Different Societies, Employment Systems and Career Development Patterns of Newspaper Journalists

• In Event: 378 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session II
  In Refereed Roundtable: B. Table 05. Work and Occupations

Abstract

This paper presents characteristics and patterns of journalists’ career development in different societies. Newspaper journalists or reporters need specific skills and abilities; therefore we might assume that human resource management systems for those journalists may be highly performance oriented. A previous study on Japanese newspaper companies by the current authors elucidated that this was not the case. Employment practices based on seniority and life-time employment still operate in Japanese newspaper companies. The paper further compares characteristics of newspaper journalists’ career development patterns with those in the U.S., U.K., France and South Korea, and identifies that each country has different industrial structure and career development patterns. However, those four countries’ employment markets have high mobility; consequently it seems that their newspaper journalists have more career choices compared to those in Japan. People can now collect news and information from all over the world. However, the differences of HRM systems and journalists’ career development patterns may result in differences in quality and perspectives of information compiled by those journalists. We need in-depth understanding of how those differences in HRM and career development patterns of journalists have affected news and articles we see, hear and read in everyday life.

Authors

• Kuniko Ishiguro, Bunkyo Gakuin University

• Hiromi CHO, Toyo University