Hollow professionalism: The case of news journalism in Slovenia

Abstract

This paper examines how journalistic professionalism in Slovenia is continually renegotiated through the interplay of normative ideals, ideological imperatives and material constraints. By tracing how normative commitments rooted in the principle of publicity interact with ideological imperatives and material constraints, professionalism in Slovenian news journalism is shown to be relational and constantly reconfigured. These forces converge uniquely, revealing tensions and compromises inherent in maintaining journalistic professionalism amid the reconfiguration of autonomy, the pauperisation of journalistic work, the proletarisation of the journalism community and the growing digitalisation and platformisation of news production. Introducing the concept of hollow professionalism, the paper argues that notwithstanding the symbolic architecture of professionalism in place, its normative core is ever more constrained by ideological influences and material pressures, leaving professionalism more performative and a matter of instrumental rationality.

We will be looking for new journalists, fresh faces who understand that Delo is a company to be developed, not harmed, as some are doing today. In the end, this is bad for the journalists, the media company and owners. […] Loyalty to the company Delo is one of the core values I expect from journalists.

– Stojan Petrič, president of the management board of FMR, owner of the newspaper company Delo, 2018

This statement, published in the daily Delo (Bratanič and Gole, 2018), was a milestone in Slovenian journalism, capturing the clash of corporate expectations, newsroom culture and shifting notions of professionalism. Three years earlier, the Slovenian FMR group – with a portfolio in the construction, electro-energy and automotive industries – had taken ownership of Delo, traditionally known as the “central Slovenian daily”, along with several other digital and print outlets. FMR (2015) committed itself to adapting its business strategies, technological development and personnel policies to the contemporary media environment. The new owners’ demand for profitable operations and corporate governance forged the duality of Slovenian journalism today: between corporate imperatives and strategies and professional ideals and practices. Waves of cuts, layoffs and newsroom restructuring followed, heralding a new era for professionalism at Delo, underpinned by corporate ‘loyalty’, economic strives and bureaucratic pressures. As of 2025, the Delo management plans to separate its media operations in a new company, transferring journalists and other employees there, while retaining the real estate and charging the new entity rent, leaving the newspaper, according to the journalistic organisations and unions, ‘entirely at the mercy of fate, with only modest capital’ (DNS, 2025). The Delo case is a good example for the study of professionalism, particularly regarding how normative ideals and autonomy are negotiated alongside ideologies shaped by ownership interests, market demands and bureaucratic expectations.

These dynamics resonate with Evetts’ (2003, cf. Aldridge and Evetts, 2003; Örnebring, 2009) conceptualisation of professionalism as encompassing two intertwined, albeit often conflicting, discourses: organisational and occupational professionalism. Organisational professionalism, driven “from above”, serves as an ideological tool to induce conformity and alignment with institutional goals, emphasising control, efficiency and the financial constraints imposed by ownership and management. Occupational professionalism, driven “from within”, reflects the profession's internal values – journalists’ normative commitment to autonomy, accountability, ethics and the pursuit of truth. The tension between these forms of professionalism constitute a relational struggle, negotiated amid commercial pressures, political instrumentalisation and technological transformations.

Slovenia is a post-Yugoslav country and a European Union member state with a population of two million, whose small, politically contingent and economically constrained, media environment has been impacted by a ‘long dual revolution’ (Vobič, 2023), providing a useful glimpse at the contested nature of journalistic professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe. The transformative duality combines imitative post-socialist media restructuring (Splichal, 2001) with ongoing digitalisation and platformisation (Vobič, 2013; Kaluža and Slaček, 2020; Sekloča and Slaček, 2024), generating a hybrid regime in which market logics, political interests and corporate control intersect. This calls for a reconceptualisation of professionalism as a contested field influenced not only by normative ideals but also by material conditions and power relations.

