Lecture 6 in the course From Gatekeeping to Gatewatching: News and Journalism in the Digital Age. This lecture series addresses the continuing transformation of the production and consumption of journalism in the contemporary media environment. It provides a brief history of the impact of participatory online news production and engagement practices – from the first wave of citizen journalism to the social media platforms of today – on how news content is disseminated and experienced; examines reactive and proactive responses to these changes by news organisations and journalists; and explores the longer-term impact of these developments on the public sphere, touching on the power of social media platforms and their role in shaping their users’ information diets. Readings are largely drawn from Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere (Bruns, 2018), with additional readings recommended for selected lectures. Reading for this lecture: Bruns, A. (2018). Meet the Audience: How Journalists Adapt to Social Media. Gatewatching and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. Ch. 5. Peter Lang.

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Meet the Audience:
How Journalists Adapt to Social Media
Prof. Axel Bruns
Guest Professor, IKMZ, University of Zürich
a.bruns@qut.edu.au — a.bruns@ikmz.uzh.ch

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The Story So Far
• New approaches to news publishing and engagement:
• The first wave of citizen journalism: blogs, Indymedia, etc. (mid-1990s to mid-2000s)
• Social media (especially Twitter) as platforms for breaking news (from mid- to late 2000s)
• Habitual gatewatching and newssharing as a demotic practice on all platforms
• Newssharing as a key practice in the spread of ‘fake news’ (mis/dis/malinformation)
• So what about journalists and the news media?
• Individual journalists use of social media (this week)
• Industry responses to social media (next week)
• Liveblogs as a new format inspired by social media (week 8)
• Fact-checking and media literacy initiatives to counter misinformation (week 9)

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Fear of the New

4. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/in-1858-people-said-the-telegraph-was-too-fast-for-the-truth/375171/

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A Conservative Profession
• Journalism is always sceptical of new technologies:
• Telegraph
• Automated typesetting
• Radio
• Television
• Internet
• Social media
• …
• (except for a handful of early adopters, advocates, and evangelists)

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https://whatsnewinpublishing.com/78-of-journalists-fear-for-the-future-of-the-profession/

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The Australian, 2016
‘Twitter, a medium with a maximum of 140
characters, is not conducive to logical thought,
deep research, reflection or independence of
thought. It is really a place where activists cheer
each other on, often in the foulest language or with
the most naive affirmations of clearly partisan
positions.’ — Chris Mitchell
‘Twitter is the worst. I would call it little more than a
leftwing echo chamber for various highly politicised
activists, including many journalists. This is not
surprising since it was actually invented as a way
for pop stars to talk to their fans rather than to
discuss serious issues.’ — Chris Mitchell https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/chris-mitchells-mea-culpa-im-sorry-i-gave-you-kevin-rudd/news-story/695a5d1d034eff56eb4219ad97336602

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Why?
• Change is disruptive:
• New technologies
• New work processes
• New costs
• New business models
• New audiences
• New competitors
• New power structures
• (and the industry is already struggling…)
‘[journalists at] the nation’s leading news organizations …
may be more inclined to keep the status quo than their
counterparts at news organizations with possibly less
reach and influence’ — Lasorsa et al.

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‘the internet is an open
sewer of untreated,
unfiltered information’

10. But: Changing Audience Preferences
Newman,
N.
(2011).
Mainstream
Media
and
the
Distribution
of
News
in
the
Age
of
Social
Discovery:
How
Social
Media
Are
Changing
the
Production,
Distribution
and
Discovery
of
News
and
Further
Disrupting
the
Business
Models
of
Mainstream
Media
Companies.
Reuters
Institute
for
the
Study
of
Journalism,
University
of
Oxford.

11. And: Changing Audience Practices
Newman,
N.
(2011).
Mainstream
Media
and
the
Distribution
of
News
in
the
Age
of
Social
Discovery:
How
Social
Media
Are
Changing
the
Production,
Distribution
and
Discovery
of
News
and
Further
Disrupting
the
Business
Models
of
Mainstream
Media
Companies.
Reuters
Institute
for
the
Study
of
Journalism,
University
of
Oxford.

12. And: Changing Audience Traffic Patterns
Newman,
N.
(2011).
Mainstream
Media
and
the
Distribution
of
News
in
the
Age
of
Social
Discovery:
How
Social
Media
Are
Changing
the
Production,
Distribution
and
Discovery
of
News
and
Further
Disrupting
the
Business
Models
of
Mainstream
Media
Companies.
Reuters
Institute
for
the
Study
of
Journalism,
University
of
Oxford.

