The roles of lifestyle journalists: Normative role orientation, cognitive role orientation, and the role conception-performance gap

Journalists’ professional role conceptualisation contributes to a normative understanding of what journalism is. Current role research focuses mainly on journalism’s democratic and political function and less on journalism’s function in individuals’ private, everyday lives, despite the growth in such ‘softer’ news. Based on 31 interviews with Singaporean lifestyle journalists, this study investigated lifestyle journalists’ normative role orientation ( should do ), cognitive role orientation ( want to do ), and the structural barriers that prevent them from performing their role orientations. The findings show that what lifestyle journalists should do and want to do aligned in the roles of service provider, trustworthy tastemaker, emotional regulator, cultural intermediary, and community cheerleader; however, they diverged in the roles of alternate advocate and passionate storyteller. Furthermore, lifestyle journalists face barriers across the six dimensions of reference groups and professional, procedural, organisational, economic, and political influences that limit their role performance, leading to a complex journalistic role conception-performance gap.