This paper has two goals. First, it seeks to advance the discussion on journalistic professionalism by incorporating the material aspects of journalism, focusing on how power relations, ownership structures and technological transformations are reshaping the negotiation between its normative and ideological dimensions. Previous scholarship has examined these relationships from multiple perspectives, most notably the media systems theory (e.g., Hallin and Mancini, 2004), the Bordieuan field theory (e.g., Benson and Neveu, 2005), the critical political economy of communication (e.g., Pickard, 2020; Golding and Murdock, 2022) and journalism-as-labour perspectives (e.g., Cohen, 2018; Örnebring, 2010). The contribution of this study is that it embeds the material dimension within its conceptualisation of professionalism as a relational configuration shaped by normative commitments, ideological pressures and material conditions. By understanding these dimensions as mutually constitutive rather than separate, the study aims to show how journalism's normative foundations are continuously challenged and renegotiated through ideology, power and technology.

Second, it examines these negotiations through a combined theoretical and case-based approach that draws on existing scholarship on key issues shaping journalistic professionalism and the Slovenian news media environment. It presents an analysis of recent developments at key news media, covering the three national newspapers (Delo, Dnevnik, Večer), a cross-platform media conglomerate (Media24 network) and the public broadcaster RTV Slovenia, which are central for the country's news infrastructure. By situating these outlets within Slovenian news journalism's historical, political and economic context, the paper traces how professionalism is reconfigured alongside shifts in autonomy, the pauperisation of journalistic work, the proletarisation of the journalism community and the growing digitalisation and platformisation of news production. In a peripheral media market such as Slovenia, these forces converge in distinctive ways, revealing the tensions and compromises inherent in the renegotiation of professionalism.

Building on this grounding, the paper introduces the concept of hollow professionalism to show how professionalism persists as a symbolic façade despite the erosion of its normative core through ideological capture and material degradation. Situating the Slovenian case within broader debates, it examines the collision of normative ideals, ideological imperatives and material conditions in a small, politically contingent and economically constrained media environment.

Reconsidering journalistic professionalism – again

Professionalism is widely analysed in research on journalists’ work, including the discourses and structures influencing it, and is considered the ‘single most popular sociological framework’ (Ahva and Steensen, 2019: 44). Professionalism has been approached in at least three principal ways (ibid.; cf. Waisbord, 2013: 3–5). Historical analyses have shown how newswork has professionalised over time, discussing professionalism and the implications it holds for journalism and its democratic potential (e.g., Chalaby, 1996; Hardt, 2000; Carey, 2007). Research on professionalism has also examined the professional ideology, or culture, of journalism (e.g., Deuze, 2005). This stream investigates journalists’ sense-making and positioning of their work, most notably perceptions of journalistic roles (e.g., Örnebring and Hanitzsch, 2019; Hanitzsch et al., 2019; Lauk and Harro-Loit, 2016). Investigations of professionalism have also explored the legitimacy and jurisdiction of journalism as a societal actor, focusing on its distinct practices and roles relative to other actors and professions, as well as the related political, economic and cultural spheres (e.g., Waisbord, 2013; Carlson and Lewis, 2015). These approaches have distinct epistemological assumptions and conceptual groundings reflecting how scholars approach professionalism and why.

This study approaches journalistic professionalism as relational, recognising journalism's embeddedness in broader social transformations and its sensitivity to politico-economic, cultural and technological forces. Following Waisbord (2013: 11), it departs from ‘conventional, taxonomic’ approaches that define professionalism through fixed attributes of archetypal professions. Instead, professionalism is understood as an antagonistic and (self-)disciplining struggle over occupational control and change (ibid.: 73–93; cf. Örnebring, 2009; Carlson and Lewis, 2015). From this perspective, professionalism is not a stable set of traits but a contested terrain in which journalists and editors, owners and managers, political, economic and bureaucratic actors, and citizens compete to define journalism's authority and purpose, through power exercised across institutional structures, social relations and everyday newsroom practices. Hence, this study furthers the work of Evetts (2003; Aldridge and Evetts, 2003), whose influential framework captures precisely the tensions at stake by demonstrating how professionalism is reconfigured “from within” as a claim to autonomy and “from above” as a tool of control. It extends this framework by showing that professionalism in journalism is reshaped also “from beyond” – through the interplay of normative values, ideological pressures and the material conditions of contemporary news production.

