Role conflicts in brand journalism: Amid organizational goals, audience demands, and journalistic values

Brand journalism is a strategic communication approach where organizations create and distribute content that resembles journalistic media. Positioned between journalism and PR, it faces the challenge of reconciling three conflicting expectations: organizations strive for favorable coverage aligned with their strategic interests, the audience expects journalistic standards of unbiased, balanced, and independent reporting, and brand journalists adhere to their own professional values and principles. This collision of conflicting expectations creates a breeding ground for role conflicts, wherein the perceived autonomy of brand journalists emerges as a pivotal factor influencing their occurrence. This study explores the role of perceived autonomy in triggering role conflicts. Through a quantitative survey of brand journalists, we unveil the presence of both person-role conflicts and inter-sender-role conflicts, all rooted in a diminishing sense of autonomy. These conflicts, in turn, result in heightened stress and diminished job satisfaction, underscoring the intricate nature of the dual role that brand journalists navigate. Finally, the paper discusses the implications of brand journalism publications for the public, the role of transparency, and whether the term brand journalist adequately describes the professional role, even though they are not traditional journalists.