I chose the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication (JCMC) edited by S. Shyam Sundar (The Pennsylvania State University) because of its focus on social science research on communicating with computer-based media technology and its very interdisciplinary orientation. The impact factor is 3.117 and it has been published quarterly since June 1995.
My chosen article from the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, published in volume 20 is called "The Double-Edged Sword: The Effects of Journalists' Social Media Activities on Audience Perceptions of Journalists and Their New Products" and written by Jayeon Lee. It deals with the impact of social media activities of journalists on the perception of the audience in relation to the personal and professional dimensions of journalists.
More and more young people consume news not anymore via news websites but via social media, like Facebook and Twitter. According to O'Sullivan (2005) news on social media are not only mass communication but "masspersonal" communication. The goal of the paper is to cover the lack of literature in journalism and computer-mediated communication about this masspersonal approach. One of the main terms related to this topic is objectivity and its importance for journalistic work. Journalists are known as objective gatekeeper for news and act as communicator between real events and the public. With the use of social media journalists build a personal relationship with their audience, which can affect the way the audience selects the news. Journalistic independence (and objectivity) has been one of the most important criteria for independent journalism. Dealing with more recent perspective, objectivity cannot be totally given, because everybody's history and former live influences his way of thinking about specific things. The use of social media creates the opportunity for a better self-disclosure (=process of making the self known, to others, allowing oneself to be perceived by others) and interaction with other users. Another important fact mentioned in the text is the need to belong, which can be fulfilled trough interaction with other users. By using social media journalists have to be aware of both social media norms but also the norms of journalism.
By performing an online experiment combined with a online questionnaire Lee tries to measure the influence of journalists use of social media on the audience. For the online experiment she used a made up Facebook profile, describing a journalist and showing different articles posted on the page. The factors audience perceptions, topic interest, knowledge of current affairs and media bias perception helped her to get to her results, which showed that the self-disclosure and interaction have a positive influence on the personal dimension, but show also a negative influence on the professional dimension of journalists.
1. Briefly explain to a first year university student what theory is, and what theory is not.
A theory is an explanation of something that is tested through the use of scientific methods. Specific hypothesis have to be verified or falsified to create knowledge on which a new theory can be based. Theories help us understanding and structuring the world by showing us why something is done in a special way and how it is done. A theory is not just a list of statistics, hypothesis, scientific methods and sources.
2. Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type can the theory or theories be characterized as?
The major theory used in my selected paper can be put somewhere between "explanation and predication" and design and action. It illustrates very clear what is and what will be and it does provide a good prediction, but explicit prescriptions are not overall very detailed. By discussing how the use of social media by journalists is going to increase in the next couple of years, the necessity of changing some of the "rules of journalism" regarding objectivity is pointed out very clear, but concrete advices, methods and technique are not outstanding.
3. Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?
The most important benefit of using the selected theory is to clarify how important the use of social media for journalists is nowadays. People tend to emphasize more on from whom they get their news instead of just focusing on what the news are. The personal factor gets more and more important to deal with the big overflow of information that we have to manage every day. The limit of the selected theory is that it cannot provide us with specific advices what to do and how to behave in this ongoing change about objectivity and personal integration
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