This study understands the normative, ideological and material dimensions via which professionalism is produced, contested and transformed as interrelated. The normative dimension refers to a value-based commitment to autonomy, accountability, ethics and the pursuit of truth, while journalistic professionalism is distinctly grounded in the value rationality of the profession, resulting in the ‘principle of publicity’ (Splichal, 2021: 5). This principle not only concerns the individual's right to form, express and publish opinions, but also society's need to prevent/limit abuses of power in public communication (Splichal, 2002: 7). Unlike other professions rooted in direct relationships with clients or users, journalism's normative foundation is relational and public-oriented, constitutive for both the journalistic profession and the public. These relations provide the symbolic architecture of journalistic professionalism, shaping the moral and epistemic authority by which journalism legitimises its social role. This architecture is continuously challenged by ideological narratives and material pressures that redefine the boundaries of professionalism itself.

The ideological dimension of journalistic professionalism encompasses the systems of meaning, power and legitimacy that frame visions of journalism. Reflecting instrumental rationality, professionalism functions as a ‘major ideological weapon of press management’ (Hardt, 2000: 215) for disciplining journalistic work, reinforcing hierarchies and reproducing the ideological status quo (cf. Aldridge and Evetts, 2003). As Kaul (1986: 48) explains, journalistic professionalism represents a strategic compromise in the news industry – granting journalists privileged status and autonomy while protecting corporate interests from commercial crises, labour conflict and public dissatisfaction that can threaten profits – thereby subordinating journalistic work to media ownership and its priorities. The doctrine of objectivity, with concepts such as “fairness”, “detachment” and “impartiality”, central to the ideology of professionalism (Deuze, 2005: 448), harmonises journalistic work while constraining creativity by placing a straitjacket on their public use of reason, diluting the potential held by the principle of publicity. Objectivity thus functions as an ideological tool that disciplines journalists and reinforces existing power structures (Schiller, 1981). The doctrine of objectivity thus effectively limits the exercise of the public use of reason, demonstrating how the ideological dimension both legitimises and restricts journalistic work (cf. Splichal, 1999: 299–300).

The material dimension comprises the structural and technological conditions – ownership patterns, employment arrangements, economic models and tools of production – that influence and constrain journalists. Although material conditions have historically both enabled and constrained professionalism, in today's politico-economic constellation they have increasingly driven the ‘de-professionalisation’ (Splichal and Dahlgren, 2016). The dynamics between the normative and the ideological dimensions have shifted as journalism's autonomy, status, power and identity have weakened, gradually eroding the boundaries between journalists and ‘outsiders’ (Splichal, 2020). Digitalisation and platformisation have caused the collapse of advertising-based commercial models and established platform dependencies, strengthened the bureaucratisation and routinisation of work defined by speed and performativity, contributed to the fragmentation of knowledge and specialised skills and accelerated the pauperisation of journalists and the erosion of the collective (e.g., McChesney, 2016; Pickard, 2020; Golding and Murdock, 2022; Simon, 2022). In such a material constellation, the persistence of normative foundations and the articulation of a consistent professional ethos – including high-quality news, investigative and data journalism – become increasingly difficult, revealing how structural and technological pressures constrain journalism without fully determining it (Lauk and Harro-Loit, 2016).

As the relationship between normative and ideological dimensions shifts, the study of journalistic professionalism must also consider material conditions and the broader social relations they reconfigure. Journalistic professionalism thus develops differently across political, cultural and economic contexts. This paper examines the relational nature of professionalism in Slovenia, focusing on struggles over occupational control and change.

