Political News Journalists in Social Media

AbstractSocial media allow everyone to show off their personalities and to publicly express opinions and engage in discussions on politicised matters, and as political news journalists engage in social media practices, one might ask if all political news journalists will finally end up as self-promoting political pundits. This study examines the way political news journalists use social media and how these practices might challenge journalistic norms related to professional distance and neutrality. The study uses cluster analysis and detects five user types among political news journalists: the sceptics, the networkers, the two-faced, the opiners, and the sparks. The study finds, among other things, a sharp divide between the way political reporters and political commentators use social media. Very few reporters are comfortable sharing political opinions or blurring the boundaries between the personal and the professional, indicating that traditional journalistic norms still stand in political news journalism.KEYWORDS: cluster analysisjournalistic normsjournalismNorwaypolitical commentarypolitical news journalistssocial media ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSI want to thank Signe Bock Segaard, Bernt Aardal, Rune Karlsen, and the anonymous reviewers for useful comments on earlier versions of this paper.FUNDINGThis article was funded by a scholarship provided by the Norwegian Research Council.Additional informationFundingFUNDING This article was funded by a scholarship provided by the Norwegian Research Council.