Journalistic Branding on Twitter: An Exploratory Study of Australian Journalists
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Paper by Folker Hanusch and Axel Bruns, presented by Folker Hanusch at the International Communication Association Conference in Fukuoka, Japan, 9-13 June 2016.
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Journalistic Branding on Twitter: An Exploratory Study of Australian Journalists
- 1. Folker Hanusch @fhanusch | folker.hanusch@qut.edu.au Axel Bruns @snurb_dot_info | a.bruns@qut.edu.au Digital Media Research Centre @qutdmrc Journalistic branding on Twitter An exploratory study of Australian journalists
- 2. • Digital transformations of journalistic work • Importance of social network sites for: – Accountability – Newsgathering – Brand loyalty (Canter, 2013) • Branding on Twitter relatively understudied • Yet, importance of branding for journalists increasing Digital Media Research Centre Introduction
- 3. • Importance of self-presentation on identity (Goffman, 1959) on Twitter • Notion of self-branding, which “combines the curation of an online branded persona with the strategic management of social relationships” (Gandini 2015, 2). • Benefits of branding: – Building economic capital in a world of precarity – Building social capital to increase influence Digital Media Research Centre Branding on Twitter
- 4. • Four dilemmas for journalists on Twitter: – Information or interaction – factual information or opinions – personal or professional persona – implicit or explicit self-promotion (Brems et al. 2015) • Importance of examining profile information to identify trends in journalistic branding and about mixing personal and professional aspects Digital Media Research Centre Branding on Twitter
- 5. • Sample: 4189 journalists’ Twitter profiles (estimated Australian journalist population 8- 10,000) • Twitter account details retrieved via Twitter API using command-line tool t (Michaels-Ober 2014) • Data captured on 10 September, 2015 • Subsequent manual coding for range of demographic and work-related characteristics of Twitter users and profile information Digital Media Research Centre Methodology
- 6. Digital Media Research Centre Verified account 43.3% Protected account 0.5% Provides a description in profile 96.9% Average length of description (chars) 94.5 (SD 42.7) Provides location 84.1% Identifies as journalist 94.6% Identifies employer 90.7% Provides URL 57.1% Provides email address 17.1% Asking for story ideas 5.3% Disclaimers “Views my own” 30.8% “Retweets do not equal endorsement” 4.8% Provides personal information 40.5% Number of Lists (Median) 25 Number Following (Median) 636 Number Followers (Median) 756
- 7. Digital Media Research Centre Gender Male Female V Verified account 44.5% 42.3% Provides a description in profile 97.3% 96.6% Identifies as journalist 94.8% 94.5% Identifies employer 91.3% 90.2% Provides URL 59.6% 54.7% .049** Provides email address 15.1% 18.9% .050** Asking for story ideas 4.3% 6.3% .044* "Views my own" 27.6% 33.9% .069*** "Retweets do not equal endorsement" 4.5% 5.0% Provides personal information 39.6% 41.3%
- 8. Digital Media Research Centre Geographic location Regional Metropolitan V Verified account 24.8% 51.2% .241*** Provides a description in profile 93.0% 98.5% .144*** Identifies as journalist 88.4% 97.2% .176*** Identifies employer 81.0% 94.9% .219*** Provides URL 47.3% 61.1% .125*** Provides email address 14.8% 18.1% .039* Asking for story ideas 6.2% 4.9% "Views my own" 37.0% 28.5% .083*** "Retweets do not equal endorsement" 4.0% 5.0% Provides personal information 45.8% 38.5% .068***
- 9. Digital Media Research Centre Main platform Digital Newspaper Commercial Broadcast Public Service Broadcast V Verified account 49.1% 42.7% 47.2% 39.2% .061** Provides a description in profile 99.3% 96.1% 97.1% 98.3% .062** Identifies as journalist 94.8% 92.9% 96.3% 97.4% .087*** Identifies employer 93.3% 88.4% 91.7% 95.6% .103*** Provides URL 71.2% 58.2% 38.5% 64.1% .193*** Provides email address 26.2% 18.0% 15.0% 13.8% .081*** Asking for story ideas 8.6% 3.8% 6.9% 5.9% .070*** "Views my own" 23.2% 28.4% 25.0% 43.3% .151*** "Retweets do not equal endorsement" 2.2% 3.3% 2.0% 10.6% .155*** Provides personal information 43.4% 45.8% 32.8% 32.0% .133***
- 10. • Twitter increasingly important to be visible, influential and employable • Australian journalists overwhelmingly taking to Twitter • Majority stick to professional persona in profile information, but significant number also mix professional and personal characteristics • Journalists still experimenting with branding the self • Significant degree of caution – one-third post disclaimers Digital Media Research Centre Conclusion
