From a Research Summary from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M – Carlos III University of Madrid):
The study, titled “Join the Conversation: how Spanish journalists are using Twitter” was carried out by professors from the LABPART group (The Medium is the Lab), a permanent communication and social media laboratory at UC3M set up to analyze the state of on-line participation by the Spanish news media, and the newest collaborative strategies being developed on the Internet.
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The research is based on an in-depth poll of fifty Spanish journalists with active Twitter profiles: their median age is 38, and they have been working in the profession for 15 years on average. The results show, for example, that these journalists assiduously use this tool to publish and distribute information (95%), identify tendencies (86%), look for information (82%), ‘viralize’ information about their particular media (82%), or build audience loyalty (78%). However, only 25% of those polled said they use Twitter to carry out investigative reporting.
The way in which journalists currently use the social networks does not necessarily involve taking advantage of the specificity and logic of those networks to create new content, according to the authors of the study. “For the most part, the journalists use these networks as ‘viralization’ mechanisms, as systems to disseminate content that has mostly been generated outside of the logic of the social media’, according to the traditional forms of journalistic production”, comments Professor Pilar Carrera.
Direct to Full Text: Join The Conversation: How Spanish Journalists Are Using Twitter (26 pages; PDF)
Direct to: LABAPART
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