Journalism and Social Media: Redistribution of Power?

Broersma, Marcel; Eldridge, Scott A.

doi:10.17645/mac.v7i1.2048

Cited by 33 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…While a growing body of studies focuses on journalism in relation to actors and the logics of social media platforms (Broersma and Eldridge 2019), research on journalism's specific role within news-related practices and the competences of young audiences is still limited. However, blurred boundaries between professional and non-professional sources has several implications for young peoples’ news-related practices.…”

Section: Journalism Young People and News Use In A Hybrid Media Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Journalism Still Matter? The Role of Journalistic and non-Journalistic Sources in Young Peoples’ News Related Practices

Wunderlich

Hölig

Hasebrink

2022

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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In today's hybrid media environment new content creators challenge the status of professionally produced journalism and blur the lines between professional and non-professional content. Growing up in this information landscape, younger generations have developed news-related practices and attitudes that lie in stark contrast to those of previous generations. In addition, discrepancies exist between news definitions and the use practices of young people. We conducted focus groups with German adolescents (15–17 years), young adults (18–24 years) and adults (40–53 years) in August 2020 to uncover young peoples’ orientation toward news and journalism. Our study indicates that the boundaries of what journalism is and what it is not are becoming increasingly indistinct. However, distinctions do emerge between the journalistic and non-journalistic sources that adolescents and young adults use and the functions they associate with them according to their information needs. Differences between the age groups become apparent in their motivations to stay informed which highlights the important role non-journalistic sources play in information behaviour and opinion formation. For teenage participants especially, Social Media Influencers (SMIs) are relevant within these processes, which are linked to a perceived social duty-to-keep-informed. Moreover, findings from the focus groups highlight cohort-specific differences regarding the understanding of journalism and, consequently, differences in the assessment of trust and reliability as well as the verification strategies that are applied. In sum, for young participants journalism is a reliable source of information, especially in the case of current events and for crosschecking online information, while non-journalistic sources fulfil social needs.

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Section: Journalism Young People and News Use In A Hybrid Media Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Journalism Still Matter? The Role of Journalistic and non-Journalistic Sources in Young Peoples’ News Related Practices

Wunderlich

Hölig

Hasebrink

2022

The International Journal of Press/Politics

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“…General interpersonal trust has been found to be positively associated with trust in media (Tsfati and Ariely 2014, 770). The proliferation of user-generated content, the ever-increasing prominence of social media in audiences' media diets, and the generally ubiquitous consumption of news in digital formats have all prompted debates on how these phenomena are changing the power dynamics of news production and the consumption of legacy media (Broersma and Eldridge 2019;Napoli and Caplan 2017). Researchers have argued that the ease of social media use offers easy access to content but also a false sense of community and support-and that social media thus exploits societal vulnerabilities and advances the corrosion of social trust (Zuboff 2019, 383-384).…”

Section: Institutional or Generalized Trustmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Multidimensionality of Trust: Assessing Finnish Audiences’ Views on the Trustworthiness of Digital News

Horowitz

Ojala

Matikainen

et al. 2021

Global Perspectives

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Finland provides an interesting case study on trust in the media in the digital era. The country is known to exhibit the greatest levels of trust in the political establishment and the government, as well as the media. In the Finnish “digital welfare state,” the news is an inseparable part of the mechanism, producing a high level of social trust within the welfare state system, and Finland features the highest level of media freedom and literacy in Europe. This multimethod study examines different understandings of trust by studying in what ways Finnish audiences experience trust in news, especially when consuming news on digital platforms, and what factors explain trust in different news sources. Our basic premise is that trust can be understood in three ways: as dispositions of individual actors, as the social organization and the relationship between different social nodes and the system, and as a constantly negotiated property of social relations. We apply this three-dimensional framework in two sets of audience survey research data (2019, 2020) and reflect the findings with a focus group and expert interviews as well as with two similar surveys a decade prior. Our results depict relatively high levels of trust in the media in Finland and surprisingly little change in audiences’ perceptions of trustworthiness compared to the earlier surveys. The most defining characteristic of Finnish audiences is critical trust. Audiences are aware of the impacts of digitization, especially the dangers of social media bubbles and disinformation. They also recognize market-driven imperatives of journalism yet appreciate legacy news media in its different digital forms. Our study indicates that a balance between skepticism and reliance on news outlets can exist in audiences’ perceptions of the trustworthiness of digital news.

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“…Social media’s presence has been ‘normalized’ within journalistic functions and how audiences consume news (Broersma and Eldridge, 2019: 194). Mobile devices have become ‘the most important platform for news audiences’ (Nelson and Lei, 2018: 628).…”

Section: Audience Expectations As Boundary Markersmentioning

confidence: 99%

A question of perspective: Exploring audiences’ views of journalistic boundaries

Banjac

Hanusch

2020

New Media & Society

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While scholarship has studied the boundary discourses of (quasi-)journalistic actors on social network sites, how audiences perceive these boundaries and engage with these interlopers’ work has been examined far less frequently. Drawing on 11 focus groups, this article explores how audiences construct boundaries by examining and comparing their expectations of content creators on Instagram, YouTube and blogs, with traditional journalism and journalists. Findings show audiences expect journalists to embody established, normative journalistic values, largely excluding content creators from this field. Audiences’ expectations of content creators reveal a more nuanced picture, which includes expectations of authenticity and transparency, engagement, and quality, slow content. Interpreted against broader debates in journalism, we argue that they reveal implicitly journalistic values and expectations, thus blurring normative boundary distinctions. Furthermore, audiences feel an increase in market orientation among both journalists and content creators leads to lower connection and perceptions of credibility, thus further disrupting boundaries.

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Journalism and Social Media: Redistribution of Power?

Cited by 33 publications

References 12 publications

Does Journalism Still Matter? The Role of Journalistic and non-Journalistic Sources in Young Peoples’ News Related Practices

Does Journalism Still Matter? The Role of Journalistic and non-Journalistic Sources in Young Peoples’ News Related Practices

The Multidimensionality of Trust: Assessing Finnish Audiences’ Views on the Trustworthiness of Digital News

A question of perspective: Exploring audiences’ views of journalistic boundaries

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