Bruno Asdourian

My tweets are (not) my own! “Normalizing” journalists’ branding and digital identity on Twitter

ABSTRACT This article investigates the complex issue of journalists’ branding and digital identity on Twitter. The challenge for journalists is to meet both one’s own media employer’s and the public’s expectations. Some journalists, designated in this article as “nonrepresentative,” apply a “disclaimer strategy” by mentioning the formula My tweets are my own in their profiles. In this article, we propose to compare the use of Twitter between these journalists and those who do not employ this kind of formula through a content analysis of their tweets. Results reveal four common types of journalists’ branding: corporate branding, professional self-branding, institutional branding, and personal self-branding. We show that nonrepresentative journalists are mainly using Twitter in a professional way. Like representative journalists, they normalize their messages, even if they diffuse more personal life content. These findings suggest that journalists behave as a homogeneous group on Twitter, despite the “disclaimer strategy” they may use.