MUTATIS MUTANDIS? The stably evolving Portuguese Journalism

This article offers a diachronic comparative examination of the different dimensions regarding the Portuguese journalists' role conceptions, autonomy, trust in social institutions, influences, as well as ideology. Based on more than 500 interviews over a five year period, it corroborates the state of change of journalism as a result of the combined technological innovation impact and market-related considerations, which amounts to a sub-stantive deterioration of the working conditions in the profession, its public credibility and ethical standards. However, and above all, it also concludes that the statistically significant but rather selective and modest changes found validate a general trend of stability in Portuguese journalists self-perception in line with the theory of homogeneity across time.