Together with Christian Nuernbergk, PD Dr. Jan-Hinrik Schmidt analyses the importance of Twitter in the work of political journalists in an article in the journal Publizistik.
As journalists and politicians increasingly use social media, the “communicative figuration” of political journalism is changing. This essay aims to survey the significance of Twitter in particular within the communicative practice of members of the Federal Press Conference. It also aims to determine their assessments of the suitability of microblogging services in political journalism. To this end, it combines findings from a standardised survey using network-analytical indicators on the interaction relationships on Twitter. The results show that political journalists use the service most often compared to other social media. Journalists who perceive Twitter as important in the communication work of politicians use Twitter significantly more often both as a receiving and as an active communication tool. Interactions between politicians and the interviewed journalists strengthen these differences even more: For example, interviewees mentioned by politicians in tweets consider Twitter more important in their own work overall and rate the service higher than their colleagues when comparing the different communication channels used by politicians.You can find the full article here.
Nuernbergk, C.; Schmidt, J.-H. (2020): Twitter im Politikjournalismus. Ergebnisse einer Befragung und Netzwerkanalyse von Hauptstadtjournalisten der Bundespressekonferenz [Twitter in Political Journalism. Results of a Survey and Network Analysis of Capital City Journalists at the Federal Press Conference]. In: Publizistik, Jg. 65, No. 1, 2020. DOI: 10.1007/s11616-019-00557-4.