Navigating the Merciless Space: Hybrid Media Accountability and Professional Adaptation Among Moroccan Journalists

Abstract

The role of social media in promoting citizen-led media accountability is increasingly studied, however the perspectives of journalists who are the target of this scrutiny remain critically under-explored especially within non-Western, hybrid regimes. This article addresses this gap by investigating how Moroccan journalists perceive, navigate and adapt to the pressures of this new digital public sphere. This study used thematic semi-structured interviews with eight experienced journalists which uncovered a profound ambivalence. They perceived social media as a "double-edged sword": a vital space for dialogue and citizen-led scrutiny, but also a source of relentless pressure that creates a tension between speed and accuracy, challenges editorial independence, and blurs the lines between professional journalism and the influencer economy. The core finding is the journalists' own conceptualization of an emergent Hybrid Accountability Model, where informal, citizen-led pressure on social media acts as an "immediate trigger" that is most effective when it converges with and activates formal institutional mechanisms. This model is characterized by two defining dynamics: contingent convergence, the strategic interplay between informal public pressure and formal institutional power, and perpetual contestation, the ongoing struggle against internal ethical dilemmas and external structural constraints. This research provides a rare, grounded view from within the newsroom, contributing a crucial professional perspective to the de-Westernization of MA theory. It demonstrates how journalistic norms and identities are being actively renegotiated in response to the complex dynamics of a contested digital ecosystem, which offers a significant empirical operationalization of emerging non-Western theoretical frameworks and a necessary complication of classical Western models of media accountability for the digital age.

Key words : De-Westernization, Hybrid Media Accountability, Journalism, Morocco, Social Media, Professional Identity, Platform Dependency.

Received Date: October 20, 2024

Accepted Date: November 11, 2025

Published Date: December 01, 2025

Available Online at: https://www.ijsrisjournal.com/index.php/ojsfiles/article/view/519