ISOJ 2016

1. SOCIAL
PRESENCE,
AND
JOURNALISTIC
USE OF TWITTER
Jeremy J. Littau
Lehigh University
Mi Rosie Jahng
Hope College

2. BACKGROUND

3. INTERACTIVITY
➤ Replies
➤ Public replies
➤ Retweets
➤ Quote tweets

4. HIGH
SOCIAL
CUE
LOW
SOCIAL
CUE

5. INTERACTIVITY &
CREDIBILITY➤ When users assess journalists
they don’t know via search or
retweets:
➤ Interactivity is good! In fact,
it mitigates problems such
as gender effects.
➤ Social disclosure creates
positive impressions, but
doesn’t affect credibility.
Jahng, M., Littau, J. (2016). Interacting is believing:
Interactivity, social cue, and perceptions of journalistic
credibility on Twitter. Journalism & Mass Communication
Quarterly, 93(1), 38-58.

6. OUR PURPOSE

7. SNAP
JUDGEMENTS➤ PREVIOUS STUDY:
➤ How do users assess the
credibility of a source when
they run into news online?
➤ CURRENT STUDY:
➤ How interactive are
journalists, and is there
some relationship with
social presence?

8. STUDY SCOPE
➤ Content analysis of 555
journalist profiles
➤ Scored on:
➤ Coverage area (lifestyle,
business, civic issues,
science/tech, media,
politics, opinion, sports)
➤ Interactivity ratio (20 most
recent tweets)
➤ Social cue ratio

9. FINDINGS

10. 43.9% OF PROFILES EXHIBITED HIGH
SOCIAL CUE➤ Lifestyle, technology only categories to reverse high/low split
➤ Sports, civics, media more severe versions of split

11. 40.8% OF PROFILES EXHIBITED HIGH
INTERACTIVITY➤ Lifestyle, technology, media only categories to reverse
high/low split
➤ Most lower categories closer to mean than on social cue

12. A CLOSER LOOK
1. High amounts of social presence were a strong predictor of
high interactivity.
2. Job, not topic area, is mostly driving interactivity
1. Content creators are likely to interact
2. Editors and executives less likely to interact.

13. IMPLICATIONS

14. ➤ Social presence is a bridge to
interactivity. This has training
implications.
➤ How open should we be?
Where is the line for
professionalism?
➤ Interactivity is not monolithic
across the professions. Role
matters. So does coverage
topic.
➤ Bring out the trolls: Is
passion/fandom in follower
base driving less
engagement?