With the rise of speed-driven journalism, reporters face an industrywide expectation to use social media to engage readers. But new research from UT Dallas finds actual practices are falling short of that goal.
In her most recent study, Dr. Angela Lee, assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communication, examined how journalists use social media in their pursuit for speedy news, and how they perceive their audiences are affected by tweets and posts.
Using in-depth interviews with 11 journalists from different national, metropolitan and local newspapers, Lee's findings offer several reasons why social media may be unable to save news organizations from financial woes.
Published by The International Journal on Media Management, the study finds that despite an organizational expectation to use social media to engage audiences, journalists primarily use Twitter to communicate with other journalists.
"This study contributes to a larger body of work looking at the disconnect between journalists and news consumers," Lee said. "Despite prevalent organizational expectations that journalists engage with audiences on social media, most interviewees have very little experience with, or knowledge of, their audiences."
Original Study [Abstract only. Full article paywalled]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:32AM
Cut most of the fat from the top instead of cutting back on those that actually do the work. Become a journalism driven medium rather than an advertising driven medium. They may have to accept a leaner business model and it will take time to regain trust, but whatever they are doing now is just part of a death spiral.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:48AM
Yeah. Fucking cocksuckers!
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @03:57AM
The problem here is that investigation is expensive and you don't always know if anything is going to come of it. There's also reporters that are working a beat, such as being camped out at city hall that need to be paid whether or not there's any news that particular day.
There's a ton of people regurgitating the same BS over and over again, but there's still a huge need for actual investigative reporting. Unfortunately, in the US, we've allowed media outlets to consolidate to the point where there's no longer the need to be fast to scoop the other papers as there probably aren't any others looking into things in many cases, certainly not at the local level.
I'd be happy to pay for good reporting, but that's becoming harder and harder to find. I can't blame people for not wanting to pay, it took the press years before they started to take Bush to task for the various illegal activities he was involved in.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:18AM
There's a ton of people regurgitating the same BS over and over again, but there's still a huge need for actual investigative reporting. Unfortunately, in the US, we've allowed media outlets to consolidate to the point where there's no longer the need to be fast to scoop the other papers as there probably aren't any others looking into things in many cases, certainly not at the local level.
You're right, this is the problem in a nutshell. Over the last 50 years the US media has shrunk to 5 or 6 corporations owning virtually all the major media outlets. The internet might be sprouting independents, but unless we secure net neutrality they will be shut down as well. Most of them are only regurgitators of unsubstantiated rumors anyway.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:51AM
It doesn't matter whether they're shut down or not, they aren't any better than the incumbents. Shallow reporting at best in most cases and I'm not aware of any of them having the resources to have full time reporters camped out at places likely to have breaking news.
So, it's a bit better in that you get more op-eds, but in practical terms it's not really any meaningful change.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by jmorris on Sunday February 14 2016, @05:28AM
Become a journalism driven medium...
Said some 'tard on the Internet who does not have a clue what the industry even is. Advertising is what they do. YOU are the product they sell to the advertisers. The content is crap plowed in the field to grow a userbase to sell.
No, this was bound to fail for a similar fundamental reason. Journalists work for media outlets for one purpose. To produce content that brings the eyeballs the advertisers will pay cash money to get access to (along with the sweet, sweet metrics the Internet provides of course). So then their employers tell them to give the content to Twitter for free instead of publishing first on their own media and using Twitter purely as bait to attract eyeballs by TEASING the actual story. Somebody thought that model would work?
Notice who never buys ads? Facebook, Twitter, etc. Everyone promotes them for free, gives their content to them for free, sends all of their eyeballs to them complete with most of the metrics for free for the social media company to advertise to. Zuckerberg is an evil genius with some kind of damned mind control ray that induces utter idiocy on his prey.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday February 14 2016, @08:55AM
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:39AM
Journalism?! What the fuck is that shit?
Blogs are the shit, bro! Racist, biased, drunken blogging is the wave of the future!!!
