Journalists at a crossroads: Are traditional norms and practices challenged by Twitter?

Abstract

This article aims to identify the hybridization that journalists have created to reconcile the pressures arising from the affirmation of the culture of participation and sharing of social media with the traditional norms and practices that are the basis of the journalistic identity. This study analyses the behavior of 1202 Italian journalists on Twitter between 1 January and 29 February 2016, focusing on the interpretation of the transparency norm, the gatekeeping function, and audience engagement. These are norms and practices that are both old and new and that allow us to understand the adaptations journalists make in order to respond to the technological transformations that have affected existing models of journalism and the degree of professionalization of journalists themselves. Through the analysis of the 23,515 tweets published by journalists of different media outlets (newspapers, wire services, TV news, and only-online media), this study has allowed to empirically test the existence of a general adoption of Twitter by Italian journalists, characterized by a ‘hybrid normalization’, that is, a combination of old practices with new modalities with the dual aim of sharing the culture of social media and legitimizing the professional position of journalism.