Abstract

This study analyzes New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today stories from 2009 to 2016 in which tweets were used as news sources to determine whether their use contributes to source diversity. Research consistently has shown that U.S. journalists rely on official sources such as governmental or business elites in reporting the news and that ordinary citizens and alternative voices are not well represented. Some scholars have theorized that social media platforms such as Twitter might disrupt journalistic norms, leading to greater source diversity in news reports. A content analysis of stories appearing in the three newspapers (N = 1,085) finds that the journalists’ use of tweets as news sources differed little from traditional sourcing practices. Tweets from politicians were cited most frequently while the tweets of non-official sources were rarely cited, a trend that grew more pronounced over time. Furthermore, the tweets generally were not featured prominently within the stories. Journalists at the three newspapers appear to have normalized Twitter to fit existing norms and reporting practices.

摘要

这项研究分析了2009年至2016年的《纽约时报》，《华盛顿邮报》和《今日美国》的故事，其中将推文用作新闻来源，以确定推文的使用是否有助于来源的多样性。研究始终表明，美国新闻工作者在报道新闻时依赖政府或商界精英等官方消息来源，而普通公民和替代声音并没有得到很好的体现。一些学者认为，Twitter之类的社交媒体平台可能会破坏新闻规范，从而导致新闻报道来源更加多样化。对三种报纸上出现的故事的内容分析（N= 1,085）发现，记者使用推文作为新闻来源与传统的采购惯例几乎没有什么不同。来自政治家的推文被引用最多，而来自非官方来源的推文却很少被引用，这种趋势随着时间的推移变得越来越明显。此外，这些推文通常不会在故事中突出显示。这三家报纸的记者似乎对Twitter进行了归一化处理，以适应现有规范和报道惯例。