Four MORE YEARS of OBAMA! BLACK POWA 4EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!! bro
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @04:48AM
Shut it, bro.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday February 14 2016, @01:24PM
There's just too many for the economy to support, so most of them have to go away. Also the college students have to be scared away.
Its laughable, like watching people claim we'd still have millions of textile workers and factory workers if only the workers had posted to facebook more, or tweeted more. Sure, thats the reason all their jobs went to Cambodia or wherever junk tier walmart clothes come from now.
On a more serious note, its interesting looking at the development of what boils down to prayer. "In the old days" if you wanted something irrationally unreachable you'd pray at church to Jesus, but in 2016 the modern cultural equivalent is "engaging with social media". Its just as likely to succeed. But it is interesting that the thought processes leading up to it, and the extreme piles of smelly rationalization surrounding it, haven't really changed in millennia. In the old days when all hope was lost and all attempts had failed, you'd clasp hands and ask God for help, but in 2016 in the same conditions, you shitpost to twitter and hope that'll do just as well.
There is also a side dish of the usual American inability to understand the difference between micro and macro economics. On a micro level obviously the "winner" keeps his job longest by working harder or doing more ridiculous social media time wasting. There really is no question. On the macro level "competing harder" isn't going to keep any jobs at all, it'll just raise the game a bit. They could sit on their butts and talk about TV shows and sports all year and at the end of the year they're going to have the same 50% fired/downsized. Given that most hiring/firing decisions are based on politics, demographics, looks, favoritism, in general the social media strategy is a waste of time unless there's a close race between two brown nosers, etc.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Sunday February 14 2016, @02:13PM
I haven't read the whole paper (because I'm not paying $41 for it), but these are quotes from the abstract:
most interviewees reported that they mainly use Twitter to facilitate news work (i.e., contact hard-to-reach sources) and communicate with other journalists; audiences are rarely their focus on social media.
This study offers five reasons why social media are not saving the newspaper industry
So...the conclusion is that because current journalism practice doesn't involve promoting completed stories on Twitter, no social media platform can help save journalism? Sorry, something there does not compute.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 14 2016, @06:58PM
They can social media all they want, I'm not going to subscribe to their crap or unblock ads for their crap anymore than I do for the free crap. That said I've unblocked ads for a few online sites but they aren't "newspapers" (didn't plan it that way, "good will" and "bad will" comes to mind).
The standard of most journalists has dropped till I could find some random blogger more credible or even competent than most journalists working for some newspaper. The random blogger could be biased/crap too but there tend to be fewer layers of extra bullshit between the bullshit or story. Whereas for "newspapers" there could be the journalist's agenda, the editor's agenda, the newspaper's agenda, the newspaper's master's agenda then only the bullshit/story.
Many like to tell us there will be more jobs in the "knowledge economy", well let's see those new jobs for journalists now... Do they pay as well as their old jobs?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Sunday February 14 2016, @08:34PM
I gave up newpapers when I was at a few covered events and discovered how thoroughly they distort what happened. I don't like to pay people to lie to me.
OTOH, TV news was not only shallow, but on those same events it was equally distorted.
Please note, I'm not even talking about political bias here. The direction of distortion was to make the events more exciting and interesting. But it was so bad as to be nearly totally unreliable. At that point I asked myself "If they lie so extensively about stories that I can check, why should I believe them about stories I can't check?"
As a result I tend to give the new about as much credence as I give popular conspiracy theories. For each story the most important question becomes "Who does this story benefit?", as I'm much more likely to be able to determine that with reasonable accuracy than to what extent the story is fabrication. AFAICT, this was before the TV stations started presenting "docudramas" as news. It was definitely before Fox news got the Supreme Court to decide that they had the right to intentionally lie to their viewers.
If they want me to pay attention to them, they've got to give me some reason to trust them. So far the evidence is against that. (It used to be just careful selection of shots and interviews...but they've gone far beyond that. I tend to think of the news as a historical drama written by an author with an axe to grind.)
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