Vittoria Sacco

Don't Tweet This!: How journalists and media organizations negotiate tensions emerging from the implementation of social media policy in newsrooms

Journalistic use of social media for sourcing, distribution and promotion of news comes at a time when the newsroom itself can be said to be in a state of “transition”. Previous research about social media and journalism has focussed on the transition of journalistic practices to the “social media age”, but less attention has been given to the ways in which new workplace relationships might contribute to a social media-enabled newsroom. It is thus important to analyse the policies and procedures different media organizations have implemented to integrate and regulate the use of social media in their newsrooms and how this might impact on news production and dissemination overall. The aim of this paper is to compare and critically analyse social media management policies and procedures in Australian newsrooms, as well as the relations between various editorial staff, to manage its introduction into journalistic practice. Based on 25 qualitative research interviews with editors, social media managers and news media staff from major Australian media companies, this study also reflects more broadly on the potential conflicts created by the regulation of social media use in newsrooms and how various personnel respond to them.

Quelle Différence?: Language, culture and nationality as influences on francophone journalists’ identity

Canada, Belgium and Switzerland are multicultural countries with several similarities including having French as a minority language. The trio also shares similar media landscapes, systems and approaches to journalism to those of other Western European and Northern American countries. These commonalities offer an opportunity to probe for the possibility of a language-based differentiation in journalists’ professional identities. Our comparative analysis of Worlds of Journalism Study data suggests that francophone journalists in our three countries have much more in common than not with their other-language peers. However, the francophone journalists seem more likely to identify with a politicized role that includes agenda-setting, citizen-motivation and scrutinizing power, and less likely to be driven by attracting and satisfying audiences. A différence francophone exists, but it is modest.

From “Selfies” to Breaking Tweets: How journalists negotiate personal and professional identity on social media

The aim of this paper is to analyse the different ways in which journalists negotiate representations of their professional and personal identity on social media platforms. We argue that the differing representations of personal and professional identity on social media correspond to the professional, organisational and institutional tensions that have emerged in this new space. Using qualitative interviews with various journalists and editorial staff from Australian media organisations across television, radio, print and online publications, we indicate that journalists present their personal and professional identity on social media in three different ways. The first group create public, professional social media accounts, but also create secondary, private accounts that are only accessible to personal networks. The second group either choose, or are required by their media organisation, to only have a professional presence on social media; that is, they have public accounts that are only associated with their media organisation and display only their professional activities. The last group merge a professional and personal identity on their social media sites, showing aspects of their personal and their professional lives on publically available accounts.

Market Structure and Innovation Policies in Switzerland

Switzerland is a small country that has enjoyed a remarkable long and continuous tradition of independence and political neutrality. The federal structure grants considerable autonomy to the different linguistic cantons. Each canton also has its own publishing and broadcasting companies. Evidence shows that the news media industry including the linguistic deliminated news media markets has experienced an increase in the level of concentration. The different news media markets still experience a certain level of competition due to the fact that media companies from mainly neighbouring countries are also offering their services and products in the Swiss markets. Due to the changing media landscape, the government has taken actions to analyze the situation and propose alternative ways to support the news media industry and to ensure media pluralism. Furthermore, this chapter discusses the different ways to trigger innovation in the news media markets in Switzerland and to improve the competitiveness of the industry.

How Does Social Media Shape Media Convergence? The Case of Journalists Covering War and Conflict

Social media has affected the production, dissemination and consumption of news, as well as the professional and cultural values of journalists working within the media. This contribution illustrates the dynamic and complex relationship professional journalists have with social media and the way this relationship plays out in the reporting of news. The methods used to collect the evidence included two content analyses of stories about the “Arab Spring”, and 30 interviews with journalists and other media workers who used social media to cover the Arab Spring. These analyses will show that social media has a number of advantages and disadvantages for both journalists and news reportage. Tracing the various aspects of the complex dynamics that shape social media, this study points out that the profession of journalism is still very much needed for our society. Professionally trained to decode what is produced on social media, journalists can act as moderators of news diffusion within those platforms; the role of journalists can be further extended to that of producers, mediators and curators of social media content. Therefore, the use of social media leads to the convergence of different functions in the single role of a journalist.

Market Structure and Innovation Policies in Italy

This chapter shows that the Italian news media industry is facing structural changes and an increasing fragmentation of the audience favoured by technological developments. News media markets present a high degree of concentration being controlled by a small number of media companies that have become diversified and spread their activities across industries. The fact that a large majority of Italian inform themselves via the television raises media pluralism concerns because the Italian media industry is highly concentrated, both in terms of revenue and audience shares. Due to the high level of concentration in the different markets and the lack of specific innovation policies, the Italian news media industry faces an environment that is rather hampering more than stimulating innovation. A revision of the public subvention policy has been recently initiated to make the news media industry more competitive and to support the necessary adjustment to deal with changing media landscape.

Mediatized Conflict and Visual News Framing: How Swiss Audiences React to News Images from the Syrian War

The Syrian conflict has challenged both the ways of reporting war and its impact on the public. However, only a few empirical studies have tried to assess public reactions to representations of war. In this paper, we use an empirically-based study that combines quantitative and qualitative methods to assess how Swiss audiences react to crisis reporting and visual news framing in French-speaking Swiss media. The study offers a preliminary understanding of how people react to images in the media, especially with respect to military and political contexts, and also builds a visual map of how audiences process information contained in news images of war.