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Who Are the Early Adopters, Then?
• Change is easier for:
• Financially secure, non-market-driven outlets (public service media, The Guardian)
• Smaller, more agile, specialist outlets
• Journalists in specific newsbeats
• ‘Born-digital’ news start-ups
• Freelance and independent journalists
• Younger, less established journalists
• ‘Digital natives’
• Journalist-academics

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Breakthrough Moments: #spill 2009
http://mediashift.org/2010/03/the-spill-effect-twitter-hashtag-upends-australian-political-journalism061/
http://mediashift.org/2010/04/how-spill-effect-brought-color-collaboration-to-media-tweets103/

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‘I can’t tell you how many times I heard journos admit they “better get into this
Twitter thing,” that fortnight … It was the only service providing minute-by-minute
updates of the very fluid situation’ — Latika Bourke qtd. in Posetti
‘networked journalism has arrived [in the 2010 British general election]’ — Beckett
‘I remember tweeting the video and looking an hour later at the retweets
and realising that we had this enormous pyramid of distribution and then
three hours later looking at the geographical spread (Brazil, America) and
thinking that is an extraordinary thing.’ — Janine Gibson qtd. in Newman

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New Roles

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https://www.prweek.com/article/1271650/nyt-hires-social-media-editor

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social media reporter
social media coordinator
social media editor
social media news curator
social media evangelist

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Social Media Editors
• Roles in the organisation:
• Report via social media
• Identify and track emerging and trending topics
• Source information from social media to enhance news coverage
• Encourage and train other staff to explore social media
• Manage (and moderate) audience engagement
• (increasingly also: track story performance on social media  Week 7)
• But: ‘social media can’t belong to one person; it needs to be part of everyone’s job’
— Jennifer Preston qtd. in Tenore

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‘if you haven’t made it already as a journalist, you won’t become a journalist
unless you engage with social media’ — Silvia Costeloe qtd. in Stray
‘some journalists, mainly at legacy media organisations, feel they should
remain objective and detached on social media and thus not personally
engage with readers and sources. Others, especially at “born digital” news
outlets, feel they have to develop personal bonds on Twitter to engage readers
in news production, but also to become a “hub” in the network and thus attract
news consumers to their work and platforms’ — Broersma and Graham

22. https://web.archive.org/web/20131118230952/https://dev.twitter.com/media/newsrooms
We know you come from different generations. Some are native to the pilcrow, others
to the hashtag. You began your careers in different media: radio, print, broadcast,
online and mobile. But you share a common bond: the desire to make a difference in
the world, bringing reliable information to the communities you serve.

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New Practices

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What Journalists Do on Social Media
• Key practices:
• Promoting stories
• Curating content
• Personal branding
• Connecting with sources
• Monitoring developments
• Engaging with audiences
• (an example: @maggieNYT)

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Potential Problems
• Consequences:
• The rich get richer: more attention only for leading outlets and journalists
• The loudest voices: journalists pay attention to the Twitterati, however unrepresentative
• Demographic imbalance: focus on Twitter ignores people on other platforms
• Discrimination: women and minority journalists subjected to attacks from the crowd
• Spiral of silence: journalists worried about missteps and voicing unpopular opinions
• Code of conduct: what level of personal opinion are news outlets comfortable with?
• Pressure: to have strong social media metrics while avoiding the pitfalls
 ‘does journalism now include not only the content but also the journalist herself?’ — Hedman

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Disclosure Transparency
• Journalism amongst the people:
• Making the ‘backstage’ visible
• Exposing journalistic groupthink
• Journalistic processes more exposed to open scrutiny, …
• … and therefore also more open to commentary and
criticism that demands a response
• Potential threat to journalistic authority and objectivity
• Enabling political actors to bypass journalistic scrutiny

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Next Time

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Readings
6. 28.10.: Meet the Audience: How Journalists Adapt to Social Media
Bruns, A. (2018). Meet the Audience: How Journalists Adapt to Social Media. Gatewatching and
News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. Ch. 5. Peter Lang.
7. 4.11.: Management and Metrics: The News Industry and Social Media
Bruns, A. (2018). Management and Metrics: The News Industry and Social Media. Gatewatching
and News Curation: Journalism, Social Media, and the Public Sphere. Ch. 6. Peter Lang.

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Lecture
• NOTE:
• Week 7 lecture will be pre-recorded and made available through the OLAT site.
• (And that’s the last of the online lectures, I promise…)