Journalistic Role Performance A New Research Agenda in a Digital and Global Media Environment Claudia Mellado, Lea Hellmueller, and Wolfgang Donsbach Global press freedom declined to its lowest point in 12 years in 2015, mainly due to political, criminal, and terrorist forces that sought to co-opt or silence the media in their struggle for power (Freedom House, 2016). As of 2015, only one in seven people around the world lived in a country that had a free media system, a country in which the coverage of news was robust, and the safety of journalists guaranteed. The rest have been living in coun- tries whose press was either “partly free” or “not free” (Freedom House, 2016). As one of the most dangerous places in a world that has seen a recent upswing in violence against journalists, in Mexico, for example, even a car crash is not a simple car crash. “You have to call somebody to make sure you can write about it,” one journalist said, “because it might actually not be an accident but a purposeful vehicular homicide organized by the cartel” (Priest, 2015). And while journalists are aware of how the government and cartels are controlling news stories, self-censoring has become a com- mon tactic. The situation of journalists in Mexico is the rule rather than the exception. Journalists in Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, and many other countries from around the world work also under severe and difficult circumstances. Indeed, the threatening of and harassment of journalists are a global chal- lenge that even affects advanced democracies like Sweden, usually seen as a very safe and free country when it comes to the autonomy of journalists (Löfgren & Örnebring, 2016). From a practical point of view, autonomy is contingent on the willing- ness and the ability of journalists to work free from any attempts to censor the press in favor of commercial, political, or managerial goals (Waisbord, 2013). Thus, journalistic autonomy can also be conceptualized as the extent to which journalists can put their professional roles and ideals into practice (Mellado & Van Dalen, 2014)—in other words, the professional role perfor- mances we can observe in different countries. This is what this book addresses. It goes in depth into the concept of jour- nalistic role performance to better understand the importance of studying