How do South Korean podcasts reflect changes in journalistic norms and practices? Comparing podcasts of professional journalists with podcasts of non-journalists

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine whether journalistic norms of objectivity and practices of gatekeeping are observed in news and current-affairs podcasts. By analyzing 101 episodes from three different types of news and political podcasts, which included 13,237 sentences related to the 2022 presidential election in South Korea, the findings showed that journalistic norms and practices were often blurred in podcasts. Specifically, this study measured objectivity norms in three ways: (1) expression of opinion and first-person narration; (2) types of evidence/grounds employed; and (3) transparency of evidence/grounds. The results showed that 15.8% of sentences included opinions and 3.1% included first-person narrations. Three out of 10 episodes (31.7%) included no evidence. Only half the evidence/grounds were transparent (56.4%). Also, the gatekeeping role was shared by inviting outsiders as interviewees (71.3%). Importantly, the findings showed that the observation of norms and practices differed depending on whether podcast hosts were affiliated with mainstream media.