Interrogating journalistic professionalism in Slovenia

The trajectory of media and journalism in Slovenia in the last 35 years or so has entailed a ‘long dual revolution’, characterised by complex reconfigurations of power, structural conditions and professionalism (Vobič, 2023: 152–153). In the final decade of state-socialist Yugoslavia, some media outlets began monitoring power and exercising publicity, while debates on professional ethos and self-regulation, moving beyond the notion of ‘journalists as socio-political workers’, signalled that professionalism was neither static nor uniform (Poler, 1996). During what Splichal (2001) termed an ‘imitative revolution’, Slovenian media adopted Western models through privatisation, commercialisation and internationalisation while reproducing state-socialist power relations, evident in renationalisation and ideological exclusivism. This duality produced a regime of ‘paternalistic commercialism’ (Vobič, 2023: 152), blending political and commercial logics, marginalising civic interests and constraining journalism, thereby weakening the principle of publicity. The subsequent ‘digital revolution’ (Vobič, 2023: 162) has intensified these structural constraints, as digitalisation has reinforced existing power relations, unsettled the media environment and challenged professional authority and identity (Vobič, 2013). The rise of digital platforms has further complicated professional negotiations through technological dependency, commercial pressures and bureaucratic demands (Kaluža and Slaček, 2021).

The negotiation of journalistic professionalism in this context is complex across normative, ideological and material dimensions. Journalism in Slovenia is thus less a stable institution than a contested practice, reshaped through ongoing struggles over occupational control and change. The following sections examine these dynamics through journalistic autonomy, transformations of work, and the effects of digitalisation and platformisation.

Reconfiguration of the conditions for journalistic autonomy

Autonomy is a core normative ideal of journalistic professionalism, encompassing both ‘positive freedom’ (journalists’ freedom to act according to normative principles, embodying the principle of publicity) and ‘negative freedom’ (freedom from obstacles, restrictions and interference in their work) (Splichal, 2024). This study views autonomy as a multidimensional concept operating on the individual, organisational and systemic levels, referring to: journalists’ personal capacity to make editorial decisions guided by professional norms and ethics; news organisations’ independence from external economic and political pressures; and the media's broader autonomy within the social, political and economic order. Autonomy is hence both a precondition for and a manifestation of professionalism since it decisively impacts and reflects the struggle for occupational control and change. These conditions are continuously shaped by established power relations and ideological forces, including corporate management and political influence, alongside material conditions including the media market, ownership structures and technology (cf. Örnebring and Karlsson, 2022).

In Slovenia, ideological and material pressures reconfigure journalistic autonomy, producing a contested space in which normative values are negotiated, resisted and compromised. Recent studies illustrate how these pressures operate across media sectors. Data from the Worlds of Journalism Study (Vobič et al., 2024: 142–145) show that autonomy in commercial media is primarily shaped by business imperatives, while political influence is more pronounced in community media (“programmes of special importance”), reflecting their dependence on annual state project funding for media pluralism. Journalists in public service media report comparatively higher autonomy and lower political pressure following legislative reforms that limited direct political instrumentalisation of RTV Slovenia and the Slovenian Press Agency. Perceptions of political influence nevertheless vary within newsrooms: rank-and-file journalists report stronger political pressures, whereas editors-in-chief perceive weaker direct influence but a greater role of personal beliefs in editorial decisions. This pattern reflects a paradox of intensifying media–politics tensions, especially in public media (Vobič, 2023), alongside enduring clientelist networks and career mobility between journalism, politics and public relations (DNS, 2022).

