These are challenging times for journalists’ relationship with their audiences. Attacks against “the media” and the increasing weaponization of social media to harass journalists have drawn the attention of scholars worldwide. In the current climate, journalists are not only distrusted but also hated, which creates a series of distinct ramifications. In this article, we suggest a new framework to study journalists–audiences relationship, particularly in times of hostile populism: the imagined journalists approach. A mirror image of the much-studied concept of imagined audiences, imagined journalists refers to the entirety of ideas, feelings, stereotypes, and imaginaries that audiences hold regarding their imagined news producers. It brings together the research on media trust, audiences’ perceptions, antimedia populism, and the emotional turn in journalism—to generate a comprehensive understanding of people’s criticisms, narratives, and priorities. We demonstrate the potential of this approach by analyzing 1,215 responses to an open-ended question regarding journalists’ traits in Israel in 2021. Employing qualitative and quantitative analyses, we find that: (a) right-wing and pro-populist voters hold more negative views of journalists, as expected; (b) voters express three different types of criticism of journalists (professional, personal, and national)—only one of which directly relates to their professional conduct; (c) different types of voters express different types of criticism; and (d) while objectivity and bias remain main concerns, democracy is not a dominant factor in respondents’ thinking on journalists. These findings contribute theoretically and methodologically to future research in the field, as well as to urgent attempts to improve our information environment.

中文翻译：

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想象中的记者：研究民粹主义时代媒体与受众关系的新框架

对于记者与观众的关系来说，现在是充满挑战的时期。针对“媒体”的攻击以及社交媒体日益成为骚扰记者的武器，引起了全世界学者的关注。在当前的环境下，记者不仅不被信任，还受到憎恨，这造成了一系列明显的后果。在本文中，我们提出了一个新的框架来研究记者与观众的关系，特别是在敌对民粹主义时期：想象的记者方法。想象中的记者是人们广泛研究的想象中观众概念的镜像，它指的是观众对他们想象中的新闻制作人所持有的全部想法、感受、刻板印象和想象。它汇集了对媒体信任、受众认知、反媒体民粹主义和新闻情感转变的研究，以对人们的批评、叙述和优先事项产生全面的理解。我们通过分析 1,215 个关于 2021 年以色列记者特征的开放式问题的回答来证明这种方法的潜力。通过定性和定量分析，我们发现：(a) 右翼和亲民主义选民持有更多负面看法正如预期的那样，记者的观点；(b) 选民对记者提出三种不同类型的批评（专业的、个人的和国家的）——只有其中一种与他们的职业行为直接相关；(c) 不同类型的选民表达不同类型的批评；(d) 虽然客观性和偏见仍然是主要问题，但民主并不是受访者对记者看法的主导因素。这些发现在理论上和方法上对该领域的未来研究以及改善我们的信息环境的紧急尝试做出了贡献。