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PP 212
The Quality of Tweets and the Adoption of Journalistic Norms – Results of a Large-Scale Content Analysis
S. Kapidzic
1
, C. Neuberger
1
, S. Stieglitz
2
, M. Mirbabaie
2
1
Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Department of Communication Studies and Media Research, Munich, Germany
2
University of Duisburg-Essen, Department of Computer Science and Applied Cognitive Science, Duisburg, Germany
Social media offer news organizations an additional channel to distribute content from their websites or interact with readers. However, social media also
pose a challenge to the traditional gatekeeping role of journalism, as ordinary users can bypass news organizations as primary information sources and
produce and shape information flows. In addition, the practices of sociality and interaction inherent in social media might pose a challenge to the adherence
to traditional journalistic norms of truthfulness, impartiality, and accountability. Journalists, for example, tend to use the microblogging platformTwitter as
an extension of their traditional repertoire by adapting it to fit traditional practices and at least partially transferring their existing norms to the new outlet
(cf. Lasorsa et al., 2012, p. 30). While the transferal of journalistic norms to journalists’Twitter use has been examined, the question of whether non-jour‑
nalistic users also adopt journalistic norms in information sharing on Twitter remains largely unexplored. The present study explores how German news
organizations and journalists use Twitter in comparison to non-journalistic users. More specifically, it aims to uncover how traditional journalistic norms
are transferred to the microblogging platform and in which way they are adopted by both journalists and non-journalists, such as citizens and spokesper‑
sons. We conducted a content analysis of the communication on the topic of government surveillance. The analysis encompassed 9,226 tweets collected
on the topic in September 2015. All tweets were coded for author type of the account and the accounts mentioned or retweeted (media, spokesperson,
citizen and spam account). This allowed us to situate the Twitter use of news-organizations and journalists in a broader context. Following Lasorsa et al.
(2012), all tweets were analyzed to explore three journalistic norms: (1) impartiality, (2) the gatekeeping role of journalistic outlets, and (3) accountability.
Impartiality was explored through the use of formal message tone and the portrayal of both sides of an issue, deviation from gatekeeping was defined as
retweeting users other than media, and accountability was explored through the inclusion of source mentions and links to non-journalistic sources, as well
as acknowledgement of uncertainty. Kruskal-Wallis tests showed that tweets from journalistic sources differed in aspects of all three analyzed journalistic
norms from those of non-journalistic sources, who only in some cases adopted journalistic norms. Media accounts did not greatly diverge from their gate‑
keeping role, mostly retweeting other media accounts, while spokespersons retweeted citizens, media, and other spokespersons equally. Non-journalistic
sources, on the other hand, seem to adhere to aspects of the norm of accountability significantly more than journalists on Twitter. An explicit reference to
an information source was included in only 9% of media tweets in comparison to 19% of spokespersons. In addition to exploring the adoption of journalistic
norms on Twitter, the analysis also allows us to determine whether the adherence to these norms is related to the success of a message. Lasorsa, D.L., Lewis,
S.C., & Holton, A.E. (2012). Normalizing Twitter. Journalism practice in an emerging communication space. Journalism Studies, 13(1), 19–36.
PP 213
The Ethics of Citizen Journalism: (Dis)Continuities in the Norms and Values of Participatory Media Production
T. Eberwein
1
, M. Kus
2
, C. Porlezza
3
, S. Splendore
4
1
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies, Vienna, Austria
2
University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland
3
University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
4
Università degli Studi di Milano, Milano, Italy
In the networked media environments of today, participatory strategies of content production are becoming more important. In this context, both news‑
room experience and media research have shown that practices relating to the field of citizen journalism may lead to several advantages, such as easier
access to neglected topics, more diversity, more authenticity etc. (Bruns, 2011). Despite these advantages, however, citizen journalists all around the globe
are facing severe criticism, as the quality of their coverage seems to be low in many instances (Holt & Karlsson, 2015), and their motivation for publishing
media contents often follows 'idiosyncratic self-interests”rather than professional journalistic standards (Fröhlich, Quiring & Engesser, 2012). This discrep‑
ancy raises the question which ethical criteria – if any – citizen journalists apply when evaluating their methods of media production. The paper therefore
focuses on the norms and values of citizen journalism in online media – a topic that has largely been disregarded by empirical research so far. Applying
a comparative analytical design, it illuminates the different ways by which citizen journalists adopt, develop and implement the ethical rules that guide
their behavior in different journalism cultures. The paper draws on a functional approach and defines citizen journalism as the production of news content
by non-professional journalists (Wall, 2015). In order to do justice to the multi-faceted realities of the object of study, it develops a three-level model of cit‑
izen journalism, which embraces both participatory practices within traditional media organizations and citizen journalistic contributions on news sites
outside institutionalized media as well as on individual blogs or social media platforms.The types of citizen journalism are differentiated with regard to their
varying relationships towards traditional news media and the degree of autonomy from professional journalistic actors. For an examination of the ethics
of citizen journalism, the authors realized a two-step research design in seven countries that represent different journalistic cultures and different patterns
of citizen journalism development: the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Poland and Lebanon. In a first step, problem-centered interviews with 63
practitioners made it possible to identify the ethical problems that citizen journalists are facing – and the strategies they apply to deal with them. In a sec‑
ond step, the highlighted areas of ethical reflection were compared with the most important professional codes of ethics in the countries studied, in order
to detect differences and similarities of the norms and values of citizen journalists and their professional counterparts. The research specifies continuities
as well as discontinuities. While professional standards such as truthfulness and accuracy are well known and mostly heeded by citizen journalists, other
traditional values such as objectivity seem to be far less important. Interestingly, the interviewees also report ethical dilemmas (mostly relating to the dia‑
logic qualities of participatory journalism) that are not dealt with in professional codes. The juxtaposition of the ethics of professional and non-professional
media production offers new impulses for future research – and for the practice of media self-regulation, which urgently needs to adapt to the realities
of the digital media world.