Findings of the Worlds of Journalism Study also highlight that journalists in Slovenia face a broad spectrum of safety-related threats (Vobič and Mance, 2025). The most frequently reported forms include demeaning or hate speech (60.4% at least sometimes), public discrediting (52.6%) and surveillance (38.4%). Safety concerns are also widespread: 58.2% are concerned about their physical well-being, 64.4% about their mental health and 81.8% about the impunity of those who harm journalists. Research also documents the growing prevalence of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), which exert a “chilling effect” by encouraging self-censorship and discouraging engagement with contentious topics (Kerševan and Poler, 2024). Although individual journalists often deny a direct personal impact of SLAPPS – consistent with the “third-person effect” – the structural nature of these legal threats undermines their collective capacity to uphold the principle of publicity (ibid.). Complementing this picture, the Journalistic Safety Index for Slovenia reveals a paradoxical configuration (https://safetyofjournalists.org/index/country/slovenia). While physical safety is comparatively strong, vulnerabilities in the digital, psychological and economic domains – including sustained online harassment, high levels of burnout and chronic income precarity – are persistent threats to the conditions needed for autonomous practice.

Alongside Delo, the newspaper Večer illustrates how changing conditions of journalistic autonomy shape broader patterns in the renegotiation of journalistic professionalism. Publishing a national daily in north-eastern Slovenia, Večer underwent a major transformation after its acquisition by the Media24 group in 2021 – a conglomerate owned by Martin Odlazek and associates and active across radio, print, television and digital media (RTV Slovenia, 2021). Despite media legislation aimed at limiting ownership concentration, legal loopholes, flexible interpretation and weak oversight enabled the group's expansion (Vobič, 2023). While management pledged to preserve Večer as a ‘credible and professional’ outlet (RTV Slovenia, 2021), the company soon faced “rationalisation” measures, including budget cuts, layoffs and the relocation of the newsroom to offices owned by the local mayor (RTV Slovenia, 2024). The appointment of the director to newsroom management without journalists’ consent signalled the erosion of the boundary between commercial and editorial spheres. Journalists and professional organisations subsequently cited irresponsible management, legal violations and the degradation of professional journalism, describing the situation as a ‘lost battle’ (RTV Slovenia, 2025).

The recent political instrumentalisation of the Slovenian public broadcaster RTV Slovenia also reveals how shifting political and economic pressures reshape the conditions of journalistic autonomy and require a renegotiation of professionalism. Successive governments have reshaped the management and editorial boards of RTV Slovenia, with the 2020–2022 right-wing administration exploiting legislative mechanisms to entrench partisan influence, followed by a centre-left “depolitisation” legislative reform in 2022 that removed the parliamentary majority's direct influence over management bodies but also reduced transparency in the appointment procedures for the individual members of the newly established governing council (Vobič, 2023: 153–155). For two years, these processes unfolded against the backdrop of a strike by journalists during which employees highlighted structural problems and management decisions, drawing attention to the ‘harmful programming and staffing decisions’ ‘endangering journalistic autonomy, professional journalism and the fulfilment of the public service mission’ (SNS, 2022). The governance shifts, combined with financial constraints, commercialisation and austerity-driven cost-cutting (Vobič, 2023: 153–155), blurred the boundaries between public service and corporate logics, reconfiguring the normative commitments, ideological rationales and material conditions in which professionalism is renegotiated.

The pauperisation of journalistic work and employment

Journalistic work is a critical material dimension of professionalism, impacting not just newsroom labour and employment arrangements but also the socio-economic tensions that arise within news organisations and across the industry (Slaček and Vobič, 2017; Vobič and Bembič, 2021). In Slovenia, the pauperisation of journalism – understood here as the socio-economic degradation of journalistic labour through (relatively) declining pay, deteriorating employment security and intensified workloads – reflects broader ideological shifts toward market-driven flexibility and managerial control. A survey among unionised journalists in Slovenia showed that pauperisation is perceived as a significant problem, even though it does not affect all journalists equally: freelancers, early-career journalists and those working in smaller media are especially vulnerable, whereas editors and journalists in established outlets may enjoy greater security and stability (Mance et al., 2023). Pauperisation also holds implications for standard employment relations and professional solidarity, contributing to a fluctuating workforce, as some journalists leave the occupation altogether due to unsustainable working conditions (ibid.). In this setting, professionalism increasingly rests on weakened collective professional mechanisms, most notably through unions, and heightened individual responsibility, sustained by personal commitment and sacrifice. As Pajnik (2024) argues, the normalisation of deteriorating conditions is sustained through an emotionalisation of journalistic professionalism where commitment, empaty and personal engagement become both resources and burdens in coping with structural pressures. The contradictions of professionalism in pauperised conditions are captured in one freelancer's statement: ‘The only goal I have is to be a good journalist. I will do anything to achieve it. Even to my own detriment’ (Čehovin Zajc and Lukan, 2024: 24).

