Anders Olof Larsson!Department of Media and Communication!University of Oslo!andersoloflarsson.se!!Hallvard Moe!Department of Information Science and Media Studies!University of Bergen!hm.uib.no!

Bots or Journalists?!News Sharing on Twitter!!Work-in-Progress presented at ISMI 2014!

The sharing of online content!

-  Media organizations online since the mid-1990s!-  A move towards ”novel” platforms!-  To what extent and by whom is media platform content

distributed (linked to) through so-called social media?!-  Journalists referring others to their material posted elsewhere?!-  Citizens recommending news items!-  Bots – automated services employed to boost statistics,

spammers (?)!-  Focus on Twitter!

-  Elite medium in the scandinavian context!

Research Approach!

-  On Twitter: track links to content published on media outlets from Sweden and Norway!

-  Sweden:!-  SVT (Public Service Television)!-  SR (Public Service Radio)!-  TV4 (”Semi-commercial” Television Broadcaster)!-  Dagens Nyheter (Broadsheet newspaper)!-  Aftonbladet (Tabloid newspaper)!

-  Norway:!-  NRK (Public Service Television and Radio)!-  TV2 (Commercial Television Broadcaster)!-  Aftenposten (Broadsheet newspaper)!-  Verdens Gang (Tabloid newspaper)!

-  Archived during six-month period!-  1 124 106 Tweets… sent by 216 089 accounts!-  Focus on high-end users!

Most-linked to media outlets!… Slightly restructured from the submitted version …!

     

     

N of tweets (black line)!

N of users (grey bars)  

     

In terms of users: printed media appears more popular !(reflects pop. elsewhere - Aftenposten as an exception)!

N of users (grey bars)  

     

In terms of tweets: PSB + print !receives the most attention in both countries!

N of tweets (black line)!

High-end Users!

High-end Users!

-  90 users…!-  0.04 % of 216 089 users – very much the ”outliners of the curve”!-  Responsible for 322 505 tweets – 28.6 % of the total amount of

tweets! !

User Category!

Description! N of tweets !(from N of accounts)!

Self

Reference!

User is presented as an official account

operated by the media outlet linked to, or as

a journalist working for the media outlet

linked to.!

128 962 !

(42)!

Journalist! User is presented as a journalist working for

other media outlet than the one linked to.!

2184!

(4)!

Citizen! User is presented as not related to any

media outlet.!

61 754!

(13)!

Bot! User is presented as a “digest” of Swedish

or Norwegian news media, or as an

automated retweeting service for unknown

purposes.!

129 605!

(31)!

!

Bots are related to print media!!Self reference is common for PSB – experiment with online services (Burns and Brügger, 2012)!!Few references from Journalists working for other media organizations!!No Citizen involvement in tabloid media links!!!

In conclusion!

-  Structural, overarching approach!-  Limitations!

-  Nevertheless – shows us the ”Big Picture” of who the most active users are – and how they employ Twitter for news sharing!

-  Online ratings are important for media companies!-  The results presented here suggest that we should be

wary to underestimate the roles of ”high-end users” in presumably boosting these ratings!

!

Anders Olof Larsson!Department of Media and Communication!University of Oslo!andersoloflarsson.se!!Hallvard Moe!Department of Information Science and Media Studies!University of Bergen!hm.uib.no!

Thank You.!!Work-in-Progress presented at ISMI 2014!