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

VI. Summary

The premises of this research was to explore female editorial community consisting of newspaper and magazine editors in Azerbaijan and map their ethical and value orientations in order to answer the main question of this research: What types of female editors exist in regard to professional standards? With that goal in mind this thesis focused on stances of the selected gatekeepers and reviewed their stances on professional ethics and ethical self-regulation in media as well as scrutinized the question of how does media managers solved ethically problematic situations and evaluated their own influence in Azerbaijani society. Yet, the most valuable was answering questions on differences between male and female editors through a comparison of those findings with the findings that we received in 2008 while researching male editors in Azerbaijan.

The first two questions to be addressed were: how female editors perceive their influence in Azerbaijani society and if they experience any differences between them and their male colleagues. Leading this line of inquiry in the context of the post-Soviet Azerbaijan the research revealed that female editors not only exist but represent more educated (53% posses journalistic education) and more experienced (41-11 years of practice) journalistic ethos than their male colleagues causing their high level of self-esteem. Moreover, in comparison with politically divided and instrumentilized male colleagues, female editors congregate predominantly in independent, semi-independent newspapers and magazines as well as in non-political newspapers/magazines aimed at specific auditoriums. High self-esteem declines when contrasted with low financial status causing less experienced editors to doubt their influence in the society. However, old and experienced female editors are better known to the public and the ruling elite accepts them as valuable assets resulting in their transformation into a part of modern nomenklatura. However, while positively evaluating their role in the Azerbaijani society, female editors underscored that they have to constantly fight the symbolic annihilation implemented through stereotypes created by the patriarchal Azerbaijani society as well as male bias represented by “male jealousy” at their work places. Particularly valuable was an array of responses where female editors reflected on their job satisfaction and motivation.
Among noticeable findings for example we can mention the fact that female editors stated that journalism profession was less accessible for females during the Soviet Union than in modern days. On one hand it contradicts the trend propagated by the communist ideology on other hand, however, this finding receives confirmation by Pasti’s research of St. Petersburg journalists where respondents from the post-Soviet Russia confirm that “in the Soviet era there were fewer female journalists than male journalists”. (Pasti 2007:215) The present media system according to editors that came to the profession after the Independence on the contrary gives females more opportunities to be successful journalist. However, the devaluation of professional standards that brought transition from the Soviet type to the Western type of media system presented such negative trends as deprofessionalization and proletarization of journalists. Situation where many journalists earn average of 167 manats per month⁴⁴ and still lack job contracts discourages talented people with journalistic education to work as professional journalists and attracts individuals less educated but willing to work under this conditions. Necessity to survive as well as to fulfill political order of their sponsors leads Azerbaijani media to abandonment of professional autonomy and diminishes respect of auditorium that constitutes itself in low readership base and thus low circulation numbers. Related trend can be traced in other post-Soviet inquiries such as Richter’s research of Russian media or Volek and Jirak’s of the Czech media landscape. In each case the “…process of deprofessionalization is directly connected with the lowering of professional standards and criteria to enter journalistic community or in other words continuous resignation on elementary professional standards”. [Volek, 2006]
That being said the second set of questions reviewed was: how do the female editors perceive ethical self-regulation in journalism and what are their stances towards journalistic professional organizations? In terms of ethical code knowledge female editors are well behind their male colleagues and do not follow development of media self regulations norms. Only few of the selected females posses normative knowledge of ethical codes, however even those few were not able to define closer what norms those codes instill. On the other hand interviews that we have conducted definitely allow us to say that Azerbaijani female editors are influenced by national mentality and stereotypes of feminine behavior in Islamic culture and rely on years of journalistic practice and clichés that are connected to it. The editors proclaim that they believe in importance of codified ethical norms and yet when it comes to practice those codes remain a handy accessory. In-depth interviews revealed that the editors posses rather intuitive than categorized knowledge of journalistic ethics. Only one of the female editors said that ethical code exists in Azerbaijan and even that editor was not sure saying it in a form of a question. , prefer to use norms that they were taught while receiving their education in the Soviet Union as well as follow conduct procedures that they learnt from old-school professionals when they started to work.
Following the tradition editors in their newspapers try to enlighten and educate reader while evading substantial criticism of the political regime. The analysis of answers received allowed us to conclude that even though female editors declare that professional organizations should create and enforce professional standards among journalist in practice they do not rely on the organizations and act according to their own best knowledge and work experience. The distrust is mirrored in dominating ignorance of the membership in professional organizations including male dominated Press Council or the Union of Azerbaijan Journalists as well as female professional organization Azerbaijan Woman Journalist Association. One of the reasons why professional organizations have low influence is the reality where all prominent journalistic organizations involved in promotion of ethical standards in Azerbaijan are male dominated and leave female editors only the role of followers. Unwilling to be pressed in a clash of polarized and politically biased professional organizations female editors embrace isolation or a bystander position that leads to the persistent alienation of this ethos to professional organizations. Complications surrounding legitimacy of professional journalistic organizations lead to a state where female editors ignoring professional organizations are also unaware of ethical norms that those organizations produce and promote.
The last two questions to be discussed were: do female journalists use ethical codes to solve ethical dilemmas and what are differences between ethical approaches of female and male journalists in Azerbaijan? As it was already mentioned above Azerbaijani female editors do not enforce ethical codes in their newspapers/magazines. Yet when it comes to ethically dilemmatic situations majority of female editors manage to comply with practices stipulated in the local ethical code of the Press Council. Brief glance at the Ethical Code provided in the Appendix provides explanation: the code consists of widely defined ethical norms that match basic practices that the editors learned during their practice.
It is also comforting to say that there are some differences between ethical approaches of female and male journalists in Azerbaijan. We already mentioned once that Azerbaijani female editors are highly trained professionals with extensive experience that work predominantly in independent, semi-independent or government-funded but narrowly oriented newspapers and magazines. This neutral zone allows this editorial segment to practice journalism that is relatively free from political instrumentilization so common for male operated editors and allows them to manage their offices according to their professional judgment and universal ethical norms. When a female editor runs across an ethical dilemma she relies predominantly on herself rather than ethical code and does not consult colleagues as do, from time to time her male colleagues. Another sharp distinction between men and women: from their interviews we can derive that female editors while making a decision are more ethically cautious and morally developed than their male counterparts.
Logically answering all of these questions brought our inquiry to the point where based on the answers of the selected fourteen female editors we had to answer the main research question: What types of female editors in regard to professional standards exist in Azerbaijani printed newspapers and magazines. Using slightly modified editor typology devised in our 2008 research we divided 14 editors into three categories (See table 8): the idealist practitioner, the pragmatic practitioner and the old-school professional. The main difference with the male editors’ typology is that journalistic education was not reserved only to the old-school professional category but was spread evenly between the three types. In addition, editors placed in the category pragmatic practitioner were assigned there on the basis of their workplace (government funded newspapers and a magazine) rather than on the basis of their answers since work in government owned or funded newspaper/magazine always carries potential that editor will be forced to leave ethical norms and join politically instrumentilized frenzy.