Abstract
While investigative journalism is crucial for ensuring transparency and accountability on public issues, it is often subject to various social, political, and economic pressures. Journalists, in particular, face challenges such as government pressure, violence, harassment, and restrictions on access to sources. As a result, investigative reporters are often forced to protect themselves from informal constraints and prohibitions. This, in turn, affects the flow of information, leading to what are known as “invisible boundaries”.This study explores the informal system of restrictions in investigative journalism in Kazakhstan through in-depth interviews with 13 professional journalists. The findings show that topics in the red zone include the President and his family, high-ranking officials, state-owned and quasi-state enterprises, oligarchs, and issues of ethnic or religious sensitivity. Yellow zone topics cover regional authorities, systemic corruption, civil society activists, and environmental or land disputes. In contrast, topics in the green zone – such as local corruption, social issues, and women’s rights, remain relatively open for investigation.Rather than focusing on overt or explicit censorship, the study identifies the subtle mechanisms through which government structures, media owners, and advertisers indirectly foster self-censorship among journalists.Although based on Kazakhstan, the findings provide insights into how similar informal boundaries and self-censorship mechanisms operate across other authoritarian and semi-authoritarian media systems, contributing to broader discussions of press freedom and journalistic autonomy in constrained political environments.