- 11. • Important distinctions in terms of location and type of platform: – Metropolitan journalists most embracing of professional persona – Journalists at digital outlets most extensively mixing professional and personal characteristics – PSB journalists more wary of mixing professional and personal persona Digital Media Research Centre Conclusion
- 12. Digital Media Research Centre @fhanusch @snurb_dot_info http://qut.edu.au/research/dmrc
Notas del editor
- Three broad aspects of Twitter as it relates to journalists can be identified: a) accountability (the ability for journalists to be more transparent about their work); b) newsgathering (finding stories and building relationships with sources); and c) brand loyalty (the ability for journalists to attract new readers and sustain relationships) (Canter 2013). While the first two have received sustained attention for some considerable time, aspects of brand loyalty have received less scrutiny in the scholarship on Twitter and journalism, despite the fact this is an area of increasing concern for journalists (Molyneux & Holton 2015).
- RQ1: What information do Australian journalists provide on their Twitter profiles? RQ2: What are the similarities and differences among Australian journalists’ branding practices in relation to their demographics?
- Journalists make heavy use of the opportunity to list information about themselves, with only 3.1 per cent not providing any information on their profile, compared with around 20 per cent in the general population (Semertzidis et al. 2013). Almost all (94.6 per cent) identify as journalists, and 94.7 per cent of those do so right at the start of their profile. Journalists are only slightly more circumspect when it comes to identifying their employer, with 90.7 per cent doing so. While other studies have found considerable tensions between the individual and the organization in respect of branding (Brems et al. 2015; Molyneux & Holton 2015), the vast majority of journalists examined here present a persona of being an employee of their organization. Just over half (55.6 per cent) provide a hyperlink to their employer, and one sixth (16.5 per cent) provide their work email address (a further 0.6 per cent provide a personal email), while 1.2 per cent even list their phone number. Compared with Swedish journalists, only 6 per cent of whom provided an email address or phone number (Wiik & Hedman 2015), the accounts in our sample appear considerably more willing to provide contact information and engage directly with audiences. Further research is required, however, to determine whether journalists provide this information of their own accord, or whether they are forced to do so. In the US, at least, it appears there is increasing pressure by organizations for journalists to link to their employer (Holton & Molyneux, 2015). Responding to the debate about the separation of professional from personal activities, almost one in three journalists (30.8 per cent) provide in their profile the common disclaimer “views my own”, or a statement to that extent. Another statement – “retweets do not equal endorsement” – was listed by 4.8 per cent of journalists. Journalists are also heavily mixing professional and personal attributes in their online persona, with 40.5 per cent providing personal information about themselves. This contrasts with a study of Swedish journalists, which found that nearly 80 per cent disclosed some personal attributes (Wiik & Hedman 2015). As people create their personal identity through both their work and personal lives, our findings suggest that journalists are to a great degree identifying online through their work, but a significant number are also mixing personal and professional characteristics in this effort, arguably wanting to appear to be more than just a journalist, or at least letting audiences gain a glimpse of their private lives. The average length of profile descriptions was 94.5 characters (including spaces), although SD=42.7 indicates significant variation in the results. The longest descriptions were up to the maximum of 160 characters, while the shortest was the six-character word “journo”. There were no significant differences in the length of male (M=94.98) and female journalists’ (M=94.04) profile descriptions. Geographic location seemed to make a small difference, with regional journalists’ (M=96.89) descriptions slightly longer than those of their metropolitan counterparts (M=93.54), t(4011)=2.218, p<.05, two-tailed, with d=.078 suggesting a very small effect. An Analysis of Variance showed journalists working at digital-only outlets had the longest descriptions (M=99.06), followed closely by newspaper journalists (M=98.17) and public service broadcast journalists (M=94.87). Commercial broadcast journalists tended to have significantly shorter profile descriptions (79.45), F(3, 3883)=38.207, p<.001, η2=.029 – a small effect. A basic word frequency analysis revealed the 10 most frequent words used were: journalist, news, views, reporter, editor, ABC, Australian, producer, sports, and writer. The most popular words most likely related to personal attributes were: love or lover, fan, music, and tragic. Terms like mum or mother, dad or father or other family-related terms also appeared relatively frequently. This indicates that most of the personal information journalists revealed related to things they loved or were fans of, as well as their family status. Journalists tend to have a greater number of followers than they follow themselves, with the most popular journalist having 352,005 followers, while the one who followed the largest number listed 40,851 other users. Unsurprisingly, how long a journalist has been on Twitter was positively correlated with both followers (τ=.275, p<.001) and numbers following (τ=.242, p<.001), while number of followers was also positively correlated with number following (τ=.472, p<.001). Just over half (56.7 per cent) had more followers than users they themselves followed. Similarly, the more journalists tweeted per day, the more followers they had, indicating that increased Twitter activity may attract more followers (τ=.521, p<.001). On average, journalists had 5.82 times the number of followers than they were following, although this is skewed as the median of 1.15 suggests. This trend is also similar to Swedish journalists, who on average were followed by more than 2.5 times the number of users that they followed themselves (Wiik & Hedman 2015). In addition to the number of followers, appearing on a Twitter list may further indicate an individual journalist’s value, and being on a list is strongly correlated with the number of followers one has (τ=.786, p<.001). The median of 25 (M=61.2) shows that journalists are relatively prominent on Twitter lists, with the highest-ranking journalist listed 2931 times. Just over one-tenth (13.4 per cent) appeared on at least 100 lists. Journalists thus appear by and large to be popular brands, with most having more followers than users they themselves follow, which may play a role in their branding activities.
- In terms of gender, significant differences existed in only four aspects of profile information. Men were significantly more likely to provide a URL, but women were more likely to provide an email address for contact. Women were also more likely to ask for story ideas in their profiles, such as asking: “Got a story? Email me at [email]” or “News tips: [email]”. Further, women’s profiles were more likely to contain a disclaimer to say their views expressed on Twitter were their own. This suggests that women may see it as more important than men to clearly articulate a distinction between their use of Twitter and their work as journalists. It is important to note, however, that all gender-based effect sizes, as measured by Cramer’s V, were extremely small.
- We were able to find larger effect sizes when it came to the distinction between regional and metropolitan journalists. The results provide strong support for the argument that there are considerable differences between these two groups’ respective approaches to self-branding. Most importantly, metropolitan journalists are significantly more likely to hold a verified account, with more than half in this category, as opposed to only one-quarter of regional journalists. Cramer’s V indicates a medium-size effect. Metropolitan journalists are also more likely to provide a description in their profile, to identify as a journalist, to identify their employer, to provide a hyperlink and to provide an email address. While most of these effects are small, the effect size for identifying their employer is small-to-medium. These overall findings are comparable to Wiik and Hedman’s (2015) study, which found that journalists’ geographic location had a strong effect on whether they provided professional attributes. On the other hand, regional journalists were significantly more likely to include a disclaimer that the views presented were their own, and they were more likely to provide personal information – again in line with Wiik and Hedman (2015). It appears, then, that metropolitan journalists are overall more likely to include professional characteristics as part of their Twitter persona, while regional journalists are slightly less likely to do so.
