Implications of social media on providing information for journalists
As sourcing is a crucial part in the process of journalistic practice, the way how journalists get the news sources can impact practical issues in making news and reflect the power relations in social situations. However, newsgathering seems to be neglected sometimes by scholarship as what Rupar (2006: 127) illustrated that “it seldom gets more than recognition as a technique”.
Harcup (2004) argued that the tweets which include news content, the posts of comments and UGC are all related to citizen journalism. Such kind of contents generated by citizens can be included in mainstream media coverage (Kurtz, 2003), assisted by reliable verification procedures that are used to …show more content…
Social networks seem to provide a new opportunity for journalistic practices as it can promote the advancement of collaborative journalism, which can leverage the strength of dynamic audience to conduct large scale reporting projects. The effect of the collaborative process of news production can contribute to the negotiated meaning construction of social realities (Broersma & Graham, 2012). In fact, the collective knowledge of connected citizens is potential to “circumvent the insider control of knowledge by individuals” (Carlson, 2011). For instance, Off the Bus project of the Huffington Post reported the U.S. presidential campaign by gathering accounts of a large number of discrete ordinary people. If British newspapers were seeking to engage more opinions of citizens to construct a news report about the 2015 general election, Twitter can be an effective tool for them to collect the original views or comments. As a corollary, the amount of specific tweets generated by ordinary users can show the exact performance of journalists in involving citizens into political news articles, which will be counted in the …show more content…
Besides, it seems that the spontaneous news on social media may prevent “the predictable political news outlets produced by news routines” (Cook, 1998), which can change the performance of journalists as gatekeepers. The inborn factors of traditional media including limited applicable column space, air time and transmission frequencies promotes the establishment of mechanisms which police the gates and choose events basing on actual standards of newsworthiness (Bruns, 2003), and it can continue determining the gatekeeping function even if legacy media have also developed online editions. The more space on the website or digital platforms of mainstream media seem to expand the limitations mentioned above, while journalists are still producing news stories by integrating abundant messages and combining diverse news sources, following the inverted pyramid type. Other journalistic criteria obliged journalists to cover news stories objectively and impartially, which might prompt them to utilise more routine sources such as politicians and polices that seem to be more reliable, especially when the sources on networked environment are hard to be verified. However, as the implement of some specific policies of social media forms, the verification process of traditional media on
As sourcing is a crucial part in the process of journalistic practice, the way how journalists get the news sources can impact practical issues in making news and reflect the power relations in social situations. However, newsgathering seems to be neglected sometimes by scholarship as what Rupar (2006: 127) illustrated that “it seldom gets more than recognition as a technique”.
Harcup (2004) argued that the tweets which include news content, the posts of comments and UGC are all related to citizen journalism. Such kind of contents generated by citizens can be included in mainstream media coverage (Kurtz, 2003), assisted by reliable verification procedures that are used to …show more content…
Social networks seem to provide a new opportunity for journalistic practices as it can promote the advancement of collaborative journalism, which can leverage the strength of dynamic audience to conduct large scale reporting projects. The effect of the collaborative process of news production can contribute to the negotiated meaning construction of social realities (Broersma & Graham, 2012). In fact, the collective knowledge of connected citizens is potential to “circumvent the insider control of knowledge by individuals” (Carlson, 2011). For instance, Off the Bus project of the Huffington Post reported the U.S. presidential campaign by gathering accounts of a large number of discrete ordinary people. If British newspapers were seeking to engage more opinions of citizens to construct a news report about the 2015 general election, Twitter can be an effective tool for them to collect the original views or comments. As a corollary, the amount of specific tweets generated by ordinary users can show the exact performance of journalists in involving citizens into political news articles, which will be counted in the …show more content…
Besides, it seems that the spontaneous news on social media may prevent “the predictable political news outlets produced by news routines” (Cook, 1998), which can change the performance of journalists as gatekeepers. The inborn factors of traditional media including limited applicable column space, air time and transmission frequencies promotes the establishment of mechanisms which police the gates and choose events basing on actual standards of newsworthiness (Bruns, 2003), and it can continue determining the gatekeeping function even if legacy media have also developed online editions. The more space on the website or digital platforms of mainstream media seem to expand the limitations mentioned above, while journalists are still producing news stories by integrating abundant messages and combining diverse news sources, following the inverted pyramid type. Other journalistic criteria obliged journalists to cover news stories objectively and impartially, which might prompt them to utilise more routine sources such as politicians and polices that seem to be more reliable, especially when the sources on networked environment are hard to be verified. However, as the implement of some specific policies of social media forms, the verification process of traditional media on