Keeping their distance?: Navigating the complexities of journalist-public relationships in the social media age

摘要

Relationships between journalists and their publics, always contested territory, have become more challenging to navigate as social media continue to open up opportunities for interaction. Communication with news publics is occurring at multiple levels and on multiple platforms -mediated by news outlets, by journalists as public-sphere professionals, and by journalists as individuals. This presents challenges in navigating the contested territory around public-private boundaries. However, for journalists outside major cities, this navigation has been a concern since before the arrival of social media. Multiple levels of engagement with news sources, audiences, and advertisers are a hallmark of non-metropolitan journalism, intensified by the growth of Facebook and Twitter. This article reports on a study of the impact of social media on non-metropolitan journalism in two countries, focusing on ways in which journalists navigate the challenges of public and private spaces. It draws on Couldry's notion of media as practice to consider what it is that journalists are doing in navigating these boundaries and the ways in which they are contested. It finds that even though the journalists might aim to keep public and private spaces separate on social media, the environment in which they operate presents challenges to this.