On media accountability and religious tradition: a Weberian lecture of a contemporaneous comparative study

The research results of a pan-European project (the author was part of), that included also two Arab countries, indicate that the approach journalists manifest toward issues of ethics, responsibility and accountability depend on their national backgrounds. The article proposes the introduction of another factor in the discussion about responsibility, following Max Weber’s line: the religious tradition. The discussion of research results will be based on the sociology of work and religion and on previous results of other cross-national analyses of religion and work attitudes. The need to be accountable and responsible, the approach to guilt, the acceptance of regulatory and normative institutional pressures and the possibility of negotiation with different pressure factors may be better explain by general religious context, traditional understanding of work and leisure and traditional understanding of guilt and absolution. These all are rooted in a national religious context, even if the country is a laic one.