“The Twitterization of content in mainstream journalism the opportunities and challenges of this process from the perspective of journalists in Iran.”

Document Type : researcher

Authors
Abbas Rezaei Samarin 1
Farzad Gholami 2
1 Master's student of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran
2 Assistant Professor of Communication Studies, Department of Social Communication Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Tehran
10.22034/scm.2024.477114.1798
Abstract
This research examines the impact of mainstream media content being influenced by Twitter trends and discussions. The adaptation of Twitter’s microblogging communication characteristics to professional journalism has brought both hopes and concerns. On one hand, themes such as the democratization of communications, the breakdown of gatekeeping, and the expansion of media access are highlighted as achievements of this process. On the other hand, issues such as reality manipulation, the spread of fake news, and cultural radicalism are raised as negative consequences. In this study, semi-structured interviews with journalists were conducted to explore the factors affecting the degree of Twitterization of journalistic content and to evaluate the opportunities and challenges of this process from the interviewees’ perspectives. The research adopts a qualitative approach, and the data obtained were summarized and categorized using thematic analysis. After conducting thematic analysis based on the methods of Braun and Clarke, core themes corresponding to the main and sub-questions of the research were classified into three distinct categories: factors influencing the degree of newsroom susceptibility to Twitter trends, and the opportunities and challenges arising from this susceptibility.
Keywords
Social media
Twitter
network journalism
mainstream journalism
media convergence
Subjects

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Society Culture Media
Volume 13, Issue 51
Summer 2024
Pages 199-221

  • Receive Date 05 September 2024
  • Revise Date 25 September 2024
  • Accept Date 27 September 2024