Digital journalism has been especially shaped by technological adaptation and cost-cutting, producing highly routinised, desk-bound work focused on speed and repackaging rather than depth and originality (Vobič, 2013). About a decade ago, managerial strategies relying on hiring young journalists and newcomers under non-standard contracts, freelance arrangements or with no formal employment at all – offering low pay and minimal social rights – were regarded as normal, a trend evident not only across the industry but also in public broadcasting (Čeferin et al., 2017). At public radio, it was common for younger journalists to accept diminished labour rights in the hope of future regular employment, as trade unions failed to establish a basis for sustained collective struggle (Vobič and Slaček, 2014: 30).

The persistence of these conditions reflects the normalisation of pauperised journalism, as journalists internalise market logics and, ‘in the name of love for their work’, adapt to the slow yet relentless deterioration of conditions – like ‘boiled watchdogs’, they remain in the rising heat until their strength to resist vanishes (Čehovin Zajc and Lukan, 2024: 29). High workloads, output-based pay, scarce editorial support for complex work and the absence of indemnity insurance have eroded autonomy, leaving many to pursue legal action and ultimately exit rather than organise collectively (ibid.). This pattern illustrates how technological transformations and managerial strategies reconfigure the labour process while simultaneously renegotiating the normative commitments, subordinating them to the prevailing ideological narratives and material constraints.

The daily newspaper industry exemplifies these structural conditions. In the last two decades, Slovenia's national daily newspapers (Delo, Dnevnik, Večer) experienced declining circulations and deteriorating working conditions, denoted by staff reductions, wage decreases and intensified newsroom labour (Bembič and Vobič, 2021: 88–90). Their substantial online reach has not translated into substantial income, underscoring the fragility of their business model. Simultaneously, the absence of effective social dialogue and fragmentation of labour representation have weakened collective bargaining power, further eroding professionalism within this declining sector (ibid.). The case of Dnevnik shows how pauperisation unfolds following a reconfiguration of the material-ideological relationship, with professionalism functioning less as a unifying ethos than a managerial tool to fragment the workforce (ibid.: 99–100). The historical technical composition that once separated journalists from other news workers in the name of professionalism has been eroded not by the labour struggle, but by a process of ‘proletarisation’ (Cohen, 2016: 66–69; cf. Hardt, 1996) that reflects the weakness of the labour movement. As management shifted the pressures of a declining industry onto the employees, it forged a ‘coalition of survival’ that neutralised socio-economic tensions and prolonged the deteriorating business model without any substantial restructuring (ibid.). This pact replaced the promise of privileged status once embedded in professional ideology with the immediate logic of survival, dissolving occupational boundaries and reorganising representation at the company level.

A similar renegotiation is evident at the public broadcaster RTV Slovenia, where the ‘dualism of the standardisation of employment’ (Vobič and Bembič, 2021: 1255–1257) shows how material reforms can improve security for some while deepening conditions of pauperisation. Although standardisation expanded permanent employment and strengthened the basis for collective organisation, it was tied to managerial “rationalisation” that intensified workloads, reduced downtime and constrained skill development, particularly for journalists (ibid.). In this sense, journalists’ ‘re-proletarisation’ (Cohen, 2016: 66–69) stems less from formal employment status than from broader material conditions such as digitalisation and de-professionalisation, which normalise obstacles to pursuing public (cl)aims, maintaining long-term security and exercising specialised skills (ibid.: 1256).

