Journalism in the Age of Twitter
This chapter critically examines Twitter’s journalistic significance, taking stock of the myriad ways the platform has shaped media work and grappling with what implications this has had for the journalistic field. After reviewing some of the most salient sociological contributions to the study of journalism before social media, the chapter offers an evaluation of Twitter’s popularity among journalists and an assessment of its implications for the profession as well as scholarship on it. Then, it looks beyond Twitter and journalism to examine how the emerging hybrid media system has loosened the profession’s control over information, which has led to fundamental shifts in the relationship between the journalistic and political fields. Thus, in addition to providing a detailed assessment of what sociological accounts reveal about the practice of journalism, the chapter shows how recent scholarship has complicated those understandings by revealing how shifting norms and field boundaries lead to new questions and discoveries about the profession as well as its role in the public sphere. The chapter concludes by offering some reflections on the state of the field as well as some suggestions to help guide future research.