Using social media in the news reportage of War & Conflict: Opportunities and Challenges
Based on interviews with Swiss journalists who specialise in war and international reportage, this article investigates the extent to which social media impacts on reportage of war and conflict. The interviews examine journalists’ perceptions of the threats and opportunities posed by use of social media in reporting conflict, by investigating how journalists position themselves and their practices within this new media ecosystem. In particular, the interviews explore whether challenges to professional journalism encountered in previous studies of reportage of war and conflict are overcome by the use of social media. It explores if social media can mitigate the effects of military and government restriction of information, changing newsroom dynamics and issues of audience engagement in reportage of conflict. The findings highlight that in the context of war and conflict the dynamism creates opportunities for fast, news dissemination, pluralised voices in reportage and extended audience reach. However, reporters must also negotiate the complexities that fast, multi-medium and multi-sourced information create for reporting practices, especially in terms of verification of information and contextualisation. Thus this article argues that although social media adds dynamism to journalistic environments, this dynamism also brings new levels of complexity to journalistic practice that professional media workers must negotiate.
Global Crisis Reporting : How Social Media influence Media Coverage of war and conflict
From “Selfies” to Breaking Tweets: How journalists negotiate personal and professional identity on social media
The aim of this paper is to analyse the different ways in which journalists negotiate representations of their professional and personal identity on social media platforms. We argue that the differing representations of personal and professional identity on social media correspond to the professional, organisational and institutional tensions that have emerged in this new space. Using qualitative interviews with various journalists and editorial staff from Australian media organisations across television, radio, print and online publications, we indicate that journalists present their personal and professional identity on social media in three different ways. The first group create public, professional social media accounts, but also create secondary, private accounts that are only accessible to personal networks. The second group either choose, or are required by their media organisation, to only have a professional presence on social media; that is, they have public accounts that are only associated with their media organisation and display only their professional activities. The last group merge a professional and personal identity on their social media sites, showing aspects of their personal and their professional lives on publically available accounts.
Don't Tweet This! How journalists and media organizations negotiate tensions emerging from the implementation of social media policy in newsrooms
Journalistic use of social media for sourcing, distribution and promotion of news comes at a time when the newsroom itself can be said to be in a state of “transition”. Previous research about social media and journalism has focussed on the transition of journalistic practices to the “social media age”, but less attention has been given to the ways in which new workplace relationships might contribute to a social media-enabled newsroom. It is thus important to analyse the policies and procedures different media organizations have implemented to integrate and regulate the use of social media in their newsrooms and how this might impact on news production and dissemination overall. The aim of this paper is to compare and critically analyse social media management policies and procedures in Australian newsrooms, as well as the relations between various editorial staff, to manage its introduction into journalistic practice. Based on 25 qualitative research interviews with editors, social media managers and news media staff from major Australian media companies, this study also reflects more broadly on the potential conflicts created by the regulation of social media use in newsrooms and how various personnel respond to them.