These developments underscore the interdependence of material and ideological dimensions: uneven gains in employment security subordinated the principle of publicity to internal market logics and external political pressures. While the material erosion of professionalism has not dismantled its ideological apparatus, it has rearticulated it in ways that normalise precarity and restrict collective struggle.

The digitalisation and platformisation of journalism

The digitalisation and platformisation of journalism are fundamental material conditions of the profession, not merely through the integration of technology into everyday practices, but also by shaping broader ideological regimes that reconfigure professionalism (Kaluža and Slaček, 2021). These processes impose newsroom logics of speed, performativity and audience metrics, recalibrating priorities and undermining normative commitments to the principle of publicity. In Slovenia, these technological and ideological forces converge to restructure workflows, fragment professional knowledge and challenge journalists’ control over their work, establishing an environment in which professionalism is continually renegotiated.

Already in the initial stages of digitalisation, these tensions were already embedded in the discourse and materiality of journalism. Research indicates that digitalisation and corporate adaptations have exacerbated the problems of Slovenian journalism by naturalising the “need for speed” and clickbait logics, in turn weakening professional values and norms (Vobič, 2013). In these settings, professionalism is not dismantled completely but hollowed out: journalists continue to work under the symbolic banner of the principle of publicity while being structurally constrained from enacting it. Technological innovations, although rhetorically positioned as enhancing journalism and its public (cl)aims, were developed with minimal newsroom input and implemented in ways that prioritised monetisation, advertising optimisation and audience commodification (Slaček et al., 2017). As a result, professional authority is reoriented away from value rationality grounded in editorial judgement toward the instrumental rationality of metrics and market imperatives.

More recent studies on the platformisation of news journalism across different media sectors in Slovenia (Kaluža and Slaček, 2021; Sekloča and Slaček, 2024) show that the reconfiguration of professionalism is less an incremental adaptation than a process of technological capture, subordinating normative ideals to ideological imperatives and material conditions. Slovenian news media depend structurally on digital platforms whose infrastructural dominance dictates the logics of visibility, access and monetisation (Kaluža and Slaček, 2021). Such dependency embeds platform logics of quantification and algorithmic selection, degrading editorial control and judgement. The weakening of the “wall” between editorial and business departments normalises native advertising and other hybrid forms, further blurring professional boundaries in the pursuit of attention metrics and revenue streams (Sekloča and Slaček, 2024). The ideological promise of participation is mobilised to justify these shifts, while material pressures such as declining revenues and heavier workloads drive newsrooms toward survival strategies that trade away normative commitments in exchange for platform reach.

Such structural and organisational pressures increasingly lead newsroom strategies to converge, also leading to discernible patterns of news homogenisation (Vobič, 2013; Kaluža and Slaček, 2021). A recent big-data analysis of news diversity in Slovenia (Vobič et al., 2025) indicates that the Media24 network represents a distinct case of cross-platform integration. The conglomerate reproduces and circulates news across multiple subsidiaries, including national and local newspapers, digital news outlets and radio networks, demonstrating the rationalisation of production and a structurally driven form of homogenisation. Closer analysis, however, reveals internal differentiation. While radio networks operate as tightly knit clusters with high level of news similarity, local print and digital outlets display greater variation. Homogenisation within the conglomerate is therefore not uniform but fragmented across several concentrated, locally anchored, subnetworks. Rather than constituting a single, centralised, news infrastructure, Media24 functions as a network of interconnected nodes, exemplifying a pattern of segmented homogenisation. Under these conditions, professionalism prioritises adaptability, productivity and alignment with corporate demands.

