The Knowing–Perceiving gap in journalists’ professional ethics: Professional socialization and young adults’ perceptions in contemporary China

Abstract

This study examines whether different levels of professional socialization shape young adults’ perceptions of journalists’ professional ethics in the contemporary Chinese media environment. Drawing on theories of professional socialization and implicit cognition, a mixed-methods design was employed, combining a Single-Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT) with semi-structured interviews. In Study 1, participants with journalism internship experience (JIE), journalism and communication majors without internship experience (MJC), and non-journalism students (NN) completed an SC-IAT to measure implicit evaluative associations toward journalists’ professional ethics. No significant differences were found across the three groups. To contextualize these findings, Study 2 conducted interviews with students, professional journalists, and journalism educators. The qualitative findings revealed a consistent distinction between normative understandings of what journalists should do and perceptions of what journalists actually do. Across groups, participants generally recognized the ethical ideals associated with journalism while expressing similar perceptions of the profession as increasingly constrained by platformization, commercialization, and changing media environments. Drawing on the convergence of quantitative and qualitative evidence, the study tentatively proposes a process of de-differentiation in perceptions of journalists’ ethical status quo and identifies three potential mechanisms that may contribute to this pattern: tensions between normative and experiential narratives within professional socialization, the influence of non-professional information channels, and broader structural transformations in the media environment. The findings suggest that professional socialization may be effective in transmitting normative knowledge but more limited in shaping perceptions of actual professional practice.