I. Introduction This master’s thesis represents study of female newspaper and magazine editors in Azerbaijan based on Western and Soviet definitions of journalism with explanation of local national features of this p

II. Research project

II.1 Research purpose and research questions

Proposed research project is the second part of an academic effort to classify Azerbaijani editors and pinpoint their stances towards journalistic ethics. In our 2008²⁵ research we have stated that by that time no serious academic effort was directed to study the journalist community in Azerbaijan.²⁶ Even though the following four years brought some efforts, most notably by Russian scholars to encompass Azerbaijani media in the larger frame of post-Soviet area’s transitional development the question still remains open. Most notable is the deficit of reliable data from the region since as Richter points out Azerbaijan does not have even one serious organization that can be trusted with its survey results, including the data presented by such renown international organizations as Freedom House. On the other hand such organizations as Yeni Nesil journalists association or Turan news agency that are considered the best sources on current journalism situation in Azerbaijan limit their polls to only selected experts or improperly done street questionnaires (Richter 2007).

Today, after the two decades spent in transition Azerbaijani media community is still searching for its new identity and fights with deprofessionalization and political parallelism of its members (Valiyev 2008). The media scene is divided on government or pro-government, oppositional or pro-oppositional and independent or semi-independent press. However, since all private media live in a cobweb of patronage deals, proxy arrangements and management cronyism there is small space for media independency and for journalists to keep their external independence.
Our initial research aimed at exploring ethical attitudes of the elite of Azerbaijani journalists – editors of the 12 largest nation-wide newspapers gave us classification of editors in regard to their ethical stances as well as allowed us to state that Azerbaijani media currently suffers from instrumentalization and proletarization of journalists. What our research has omitted was the female editorial community and its stances in application of ethical values in their routine.

The purpose of this research is to come up with data that will allow us to generate typology mapping Azeri females who work or until recently worked as editors-in-chief, deputy editors or department editors in newspapers and magazines and research their ethical and value orientations in order to answer the main question of this research. The researcher will focus on stances of the abovementioned individuals regarding professional ethics and ethical self-regulation in media as well as will cover the question of how female journalists solve ethically problematic situations and evaluate their own influence in Azeri society. The structure of the research that copies the one of 2008 will allow us to map stances of female editorial community and then compare them with the stances of their male colleagues In addition, we will try to answer a question of how emancipated are female editors in Azerbaijan.