Political journalists and Twitter: Influences on norms and practices

ABSTRACT

This study explores the ways in which Twitter has impacted the norms and practices of political reporters and editors who tweet. In-depth interviews with political journalists at US newspapers during the 2012 presidential campaign indicate that Twitter use has caused substantial changes to daily reporting practices, in part because Twitter is considered more consequential for their job than any other form of social media, including Facebook. Several themes emerged as to how the changes have helped and harmed their ability to report and write stories. However, participants do not use Twitter in ways that suggest a major shift in traditional journalistic norms, such as objectivity and gatekeeping.

KEYWORDS:

• in-depth interviews
• newspapers
• normalizing hypothesis
• political journalists
• Twitter