Twitter and News Gatekeeping

Abstract

This study concerns Twitter use by 26 news entities with the largest online audiences in the United States. A quantitative content analysis compared interactive characteristics of posts on news organizations’ main Twitter accounts. Most of the tweets included hyperlinks to articles posted on the news organizations’ websites along with text about the articles and a photograph or other still image. Differences existed between news organizations in the use of such hyperlinks to their own websites, as well as socially and technically interactive functions of Twitter such as retweets, @mentions, hashtags, and multimedia. Tweets with interactive characteristics seemed intended mainly for the purpose of promoting news organizations’ programming or content.

Keywords:

• gatekeeping
• hierarchical influences
• interactivity
• reciprocity
• social media
• Twitter

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Katie Yaeger and Jennifer Para for their coding assistance and Tim P. Vos, Elizabeth Behm-Morawitz, Esther Thorson, Margaret Duffy, Yong Volz, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.