The augmented newsbeat: spatial structuring in a Twitterized news ecosystem

Abstract

This article deals with the intertwining of digital and nondigital spaces of news reporting. It focuses specifically on how Twitter affects spatial and temporal orderings of news ecosystems. At the New York State Government, actors within the space permeate informational barriers through Twitter while enabling others to follow and engage in events from remote locations. The always-on mentality of tweeters not only blurs boundaries between work life and private life but also helps correspondents to get access to and pass on information instantly as well as to better anticipate events. The proliferation of digital spaces enhances awareness of nondigital spaces but requires coordination between the two. This paper is based on over two years of field research, involving observation, interviews, digital ethnography of the statehouse twitterverse and content analysis of journalists' tweets around the passage of same-sex-marriage law.

Professional role enactment amid information warfare: War correspondents tweeting on the Ukraine conflict

“…At the same time, by blurring the lines between public and private forms of communication, Twitter often renders journalistic role enactments more transparent than those that can usually be found in their news reporting in the 'old' media (cf. Revers, 2015). The correspondents' live tweets and photographs, for instance, can be compared with television reporters' live reports from the scene and make it possible for newspaper correspondents, too, to extend their role as eyewitnesses.…”

“…While there is a rapidly growing number of studies concentrating on how news organisations and professional journalists use Twitter as a journalistic tool and how it may change journalistic norms and daily practices (e.g. Canter, 2015;Hermida, 2013;Lasorsa et al, 2012;Lawrence et al, 2013;Revers, 2015), hardly any attention has been paid to war correspondents' use of Twitter. Changes in both the information environment and in modern warfare are mounting new pressures on reporters in conflict zones and may influence their practices and journalistic production, or the ways in which they conceive of and enact their role as journalists.…”

Crossing the Line between News and the Business of News: Exploring Journalists’ Use of Twitter

“…A study of reporters working in the State Capitol Building in Albany, New York, found the use of Twitter generated intense news-breaking pressure (Revers, 2015, p. 8). One reporter called it a "huge classroom" where everyone was able to monitor everyone else (Revers, 2015). An analysis of tweets during the 2016 U.S. election by political correspondents found they tended to interact mostly with each other, banding together as a community to shore up a profession they see as under threat (Molyneux & Mourão, 2017, p. 15).…”

Digital media and the diversification of professionalism: A US–German comparison of journalism cultures

“…As Twitter gradually seized the State Capitol, it affected not only journalism but the whole nexus of political communication in New York State. The impact of this digital formation manifests itself in the interaction between spatial-temporal orders of digital and non-digital (Revers 2014b). One instance which made this quite obvious occurred in early 2012.…”