- Compared to all other platforms, digital journalists were the most likely to have a verified account, provide a description in their profile, and provide a URL and email address. They were also more likely to ask for story ideas, and second-most likely to identify their employer. On the other hand, they were the least likely to provide disclaimers like “views are my own”, but second-most likely to provide personal information. The latter result is in line with research suggesting that online journalism is enhancing journalists’ levels of transparency as to their own personality (Hermida 2013). At the other end of the spectrum, public service broadcast journalists were least likely to hold a verified account, but most likely to identify as a journalist, as well as to identify their employer. At the same time, they were also significantly more likely than other journalists to include disclaimer such as “views my own” and “retweets do not equal endorsement”. Both findings produced a medium-sized effect, as measured by Cramer’s V. Public broadcast journalists were also least likely to include personal information in their profiles, especially compared to digital or newspaper-based journalists. Newspaper journalists were only slightly more likely than their public service broadcast counterparts to hold a verified account, least likely to provide a description in their profile and to identify both their status as a journalist and their employer, as well as to ask for story ideas. Their use of disclaimers was similar to digital and commercial broadcast journalists, but they were also the most likely to provide personal information in their profile. This suggests that journalists working at organizations that are predominantly print-oriented are most similar to digital journalists in relation to what they reveal on their profiles – a finding that speaks to the fact that newspaper organizations were among the first to go digital, and that many digital journalists may have previously been print journalists. Still, the fact that newspaper journalists less frequently provided hyperlinks or email addresses or asked for story ideas may indicate a continuing skepticism towards the benefits of social media. Commercial broadcast journalists are an interesting group, who diverge in important ways from journalists at other organizations. They are second-most likely to have a verified account and to identify as journalists, but are at the lower end in terms of providing hyperlinks or email addresses, arguably indicating that commercial broadcasters’ web presences are not yet as prominent online as those of digital-only outlets, newspapers or public service broadcasters. At the same time, they are second most likely to ask for story ideas, although the effect size is small. Commercial broadcast journalists are also less likely to include disclaimers in their profiles, or to provide personal information. The latter finding is similar to Wiik and Hedman’s (2015) result that journalists working at commercial television stations were least likely to include personal attributes in their profile. However, their study also found that public service broadcast journalists were considerably more likely to include personal attributes, while our study found a similar level of personal information in both commercial and PSB journalists.
- Thus, branding is increasingly important for journalists to be visible, influential, and employable. At the same time, branding on Twitter brings with it a clash between journalists as individuals, and as employees of news organizations. There have been numerous high-profile cases where journalists’ behavior on Twitter has led to them losing their jobs (Whitbourn 2015), and it appears that journalists and their employers are still trying to figure out best practices on the platform. This study has focused on journalists’ Twitter profile descriptions, as they present an ideal opportunity for users to engage in branding themselves. Our study of 4189 Australian journalists’ profiles demonstrated the presence of a range of aspects which relate to branding. Overall, we found that journalists are overwhelmingly taking advantage of self-branding opportunities on Twitter, and while the majority stick to a professional persona, a significant number also mix professional and personal characteristics in creating their identity online. Despite this, journalists are still very cautious when branding the self, as evidenced by the fact that one in three journalists feels compelled to list a disclaimer in their profile stating that their views are their own. Yet, as one in six journalists also explicitly asks other users to send them story ideas, there is a clear awareness in these journalists of the benefits of increased audience interaction and brand promotion, even if it may be primarily a one-way interaction in this instance. The option to brand the self is a relatively new phenomenon for many journalists, and it appears that both news organizations and their employees are still experimenting to identify what approach best fits their needs, while weighing up a variety of factors. At the heart of this are concerns over notions of objectivity, transparency and sourcing, which are being renegotiated and redefined through journalists’ behavior on Twitter, as other studies have also shown.
- There are also some important distinctions to be made in journalists’ branding practices, particularly in terms of the location of their news organization as well as the platform they work on primarily. To this extent, journalists working at metropolitan news organizations appear to most embrace a professional online persona, while those working for digital platforms are most extensively mixing professional and personal characteristics, allowing audiences more of a look behind the scenes. It makes sense that digital journalists, who are working in a digital environment every day, would most strongly adapt to the rules of Twitter, which revolves around active engagement with others. They do this by following many users, providing links, soliciting information and disclosing personal information. Newspaper journalists, on the other hand, are overall less adept at tweeting or following others, and are less likely to identify as journalists or to provide links, even though they do disclose similar levels of personal information. Broadcast journalists are similar to some extent, but public service broadcast journalists are more concerned with focusing on professional attributes, as they are the most likely to name their employer, identify as a journalist, and to display a disclaimer. This indicates a wariness around the mixing of personal and professional identities online, and may well be due to the fact that Australia’s main public broadcaster’s charter stipulates journalists’ impartiality. That impartiality has often come under sustained attack by politicians and other media organizations in recent years (Knott 2015). Commercial broadcast journalists, on the other hand, are much less concerned with disclaimers, but similarly uninterested in providing personal information. They also follow fewer users, which may indicate that Twitter for them is still a one-way vehicle to get their persona and content out in a traditional way, but not to engage too heavily with other users.