Empowering the Public Sphere or Echoing Official Sources? Journalists’ Use of Twitter in Conflict-affected Societies

ABSTRACT

In the conflict-affected Cypriot society, journalism’s role becomes crucial in providing a conducive environment for peace process. The article studies the Cypriot journalists’ use of Twitter during the intensification of the Cyprus Peace Process (CPP), 01 September 2016–31 July 2017. Through network analysis, the article examines the clusters within which information about the CPP flows and the journalistic roles that are enacted. It investigates the relationships between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot journalists and their connection with official and unofficial sources through their tweeting practice during negotiations, to suggest that social media tools in the hands of journalists in deeply divided societies like Cyprus, could be useful for renegotiating their normative and cognitive professional roles and for developing a model of journalism that would contribute positively the peace process.

KEYWORDS:

• Journalism
• journalistic roles
• conflict
• Twitter
• cyprus problem
• peace process

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The official languages of the GC and TC communities are Greek and Turkish, respectively.

2 Either by reporting from the site of negotiations or remotely from Cyprus.

3 Details about the journalists included in the 22 clusters available in Table 6.

4 The nodes and labels of the journalists have been marked with a bigger size to make them more distinct in the network.

5 A reference to a media piece of the other community happens in extremely rare occasions like in the case of a major incident (e.g., a tragic accident or a massive fire).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ONISILOS Grant University of Cyprus.