How journalists engage in branding on Twitter: individual, organizational, and institutional levels (original) (raw)
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A Clearer Picture: Journalistic identity practices in words and images on Twitter
Journalism Practice, 2017
As journalists continue integrating social media into their professional work, they wrestle with ways to best represent themselves, their organizations, and their profession. Several recent studies have examined this trend in terms of branding, raising important questions about the changing ways in which journalists present themselves and how these changes may indicate shifts in their personal and professional identities. This study combines a visual content analysis of the images journalists use in their Twitter profiles with analyses of their profile text and tweets to examine how journalists present themselves online with an eye toward individual and organizational branding. Findings indicate journalists choose a branding approach and apply it consistently across their profiles, with most profiles consisting of a professional headshot while notably lacking organizational identifiers such as logos. Journalists also tend to lean toward professional rather than personal images in their profile and header photographs, indicating a possible predilection for professional identity over personal on social media.
Social media are increasingly embedded into everyday communication. This challenges journalism to anticipate the changes that social media trigger in the use and production of (news) media. In this paper, we focus on personal branding on Twitter. Journalists are increasingly encouraged to develop a personal brand on Twitter. This offers them the opportunity to become news and opinion hubs and to increase their “market value”. Goffman’s theatre metaphor is used as an analytical framework in which journalists are conceptualized as performers who are acting on a stage in front of an audience. Through a quantitative content analysis of the tweeting behaviour of 40 employed and freelance journalists, we explore the way they use social media to present themselves and which dilemma’s they are facing. We analyse tweeting behaviour in terms of the types of tweets, functions of tweets and modes of interaction. The quantitative content analysis is supplemented with in-depth interviews with 12 journalists, in order to analyse the reasoning behind their social media habits. Our findings show that journalists particularly struggle with being factual or opinionated, being personal or professional, how to balance broadcasting their message with engagement and how to promote themselves strategically.
Journalistic branding via Twitter: researches synthesis and case interviews
2019
The purpose of this research was to study the content on Twitter that Journalists used to create their brand The research population is a research about the journalists’ brandings which published during 2011 2018 from 2 stories in the database of Thai Journals Online, and 9 stories from Google Scholar, in total 11 stories as well as in-depth interviews with 5 journalists who using Twitter to create their own brands by using Roberto Alcaraz de Blanco (2010)'s personal branding framework as a framework for education. They studied in 7 issues as below; 1) knowledge and experience 2) profiling and displaying positions in the organization 3) presentation of results 4) addiction hashtag 5) communication channels 6) social values and 7) response and context. The results indicated that knowledge and professional experience in capturing news issues both in writing and reporting news via the limited 140 characters of the Twitter was important. Journalists must also have knowledge and expe...
New Media & Society, 2019
This study offers a new way of understanding the motivations that influence media workers' impression management (or branding) in the social media era. Amid the growing insecurity of media work generally and the particular pressures of branding oneself and promoting one's employer online, our research introduces a framework through which to interpret the forces and factors-internal (social-psychological) and external (environmental)-that shape how and why media professionals engage in branding. Through a first-of-its-kind survey of a broad cross-section of journalists (N = 642), this study proposes, tests, and confirms a branding alignment hypothesis. This typology sheds light on how branding activity aligns with individual, organizational, and institutional motivations as well as professional identities. Importantly, the study shows how branding is manifested over and above social media dynamics alone and reveals how "self-made" and "company" journalists differ in how they promote themselves, their employers, and the journalism occupation.
Identity lost? The personal impact of brand journalism
Researchers have explored the role of organizational and personal branding in journalism, paying particular attention to digital media and social network sites. While these studies have observed a rise in the incorporation of branding practices among journalists, they have largely avoided questions about the implications such shifts in practice may have on the personal identities of journalists. This study addresses that gap, drawing on interviews with 41 reporters and editors from US newspapers. The findings suggest that as reporters incorporate branding into their routines, they may feel as though they are sacrificing the ability to simultaneously maintain a personal identity online. For their part, editors seem to sympathize with journalists’ loss of personal identity but defer to organizational policies.
Working the Twittersphere: Microblogging as professional identity construction
The popular micro-blogging site Twitter offers a window into the complex dynamics of today’s public relations practice. This chapter describes a network analysis that studied patterns of interaction among public relations practitioners who are active Twitter users. Findings suggest that Twitter networks serve numerous functional purposes for practitioners seeking to negotiate the dynamics of a changing media environment. Users also establish their professional identity through their interactions within Twitter networks, thereby also influencing the identity of the profession as a whole. Twitter itself emerges as a boundary-spanning tool that links multiple online spheres and spans the divide between offline and virtual professional domains, in keeping with larger trends toward mediated reality.
What journalists retweet: Opinion, humor and brand development on Twitter
Journalism, 2014
Using Twitter, journalists may pass along comment from other users without, at least ostensibly, taking accountability for that message. Minimizing responsibility and editorial oversight, as is the case with retweets, allows a different view of individual journalists as gatekeepers. Through a qualitative textual analysis, this study finds that journalists are challenging norms of objectivity and independence on Twitter. Journalists frequently pass along subtle interpretation and analysis rather than strong opinions. Many retweets are humorous, sometimes even at journalism’s expense. Journalists also retweet many messages about themselves, working to build a personal brand and relationships with their audience. Implications for journalists, their industry, and the audience are discussed.