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<p>Several recent studies have examined how professional journalists use social media at work. However, we know little about the differences between younger and older journalists’ use of social media for newsgathering. We conducted 16 in-depth interviews comparing eight young journalists (median age = 24) with eight older journalists (median age = 50) in Norway. The younger journalists reported using multiple social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, to collect politically significant information, news observations, sources and comments. By comparison, the older journalists reported relying heavily on elite sources on Twitter. This reluctance to use a variety of social media platforms may limit older journalists’ exposure to a variety of news sources. As a result, younger journalists seem to follow a more multi-perspectival approach to social media and may be more innovative in their newsgathering. Hence, younger journalists may be exposed to more diverse types of news sources than older journalists. Together, the findings indicate a generational gap in ‘networked publics’ concerning how younger and older journalists approach newsgathering in social media.</p>
</abstract>

Several recent studies have examined how professional journalists use social media at work. However, we know little about the differences between younger and older journalists’ use of social media for newsgathering. We conducted 16 in-depth interviews comparing eight young journalists (median age = 24) with eight older journalists (median age = 50) in Norway. The younger journalists reported using multiple social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, to collect politically significant information, news observations, sources and comments. By comparison, the older journalists reported relying heavily on elite sources on Twitter. This reluctance to use a variety of social media platforms may limit older journalists’ exposure to a variety of news sources. As a result, younger journalists seem to follow a more multi-perspectival approach to social media and may be more innovative in their newsgathering. Hence, younger journalists may be exposed to more diverse types of news sources than older journalists. Together, the findings indicate a generational gap in ‘networked publics’ concerning how younger and older journalists approach newsgathering in social media.

A Gap in Networked Publics?: A Comparison of Younger and Older Journalists’ Newsgathering Practices on Social Media

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Several recent studies have examined how professional journalists use social media at work. However, we know little about the differences between younger and...

Characteristics	Young journalists (n)	Old journalists (n)
Gender
Males	4	5
Females	4	3
Professional position
News reporter at a newspaper	5	6
News reporter at a news agency	2	2
Feature journalist at a newspaper	1	0
Education and working experience
Autodidact in journalism	1	0
Graduated in journalism	7	8
Still a student (working part-time)	1	0
Working full-time as a journalist	7	8
Several years of working experience	8	8

A Gap in Networked Publics?: A Comparison of Younger and Older Journalists’ Newsgathering Practices on Social Media

Published Online: May 26, 2018

Page range: 95 - 109

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2018-0004

Keywords
social media, social media natives, newsgathering, networked individualism, older and younger

© 2018 Petter Bae Brandtzaeg et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Characteristics of the interviewees

A Gap in Networked Publics?: A Comparison of Younger and Older Journalists’ Newsgathering Practices on Social Media

Published Online: May 26, 2018

Page range: 95 - 109

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2018-0004

Keywordssocial media, social media natives, newsgathering, networked individualism, older and younger

© 2018 Petter Bae Brandtzaeg et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Characteristics of the interviewees

Keywords
social media, social media natives, newsgathering, networked individualism, older and younger