Paper presentation on ECREA 2016, about young journalists and the time collapse

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Young journalists and networked individualism:
Time collapse among younger journalists in social media
Petter Bae Brandtzaeg & María-Ángeles Chaparro-Domínguez
ECREA, Prague 10.11.2016
Petter.b.brandtzag@sintef.no

2. REVEAL Project: Co-funded by the EU FP7 Programme Nr.: 610928 www.revealproject.eu © 2014 REVEAL consortium
Social media - Rethinking the role of journalist
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Source: http://mediashift.org/2010/07/rethinking-the-role-of-the-journalist-in-the-participatory-age190/
"""The new journalist needs
to learn and understand
how news and information
works in a digital world,
instead of simply applying
established norms and
practices that may no longer
be effective"
(Hermida, 2010).

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Journalists taking part in online conversations
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Biran Solis (2008): "The convergence of journalism
and conversation"
(http://www.briansolis.com/2008/09/state-of-social-
media-2008/)
"Journalists as a community leader to engage
and interact with their audiences" (Hermida,
2010) Jayeon Lee. (2015). The Double-Edged Sword: The Effects of Journalists’
Social Media Activities on Audience Perceptions of Journalists and Their
News Products. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. doi:
10.1111/jcc4.12113

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Social media (Twitter) as a news source
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Mainly Twitter
• Brandtzaeg, et al., 2016;
• Hedman and Djerf-Pierre, 2013;
• Hermida, 2010, 2013;
• Papacharissi and de
• Fatima Oliveira, 2012;
• Rogstad, 2014;Journalism Practice, 2016

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Age - important predictor for use
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Sample: Social media natives
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Valkenburg, P. M., Schouten, A. P., & Peter, J. (2005). Adolescents’ identity experiments on the Internet. New media & society, 7(3), 383-402.
In-depth interviews with 15
young journalists (21-26 years
old) in 2015.
The first generation of
journalists that have grown up
with social media as part of
their identity construction.
Young people are
experimenting with their
identity online (Valkenburg et
al., 2005).

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What kind of Social Media use Young Journalists?
Many young
journalists use
different social
media at work, and
in particular Twitter,
Facebook, YouTube
and Instagram.

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Younger versus older
Younger journalists
use larger variety of
social media than older
journalists. Younger
and older use different
public spheres.
Newsgathering
process in different
spheres
Social media are unpacking the traditional
public sphere into a series of public
sphericules and micro-publics (Bruns, 2016),
http://snurb.info/files/2016/Is%20Habermas
%20on%20Twitter.pdf

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Some even used the online dating app Tinder…
"I have also used
Tinder at work
actually, to get in
contact with a source,
interview objects for a
case"

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When I'm at work I have Facebook open all the time.
There are colleges who are not logged on
Facebook, but I'm using it a lot for work.
I follow news and find cases or simply,
it turns up other things in the feed, issues or
debates etc. interesting for my work. I use it a lot.
So I do not understand others (journalists)
who are not using it (Male, 25).

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Social media – a new operating system
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Social media have made
possible a new "news awareness
system". Similar to the
theory of networked individualism,
the journalists' reports that social
media offers them alternative
means to connect with people who
share content, interests or are
eyewitnesses in other events
around the globe.

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Redefining the public – the whole world
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Young journalists described social media as
the new coffee house or bar, but much wider
and better because of unlimited access to
impressions from the whole world. Hence,
social media redefine the boundaries of
journalism by creating new and interesting
arenas for news investigation

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Networked public divide: Old versus young
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Instagram
(young)
Facebook
(young)
Snapchat
(young)
Twitter
(old/young)
Networked
publics

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Journalists taking part in online conversations
Journalists are not taking part in the conversation
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The concept of Context collapse means that social media force different groups of
people to converge or collapse into same spatial context, where several hundred
people are part of the same group of message recipients the individual would
otherwise be unlikely to communicate (Marwick & boyd, 2011; Vitak, 2012; ).
Public/private

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Old journalists don’t have many nude photos of themselves
online, do they? (young journalist)
s don’t have many nude photos of themselves online, do they?”
Time collapse
A clash between their experimenting
online identity in their youth, and
adult's norms about how to
behave as professionals online.

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Looking back, I see that my earlier expressions on social media
are not too optimal, as they will be there forever. And, when I
started at one of the bigger newspapers, the editor told me
that I should keep my opinions to myself. I’ve become much
more careful about what I write. And the other day, I went
through all the tweets I had tweeted and deleted things.
Because I just, was so paranoid about those issues, if any, if
someone wants to go and find things about me to destroy
me.
Erasing or cleaning their digital history

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Young journalists are constrained in two ways:
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1) Youthful experimentation, previous expressions force some of them to be less
active in social media (e.g. time collapse)
2) Others in their social network are alerting them in how to behave (context
collapse).
Past/present

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Spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1974)
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"Spiral of silence" refer to the tendency of people to remain silent when they feel
that their views are in opposition to the majority => Fear of social isolation
Young journalists struggle with exposure in social media while balancing both
private–work and past–present. These balancing acts cause a "spiral of silence",
where they are less willing to speak out publicly in social media => Fear of
revealing digital footprints .

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Conclusion
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- A news awareness system, network and research
on social media sites
- A networked public divide, where young and old
journalists engage in different public spheres
- A time collapse –of past and present, and in
between youthful experiences and professional
identity. Restricting young journalists to engage in
the public debate with their own voice and opinions.

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Thanks
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