Political journalists’ corporate and personal identities on Twitter profile pages: A comparative analysis in four Westminster democracies

Abstract

The practice for journalists to present an identity and brand the self on social media has become common across many newsrooms, yet its practice is still poorly understood. Focusing on journalists’ self-representations on the social network site Twitter, this study aims to address the lack of empirical understanding through an analysis of the identities which political journalists present on their Twitter profile pages. A total of 679 accounts of parliamentary press gallery journalists in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were analyzed, with a focus on various textual and visual pieces of professional and personal information. The article develops scales of corporate and personal identity, finding that UK and Canadian journalists most strongly differentiate between personal and corporate identities. Differences across countries are linked to political and economic aspects of the respective media systems.

Journalistic Homophily on Social Media

“…This is perhaps surprising, given the wealth of research on journalism and social media (see, for example, Hedman 2015; Hermida 2013; Lasorsa, Lewis, and Holton 2012). Platforms like Twitter have enjoyed widespread popularity among news workers, with typically 70-80 percent of journalists in many Western societies believed to operate an account (Hanusch 2017b). Twitter has enabled an unprece-JOURNALISTIC HOMOPHILY ON SOCIAL MEDIA dented level of interaction, participation, and connectivity for journalists, who connect with audiences, but also among themselves (Hanusch & Bruns 2017).…”

A Clearer Picture

“…Additionally, Emmons & Mocarski (2015) found women were more likely to pose in their profile photo while men were more likely to use photos depicting themselves in action. As such, the clothing and actions portrayed in an image can project professional or casual personas to the viewer (Hanusch, 2017). At the broader level of overall professional presentation, a study of profile images on the social job networking site LinkedIn found recruiters reportedly saw more credibility in potential candidates when profile images included eye contact and smiles (van der Land, Willemsen, & Wilton, 2016).…”

“…They have reported struggling with how to best balance professional and personal identities, noting that they often sacrifice the latter for the former because of organizational or professional pressures that tend to place priority on displays of work rather than individual expression ). Yet, current research has relied heavily on verbal representations, whether through profile descriptions, the content journalists produce (e.g., tweets) or beliefs and attitudes journalists express about changes in their practices (see Brems et al, 2016;Hanusch, 2017;Molyneux & Holton, 2015;Ottovordemgentschenfelde, 2016). As communication and business scholars have noted, social media consumers develop attitudes toward others based on initial impressions that more often than not include profile pictures and header images (Emmons & Mocarski, 2015;Hum et al, 2011;Kessler, 2011).…”

Goffman’s Backstage Revisited: Conceptual Relevance in Contemporary Social Interactions

“…Notwithstanding the potential of Goffman's proposal for the analysis of an increasingly digital world (Vigmo & Lantz-Andersson, 2014;Leigh, 2017;Bullock, 2018;Portillo, Rudes, Viglione, & Nelson, 2013;Cho et al, 2016), there seems to be a greater plasticity in the presentation of the self in an online context, in a more fluid identity (Hanusch, 2017;Leaver & Highfield, 2018;Lyons, 2018), in which the professional, social and personal dimensions can be combined (Hanusch, 2017).…”