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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
“Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah … One of
Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot”, she wrote with her explanation that she admired the
deceased Shiite Ayatollah’s person but not his ideas or his work 61 .
Cases such as Ms. Nasr’s, although perhaps might not having the same
consequences, are more frequent than it might seem in the world of journalism (García
de Torres et al., 2011), and this inevitably raises a series of question marks regarding
how journalists use social networks such as Twitter.
As a matter of fact, Chile in 2010 was a year that, as a result of a handful of events –
earthquake, tsunami, Sebastián Piñera’s presidency and the rescue of the 33 miners
trapped in the San José Mine – the use of social networks grew exponentially and
journalists and the traditional media were part of that growth.
So, the time has now come to ask ourselves what kind of a role do those Chilean
journalists and the media play in networks such as Twitter. In view of the nonexistence
of any academic studies in this direction – evidently because they are new – it appears
that a primary approximation is necessary.
With this in mind, the profiles of the journalists and the Chilean media will be analyzed
within the network of micro-blogging in order, on the one hand, to find out how they
became present in it and, on the other, how they behave once they are involved in it.
Only then can the next step be taken and thus assess whether using Twitter is
appropriate or not.
This working paper considers the first glimpses of a research of a tall order; one which
attempts not only to respond to the questions already mentioned, but also to try and
outline certain principles regarding how a social network that started out as being
personal, should be used professionally and corporatively.
Journalism and social networks
5 years in 140 characters
In its fifth year just recently celebrated, Twitter now has 175 million users around the
world 62 and its impressive growth appears to know no bounds, at least in the short or
medium term. Among an immense and mind-boggling amount of social networks that
have seen the light of day since 1997 in the world (Boyd and Ellison, 2007), this one
has stood out because of its simplicity and usefulness at certain moments (examples in
Li & Rao, 2010 and Ad Age Staff, 2011) and it has attracted the attention of a
considerable range of researchers (Boyd and Ellison, 2007).
61 The New York Times, July 7 2010
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/bss/media8cnn.html?_r=2&scp=4&sq=octavia%20nasr&st=cse – LV: March
31, 2011).
62 Official information provided by Twitter (http://twitter.com/about - LV: March 31, 2011).
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