As Americans navigate an often-overwhelming stream of news online – some of it coming from nontraditional news providers – what it means to be a journalists in the digital age has become increasingly open to interpretation.

That is apparent in several ways in a new Pew Research Center study. Who Americans see as a “journalist” depends on both the individual news provider and the news consumer, similar to the variety of ways people define “news.”

There is a lack of consensus – and perhaps some uncertainty – about whether someone who primarily compiles other people’s reporting or offers opinions on current events is a journalist, according to a new Center survey. Americans are also split over whether people who share news in “new media” spaces like newsletters, podcasts and social media are journalists.

In some ways, Americans’ ideas about journalists are still tied to what the news industry looked like in the 20th century. When asked who comes to mind when they think of a journalist, many everyday Americans who participated in our focus groups said they think of traditional TV newscasters like Walter Cronkite and Tom Brokaw, modern anchors like Lester Holt and Anderson Cooper, and even fictional characters like Clark Kent.

Most Americans say journalists are at least somewhat important to the well-being of society. At the same time, many are critical of journalists’ job performance and say they are declining in influence, an opinion that follows years of financial and technological turmoil in the news industry. And many views toward journalists continue to be sharply divided by political party, with Republicans taking a more skeptical view of the profession than Democrats.

As part of our broader study of how Americans get news and information nowadays, we wanted to know what people think about the role of journalists in the digital age – including what makes someone a journalist, what Americans think is important for journalists to do in their daily work, and what backgrounds and attributes people are looking for in their news providers broadly (whether they are journalists or not). So earlier this year, we posed these questions in a survey of more than 9,000 Americans and in online focus groups with 45 U.S. adults.

Read the full article about journalists in the digital age by Kirsten Eddy, Michael Lipka, Katerina Eva Matsa, Naomi Forman-Katz, Jacob Liedke, Christopher St. Aubin, and Luxuan Wang at Pew Research Center.