Twitter journalism in Ireland: sourcing and trust in the age of social media^*

* An earlier version of this paper was originally published in the 2015 Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Media and Society: Heravi, B. R., Harrower, N., Sourcing and Trust: Twitter Journalism in Ireland, International Conference on Social Media and Society, Canada, September 2015.

Figures & data

Table 1. Correlations between user profile factors and reasons for using social media.

	Monitoring trends	Sourcing news leads	Sourcing content	Verifying information	Publishing and promoting work	Networking
Age	−.118*				−.109*	−.144**
Gender				.127*		.118*
Knowledge of social media	.321**	.217**	.238**	.207**	.290**	.303**
Experience						−.120*

Question: ‘Rate your reasons for using social media in your job’. Response ranks: 1 =‘Don’t use social media for this’, 2 = ‘Only rarely use for this’, 3 = ‘Use it around once a week for this’, 4 = ‘Use it daily for this’, 5 = ‘Social media is the main thing I use for this’. For gender: 1 = female, 2 = male. The measure of association is Kendall’s tau-c. Tested for each reason separately. Significance test: *p < .05, **p < .01 (two tailed). Only significant correlations are presented.

Figure 1. Where journalists source their news, N = 259.

Table 2. Correlations between user profile factors and where they source the news.

	Social media	Newswire	TV	Radio	Print	Reporters in the field	Direct contact	News media website	Press release	Blog	Other online
Age			.131*	.137*	.118*	.200**	.112*			−0.044
Gender	.116*									.156**	.127*
Knowledge of social media	.214**									.256**	.143**
Experience			.127*	.165**	.125*	.203**	.184**

Question: ‘What do you source your news for professional purposes?’ Response ranks: 1 = ‘I never use this source’, 2 = ‘I use this once a month’, 3 = ‘I use this once a week’, 4 = ‘I use this every day’, 5 = ‘This is my main source of news’. For gender: 1 = female, 2 = male. The measure of association is Kendall’s tau-c. Tested for each source separately. Significance test: *p < .05, **p < .01 (two tailed). Only significant correlations are presented.

Figure 2. Trust in various sources of news, N = 259.

Table 3. Correlations between user profile factors and most trusted sources for news.

	Social media	Newswire	TV	Radio	Print	Reporters in the field	Direct contact	News media website	Press release	Blog	Other online
Age	−.132*					.120*			−.120*	−.108*	−.114*
Gender	.127*							.153**		.147*
Knowledge of social media	.175**									.157**
Experience						.148**

Question: ‘What are your most trusted news sources?’ Response ranks: 1 = ‘I don’t trust this source’, 2 = ‘I will use this source, but don’t fully trust it’, 3 = ‘I am neutral on whether this is a trustworthy source’, 4 = ‘I feel fairly confident this source is trustworthy’, 5 = ‘I trust this source’. For gender: 1 = female, 2 = male. The measure of association is Kendall’s tau-c. Tested for each source separately. Significance test: *p < .05, **p < .01 (two tailed). Only significant correlations are presented.

Figure 3. Factors in determining trustworthiness of source, N = 259.

Table 4. Correlations between user profile factors and factors for determining trustworthiness of a source on social media.

	Age of account	Number and quality of posts	Number of followers	Link to institutional website	Location	Avatar	Verified account
Age		−.147**	−.282**	−.130*	−.181**	−.176**	−.199**
Gender
Knowledge of social media		.127*	.185**		.106*		.129*
Experience		−.133*	−.257**		−.113*	−.140**	−.150**

Question: ‘When determining whether or not a social media source is trustworthy, rate the importance of each of the following’. Response ranks: 1 = ‘Not important at all’, 2 = ‘Somewhat important’, 3 = ‘Important’, 4 = ‘Very important’, 5 = ‘Extremely important’. For gender: 1 = female, 2 = male. The measure of association is Kendall’s tau-c. Tested for each factor separately. Significance test: *p < .05, **p < .01 (two tailed). Only significant correlations are presented.

Table 5. Correlations between where journalists tend to source their news from and which sources they trust the most.

Where do you source your news?	What are your most trusted news sources?
	Newswire	Social media	TV	Radio	Print	Media org. website	Blog	Other online	Reporters in the field	Direct contact	Press release
Newswire	.427 **		.184**	.255**	.124*	.162**			.283**
Social media		. 188**					.165**	.119*
TV	.143*		. 296**	.272**		.168**			.169**
Radio	.224**		.249**	. 304**	.178**	.213**			.227**
Print	.197**		.200**	.247**	. 229**	.229**			.127*
Online platform of media outlets	.216**		.148**	.180**	.162**	.210**		.142*	.117*
Blog		.170**					. 285**	.139*			−.119*
Other online						.128*		. 137*
Reporters in the field	.174**							−.109*	. 474**
Direct contact							−.120*		.167**	. 289**
	.214**				.110*			.115*	.189**		. 282**

Question 1: ‘Where do you source your news for professional purposes?’ Response ranks: 1 = ‘I never use this source’, 2 = ‘I use this once a month’, 3 = ‘I use this once a week’, 4 = ‘I use this every day’, 5 = ‘This is my main source of news’. Question 2: ‘What are your most trusted news sources?’
 Response ranks: 1 = ‘I don’t trust this source’, 2 = ‘I will use this source, but don’t fully trust it’, 3 = ‘ I am neutral on whether this is a trustworthy source’, 4 = ‘I feel fairly confident this source is trustworthy’, 5 = ‘I trust this source’. The measure of association is Kendall’s tau-c. Tested for each reason separately. Significance test: *p < .05, **p < .01 (two tailed). Only significant correlations are presented.