إدراك الإعلاميين السعوديين لأدوارهم الوظيفية و المهنية في بيئة الإعلام الرقمي

Abstract EN

This study seeks to know the professional and functional roles of Saudi media practitioners, and the factors that affect these roles, and also to what extent they are familiar with the digital media environment.

The study draws on the role theory, and the hierarchical influences model in building its variables and inter-preting its findings.

The study targeted the communicators in the private and governmental Saudi media.

They are classified and stratified according to the media type, which include (print journalism, online journalism, satellites chan-nels, radio stations).

The study used the quantitative method, and applied the stratified random sample in an attempt to best represent the research society.

The study sample consisted of 203 respondents.

The study concludes that the cultural function and societal awareness ranked at the first among the Saudi media practitioners, followed respectively by the func-tion of national and political mobilization (at the second rank), the function of publicity and news (the third rank), the societal participation (the forth rank), the function of explanation and interpretation (the fifth rank), and finally comes the function of censorship and criticism at the sixth rank.

Regarding the professional roles among the Saudi media practitioners, which focuses on the content crea-tion and its treatment, the study concludes that the Saudi media practitioners focuses on the professional role represented by the news journalism, which comes at the first rank, followed by the professional role of cultural journalism ( at the second rank), and the professional role of investigative journalism (at the third rank), and the interpretative and analytical professional role (at the fourth rank), and both the transformation from the news issues and topics to the enter-tainment topics , and the transformation from the institutional media work to the media work through individual platform come at late ranks, which means that the news journalism remains the dominant media practice.

The professional roles adopted by Saudi media practitioners associated with other variables such as their practice environment, their professional skills, and their professional training and qualification.

To keep up with the digital media environment, Saudi media practitioners depend on their own efforts, whether through self-learning or through their joining in vocational training courses in the field of work.

This indicates the weakness of the institutional planning of the training and qualification programs within Saudi media.

And also, this points to that the Saudi media practitioners suffer from problems related to the level of qualification and training in their institutions, which do not keep pace with the functional and professional developments of the rapidly evolving digital media environment.