These reconfigurations feed de-professionalisation, emphasising how the universal accessibility of digital tools, the blurring of public-private boundaries in platforms and the further commercialisation and bureaucratisation of news detract from journalism's distinctiveness and authority (Splichal and Dahlgren, 2016). This universalisation of communicative competence – summarised in the ideological notion that “we are all journalists” – weakens journalism's (cl)aim to a unique role in the public sphere, while the subordination of editorial decision-making to marketing, advertising and technological solutions further limits professionalism. Journalists in Slovenia and elsewhere appear to be increasingly drawn into what Splichal (2025) calls the ‘will to visibility’, and more specifically to ‘promotional visibility’, which manifests as a spectacle characteristic of corporate advertising and public relations. This orientation prioritises appearances and reinforces journalism's subordination to instrumental rationality, becoming the driving force of a ‘gig public’ (ibid.), a data-driven public shaped by performative and commodified discursive practices primarily aimed at recognition or economic gain. Amid these processes, the interactions between normative commitments, ideological narratives and material pressures have altered, causing notable challenges to professionalism.

Summary and conclusions

By tracing how normative commitments stemming from the principle of publicity interact with ideological imperatives and material constraints, this paper shows that journalistic professionalism is a relational, contested and continually reconfigured struggle for occupational control and change. The Slovenian case of news journalism reveals that these reconfigurations are not only discursive but also structural, fusing paternalistic commercialism with digitalisation and platform dependency. The study advances Evetts’ (2003) framework by demonstrating that journalistic professionalism is reconstituted not only “from within” and “from above”, but also “from beyond”, as it emerges from the mutual interaction of normative (cl)aims, ideological narrative and the material conditions of digitalised and platformised journalism. The material dimension decisively shapes and constrains these negotiations, from concentrated ownership, political instrumentalisation and pauperised labour to digitalised, platformised and data-driven workflows that embed commercial logics deep within journalism production.

From this vantage point, this study introduces a new conceptual frame: hollow professionalism. The notion captures a condition in which the symbolic architecture of professionalism remains intact, while the substantive capacity to enact the normative commitments is progressively corroded by ideological capture and material degradation. Under hollow professionalism, the principle of publicity is retained as a rhetorical resource but emptied of its operational strength.

While focusing on a limited number of news organisations indicative of broader trends necessarily constrains its generalisability, the analysis nonetheless reveals a pronounced hollowness in the professionalism of Slovenian news journalists. Namely, journalists speak of autonomy, watchdog roles and ethical obligations, while their routines, resource allocations and technological infrastructures increasingly orient them toward metrics, corporate loyalty and survival strategies. News journalism appears both resilient and fragile: resilient because its symbols can be reproduced and adapted to changing environments; fragile because its ability to sustain the profession's function according to the principle of publicity depends on a material base and structural autonomy, which are gradually being undermined. As a result, professionalism becomes increasingly performative and governed by instrumental rationality rather than fully enacted normative commitments. Hollow professionalism stems from the larger process of de-professionalisation and reproduces it by preserving – at least partially – the appearance of authority.

By foregrounding the struggles and compromises of news journalism, this analysis inevitably sidelines other parts of journalism's terrain in Slovenia – particularly its peripheries. For example, it does not engage in depth with grassroots and hyperlocal initiatives outside dominant commercial logics, data journalism and networked cross-border collaborations (Splichal, 2020), hybrid forms such as activist-journalist collectives and influencer-journalists blending branding with news curation (Lukan and Čehovin Zajc, 2024), or the political right's increasingly sophisticated efforts to build parallel media infrastructures and advance a rival professionalism fusing ideological loyalty with professional legitimacy (Delić, 2020).

Future comparative research across diverse media environments could examine whether hollow professionalism is particularly characteristic of small and peripheral markets, or whether it emerges in similar forms within large, central media systems shaped by platform capitalism. Such research could deepen our understanding of whether hollow professionalism operates chiefly as a form of imposed discipline or whether it is sustained through occupational self-legitimation at a time of journalism's crisis of authority.