The Twitterization of News Making: Transparency and Journalistic Professionalism

Abstract

Twitter makes visible some of the most fundamental divides in professional journalism today. It reveals tensions about what constitutes news, the norms guiding journalists providing it, professional identity, and public service. This article argues that these tensions result from a clash between the institutional logic of professional control (Lewis, 2012)) and an ethic of transparency. Drawing from extensive research on a political press corps, involving observation, interviews, and analysis of tweets, this study witnesses the adoption of Twitter in the everyday working practices of reporters. It thereby also provides reasons why Twitter has been so successful in journalism. Tensions between professional control and transparency in journalism may, furthermore, be emblematic for divides in other professions today.

Periodismo lento (slow journalism) en la era de la inmediatez. Experiencias en Iberoamérica

“…Esta tendencia alcanzó su cénit con la invención del directo televisivo en la década de los 50, con la que los medios aceleraron su carrera imparable por la primicia, al tiempo que la programación tomaba la forma de extensos ciclos noticiosos de 24 horas y 7 días a la semana (Cushion; Lewis, 2010). Al finalizar el segundo milenio, los nuevos soportes digitales -internet, telefonía móvil, etc.-han reforzado aún más la posibilidad de acceder a las noticias de manera ubicua e instantánea y hoy las agendas informativas están marcadas por el devenir noticioso de redes sociales como Twitter que se caracterizan por un flujo informativo imparable, veloz y de formato breve (Revers, 2014).…”

Realism, social cohesion, and media policymaking: The case of Swiss public broadcasting

“…Public service media providers, just like traditional media institutions in general, find themselves increasingly challenged by the internet and the social web (e.g. Revers 2014). Emergent ideas are in growing demand, both on the operative level of content production as well as on the meta level of organizational policymaking, development, and the sheer survival of journalism as a key agent of highly mediatized democracies (Christians et al 2009) in Europe.…”

The Field of American Media Sociology: Origins, Resurrection, and Consolidation

“…The rise of the internet, diversification of news production and upheaval within legacy news institutions, however, has demanded a “second wave of newsroom ethnography” (Cottle ), which has come upon us in the last 10 years. These studies are particularly interested in technological innovations and convergence in the news business as well as new media work more broadly (Deuze ; Klinenberg ; Neff ) and are influenced by science and technology studies (Anderson ; Boczkowski ), new institutionalism (Boczkowski ; Ryfe ), and cultural sociology (Revers ; Revers ). Lewis () took a sociology of professions approach to study the relation between traditional and participatory journalism.…”