Rearticulating the Journalism Profession: Public Journalism and Professional Reflexivity.

In this paper I will examine journalism profession from the viewpoint of journalists' own perspective. I will examine the way in which public journalism projects in three different newspapers in Finland have acted as a ground for professional reflexivity. The idea of the paper is to consider how journalists position themselves as professionals when they can reflect upon their own self-image and work practices through concrete and experimental news projects.Public journalism (or civic journalism) refers to the reform movement, to set of practices and to the philosophy about the press and its relation to the public. In this paper I will conclude that public journalism in the Finnish context has invoked journalists to reflect on their professional identities in relation to four directions: their own work community, the media organisation, the public (sphere) and the profession.Journalists rearticulate the role of the journalist as a helper; accessible collaborator; discussion moderator or "connector" and as a commercial representative of the paper. These signs point to the direction that despite its permanence and stability, journalists' professional self-image is a construct that can be rearticulated. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]