The utilization of journalistic sources in the national press: Communicating in transformation from economic crisis to sustainable growth

This paper discusses the role and utilization of journalistic sources in the process of communicating the transitional path of a society in crisis towards economic and sustainable growth. It is mainly concerned with the general tendency of the press to display a high degree of manipulation of public opinion by reduction of the diversity of sources and/or their misuse. Cyprus was selected as a case study not only because newspapers still play a dominant role in shaping public opinion in contrast to New Media, but also because sustainable growth has been the basic argument and rhetoric in governmental communication policy, which promoted it as one of the main means in overcoming the ongoing economic/banking crisis the country has been facing since the bailout of the banking sector in 2013. The aim of this research is to examine which categories of journalistic sources shape this topic in the current public sphere and the way(s) journalists perceive and practice the utilization of their sources. Content analysis has been employed as the basic methodological tool, while a questionnaire survey on journalists of the national press was additionally conducted in order to explain these ndings and conclude the study.