comparative Study of Journalists in China, Taiwan, and the United States

This article reports a secondary analysis comparing media role perceptions among journalists in China, Taiwan, and the United States, based on three recent nationwide surveys in these societies. By comparing the goodness-of-fit of a series of loglinear models, we have found that the societal factor has the strongest impact on journalists' views about media roles, the organizational factor has a significant but weak impact, and the individual factor has virtually no impact. Within the societal factor, we have further contrasted two competing models: political determinism vs. cultural determinism. The study provides clear-cut evidence in favor of the former.