Acutely Precarious? Detecting Objective Precarity in Journalism
Jana Rick
Abstract
Journalism often gets described as a profession of precarity. However, there is a lack of quantitative research on the topic, since the question remains open, how many journalists actually work under precarious conditions. This paper offers a systematic empirical approach to the phenomenon of precarity by identifying the objective precarious in journalism. Looking at three key parameters of precarity research on the substantial level, contractual level and legal-institutional level, the study can be seen as the first attempt to measure precarity in journalism. Based on the analysis of previous research on precarity in journalism and a literature review of the sociology of work, an operationalization of precarity in journalistic employment was developed and applied to a sample of an online survey of professional journalists in Germany (n = 861). The intensity of precarity was measured in three groups, classifying a quarter of the respondents as acutely precarious. Findings demonstrate that journalists’ precarious status is related to factors like age, gender, employment relationship and media type.