Do journalists (ab)use social media?

Jurisic, J., Rakela A., Bogdanic S. (2013). Do journalists (ab)use social media?. Social media - The Fourth Annual Transforming Audiences Conference, London 2-3 September 2013..

Abstract: The last few years we have witnessed the increasing role of Facebook and Twitter, i.e. social media in journalism. The aim of our research was to verify whether Croatian journalists use social media and to what extent, and if these serve as sources for their articles. The authors have conducted a survey on the sample of 40 Croatian journalists and editors, 10 of each from print media, radio stations, television and web portals. On the whole, we can conclude that all Croatian journalists use social networking sites regularly, mostly two of them. They use social media for their work almost twice as much as their foreign colleagues. As almost every other journalist does not verify facts found on social media, we might say that the unethical use of social media is not much of their concern. The findings raise doubts in trustworthiness of news stories which have been partially or completely taken over from social media and at the same time raise a question whether or not they can be trusted by the readers.