How did
journalists use Twitter during the 2014 Gaza War?
Twitter has become a key means of
disseminating news and information during major events. One of them, for
example, is the 2014 Gaza War between Israel and Hamas. During the 50 days of
war from July 8th to August 26th journalists were highly
active on this social networking site, reporting and offering their take on the
unfolding events. According to Galtung (2006), while peace journalism is
people-oriented, war journalism is elite-oriented. The latter focuses on
leaders and elites as actors and sources of information. To what extent, if
any, does Twitter challenge that, as it enables journalists from mainstream
news organizations to communicate with other users and to disseminate messages
from different sources? While previous research addressed the role of non-elite
sources on Twitter during the civil uprisings in the Arab world, scholarly
attention has not been paid to the journalistic use of sources on this platform
in the context of war, which poses unique dilemmas and concerns to journalists.
For instance, journalists whose nation is in a state of war tend to confront a
dual allegiance as they are “caught between nation and profession” (Zandberg
& Neiger, 2005: 131). The proposed study will examine what types of sources
did mainstream media journalists use on Twitter during the Gaza war, what
actors did they focus on, and how did they express themselves. Understanding
gatekeepers’ sourcing routines and modes of expression on social media in a
time of war may contribute to gatekeeping theory and enable to better assess
the extent to which social media promote (or not) people-oriented journalism in
different contexts.
References
Galtung, J. (2006). Peace journalism as
an ethical challenge. Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition, 1(2), 1-5.
Zandberg, E. & Neiger, M. (2005).
Between the nation and the profession: Journalists as members of contradicting communities. Media
Culture & Society, 27(1), 131-141.
No comments:
Post a Comment