Traversing the “Twittersphere”

Abstract

This article examines the workflows, editorial guidelines, and managerial oversight of social media, particularly Twitter, at seven international news agencies. Through a series of in-depth interviews with news managers, social media producers, and public relations officials at Al Jazeera, CNN, Globo, Telecinco, RTVE, the US government's Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Voice of America, the authors examined how these policies may affect the framing of news stories. Results indicated that social media resources are currently being used more for promotional and audience tracking purposes than for newsgathering, although the Office of Cuba Broadcasting departed somewhat from that model.

KEYWORDS:

• Al Jazeera
• CNN
• Globo
• international news agencies
• Office of Cuba Broadcasting
• RTVE
• social media
• Telecinco
• Twitter
• Voice of America