Social media and journalism have a complicated but important relationship. Social media platforms have expanded and complicated journalistic gatekeeping in ways that impact users' trust, knowledge, and news consumption, as well as the dissemination of news itself. In this way, social media has had a significant impact on journalism.
However, social media have also provided significant opportunities for journalists, who must understand and use social media to communicate with news audiences. Social media provide journalists with an opportunity to engage readers on the platforms they already use in everyday life. And the affordances of these platforms provide journalists an opportunity to connect with—and interact with—users in a more dynamic way. Instead of a one-way street, where journalists only distribute content to audiences, social media make news dissemination a two-way street (or even a roundabout). That’s because social media platforms have become sites for public discourse about the news—and increasingly, decision-makers about the boundaries of news—alongside sites for consuming it.
Journalists also use social media sites to report and collect information. A majority of American journalists today use Facebook and Twitter to conduct research for their stories. Journalists also use these platforms to gather news tips, collaborate with citizen journalists, and interact with news sources and audiences in other ways. Journalists follow important sources on social media, and they stay abreast of news on these platforms as well. Although Facebook is the most popular social media platform in the world—and the most popular for consuming news—journalists are more likely to use Twitter than the average citizen.
As of 2019, 46 percent of Americans consumed news through social media platforms and 37 percent of Americans shared news through social media platforms. This number continues to grow, and it has a huge financial impact on the journalism industry. Because journalistic outlets must rely on platforms like Facebook and Twitter as mediums through which to communicate with audiences, they are often placing themselves at the whims of those platforms in order to gain exposure to news audiences. And when platform leaders make changes to their sites, such as Facebook’s decision a few years ago to prioritize video content, these changes can have overwhelming repercussions for news outlets whose profit models depend on audience engagement with content and advertisements.
A variety of research suggests that relying on social media as one’s dominant source of news can have a negative influence for one’s knowledge and media literacy. For example, according to the Pew Research Center, around 20 percent of Americans get their political news from social media, and people who get political news from social media are most likely to be 30 or younger. However, Pew Research has also found that people who get their political news from social media also understand less about the coronavirus and are more likely to be exposed to false information.
And the partisan divide that complicates news consumption in the United States also appears on social media: According to Pew Research, 72 percent of Americans believe it’s likely that social media sites censor political views they do not support. Additionally, 43 percent of Americans said that big technology companies support liberal views—a figure that is itself shaped by political ideology, with 64 percent of Republicans saying those companies prioritized liberal viewpoints while just 28 percent of Democrats thought so. This, in turn, impacts the extent to which individuals trust not only the content they see on those platforms but also the media brands that appear on their feeds.
Moreover, 57 percent of Democrats say that tech companies should be more regulated than they currently are, while only 44 percent of Republicans agree. Overall, more than half of Americans—51 percent—believe that tech companies, including social media platforms, should be more regulated than they currently are. As such, there is a growing appetite in the United States for rethinking the role of social media in information ecologies.
Posting on social media can have much more complicated repercussions for journalists than for average users, depending on what they share. For example, journalists are not as free to share their personal opinions in social media posts, because of the journalistic norm of objectivity and the desire to separate one’s self from bias and perceived bias. And there’s a divide within the practice of journalism about the boundaries between personal and professional for journalists on social media, with younger journalists often advocating for less stringent restrictions on sharing personal opinions and identity traits online and older journalists supporting stricter practices.
Can journalists advocate social justice causes on social media? Can they use hashtags to participate in protest movements? The answers to these questions and many others can depend on the news outlet the journalist works for and the specific issue in question, among many other factors.
For that reason, it’s common today for news outlets, including The New York Times, the Washington Post, and numerous others, to create and maintain their own social media guidelines for employees. For example, The New York Times' in-house social media guidelines include this key line about the risks of the public perceiving journalists as biased based on what they share on social: “Social media presents potential risks for The Times. If our journalists are perceived as biased or if they engage in editorializing on social media, that can undercut the credibility of the entire newsroom.” And the Washington Post’s social media policy includes a more direct prohibition: “Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything—including photographs or video—that could objectively be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism.” However, journalistic social media guidelines aren’t always explicit, and the reality of social media interactions today leaves a lot of room for interpretation—and accidental violation—of journalistic norms on social media for journalists who do not protect themselves and their personal views.
Outside of this rapidly shifting grey area, traditional journalistic ethics apply more directly. When gathering or sharing information on social media, journalists should comport themselves according to the same ethical standards they use outside of social media. Before retweeting or sharing information gathered on Twitter, for example, journalists should verify it to make sure it is true. They should also attribute the information. This includes all types of information, including photos and videos. Similarly, journalists should also apply news values when deciding what is of value to audiences on social media, and they should think strategically about how best to communicate with their audiences across different social media platforms. Just because the maximum word count in a tweet might be limited does not mean that journalists can relax their professional standards when sharing information on Twitter.
Finally, ethical risks are not the only dangers for journalists using social media. Social media platforms also provide sites of toxic digital attacks against journalists, especially female journalists and journalists of color. This online harassment can have severe consequences for the emotional and mental health of journalists. Social media can also provide temptation for journalists to get sucked into online arguments with users who disagree with them, thus engaging in unprofessional debate. (That, in turn, can draw attention away from doing meaningful reporting.) Social media can also tempt journalists to communicate largely with other journalists, rather than with their audiences.
In short, successfully communicating with audiences on social media requires substantial time and energy. It is not an afterthought.
Social media platforms have expanded and complicated journalistic gatekeeping in ways that impact users' trust, knowledge, and news consumption. It has also played a key role in reshaping news distribution.
As of 2019, 46 percent of Americans consumed news through social media platforms and 37 percent of Americans shared news through social media platforms. This number continues to grow, and it has a huge financial impact on the journalism industry.
Posting on social media can have much more complicated repercussions for journalists than for average users, depending on what they share. In particular, journalists must often moderate themselves on social media to reduce the appearance of bias or lack of professionalism. Today, many journalistic outlets have their own social media guidelines for employees.
Social media platforms also provide sites of toxic digital attacks against journalists, especially female journalists and journalists of color. This can be especially troubling when journalists are attacked but must nevertheless maintain an online presence under organizational guidelines.