Sharing the Stage

Abstract

Despite the proliferation of research on social media and journalism, only a few studies have analyzed how journalists in Latin America embrace the affordances of social platforms for journalism practice. Based on a survey of 877 Latin American reporters, this article examines the platforms journalists use and how they use them. The broad finding is that, despite the great popularity of Facebook in the region, Twitter is the most important platform for daily newsgathering and journalistic work. Journalists turn to Twitter to find sources and stories, showing an important openness to participatory journalism. Yet, they mistrust information provided from political sources. Our findings show that different regions in Latin America work with social media in different ways, and local journalistic cultures have an impact on these adoptions, especially in the case of Brazil. Further research and implications for the field are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• gatekeeping
• investigative journalism
• Latin American journalists
• online survey
• participatory journalism
• social media use

Notes

1. The initial list of 9900 respondents contained users’ names and email addresses, but no other demographic information was available. Therefore, response rates for specific subsamples cannot be reported.

2. See http://www.as-coa.org/.

3. Because of the large number of Brazilian respondents, as well as historical differences and language, we decided to leave Brazil as an independent group and not as a part of the Southern cone, adapting the Council of the Americas’ classification to the needs of our study.

4. Post-hoc tests available upon request.

5. Other than journalists or politicians.

6. Newspaper organizations and national scope are the base line for the dummy coded comparisons.

7. Comparison between national and international scope.