Tijdschrift voor Communicatiewetenschap - Volume 43, Issue 1, 2015

Dutch politicians on Twitter: who, which topics, when and with what effect?

This article examines the use of Twitter by politicians during the 2010 Dutch election campaign. It examines which politicians used Twitter, which topics are being discussed and when politicians use Twitter. Furthermore, this article investigates to what extent posting tweets leads to more preferential votes. A content analysis of tweets posted by politicians was used to address our hypotheses and research questions. The results show that politicians post tweets about their private lives as well as the election campaign. We also found that politicians communicate in an interactive way with their audience. Finally, the results show the use of Twitter makes a difference. Politicians who used Twitter during the course of the campaign received more preferential votes than those who did not.

Participation in and through journalism. The relevance of public journalism in the digital age

About twenty-five years ago a journalistic reform movement emerged in the US, which was referred to as ‘public journalism’. The main goal of this movement was twofold; to reconnect journalism with its public and to reconnect the public with civic life. After more than a decade of flourishing, the interest in public journalism waned. Maybe because the time was not yet right for a paradigm shift toward a radical public orientation, maybe because the concept was believed to have been overtaken by the arrival of new media by which the same ends can be achieved. Due to technological and social developments journalism is in the process of redefining itself and it is evolving in the direction of networked journalism. Against this background the principles of public journalism are more promising than those of traditional journalism, corresponding far better with the fundamentally changing relation between the profession and its public.

Facebook as a corporate communication tool for companies? A content analysis of the communication strategies of reputable Belgian companies on the social network site

This study used a quantitative content analysis to investigate how twelve reputable Belgian companies use Facebook as a corporate communication tool. Findings indicate that companies use Facebook more often to post public relations than marketing communication content. The former is also more often shared than the latter. However, the latter creates more engagement in terms of reactions of the company on comments of users. Furthermore, about one fourth of the company posts did not generate any written reactions from users and can be classified as one-way communication. Almost 40% of the posts generated reactions from the users. To conclude, in one third of the cases companies reacted on these reactions of users, and results reveal that this is more often the case when it concerns public relations content than marketing communication content. Reputation score was not able to predict the communication strategy used on Facebook.

Journalistic sourcing practices in times of churnalism and Twitter: a survey of Flemish professional journalists (2008-2013)

In order to assess the impact of cost-cutting, digitalization and globalization on journalistic sourcing practices, we report the results of a large-scale and longitudinal survey among Flemish journalists. The findings show that pre-packaged content from a journalistic (news agencies and media brands) and non-journalistic origin (press releases), and elite actors (politicians, government institutions, experts, journalists and corporations) are important information sources. In contrast with often heard complaints about unequal news access, the findings nonetheless show that Flemish journalists acknowledge the importance of ordinary citizens and NGOs as news sources. The responses to the questionnaire moreover point to the development of new sourcing practices: Flemish journalists are increasingly turning towards social media in the news gathering process but overall the importance of Facebook, Twitter and the like as a news source remains fairly limited.

The impact of parenting styles on the development of social media literacy

While a lot of research on social media tends to focus on either the benefits or risks of social media for adolescents, scholars have paid less attention to how adolescents actually use these media. In this paper, we focus on the impact of parenting styles on the development of adolescents’ social media literacy concerning the use of Facebook. Our research consists of a large-scale survey with a sample of 1,319 adolescents and 27 in-depth interviews. We use the perceived parenting styles to investigate adolescents’ use of social media in general and their use of Facebook in particular. When looking at levels of social media literacy concerning Facebook, we find significant differences between teenagers who encounter authoritative or permissive parenting styles; adolescents whose parents adopt an authoritative style score better on items related to critical skills, while respondents with permissive parents have more freedom in their use of Facebook and score better on technical competencies.

Het boek Methoden voor journalism studies van Willem Koetsenruijter en Tom Van Hout vult een leemte in de nog relatief jonge onderzoeksdiscipline ‘journalism studies’, die journalistiek bestudeert als maatschappelijk fenomeen. Journalism-studiesonderzoekers hebben aandacht voor het volledige nieuwsproces: een eerste onderzoekstroming focust op nieuwsproductie als journalistieke praktijk (met onder andere profielstudies van journalisten), waarbij doorheen de tijd steeds meer het besef groeide dat men ook oog moest hebben voor de manier waarop bronnen de berichtgeving proberen te beïnvloeden. Een tweede onderzoekslijn focust op de nieuwsinhoud zelf, met studies van journalistieke genres zoals het interview of de reportage, studies rond beeldvorming en stereotypering (bijv. van minderheidsgroepen), agenda setting enzovoort. De derde onderzoekstroming verlegt de focus naar het publiek, de ontvanger van het nieuws en stelt vooral de vraag naar de impact van nieuws en de manier waarop lezers/luisteraars/kijkers nieuwsinformatie verwerken en gebruiken in hun alledaagse leven. Zoals de auteurs in het boek zelf aangeven, vereist een dergelijke ambitieuze doelstelling een multidisciplinaire aanpak, waarbij methoden van andere wetenschapsdomeinen, zoals sociologie en antropologie, vertaald worden naar de studie van journalistiek. Het resultaat daarvan is dat het voor onderzoekers in journalism studies niet altijd evident is om te besluiten welke onderzoeksmethode best aansluit bij een bepaalde onderzoeksvraag en onderzoekcontext. Dit boek speelt in op dit hiaat door een algemeen kader aan te bieden van zes onderzoeksmethoden voor journalism studies en de bijhorende vragen waarop ze een antwoord kunnen bieden. Daarmee sluit het boek zich aan bij een groeiende reeks publicaties in het domein van journalism studies, hetgeen de ontwikkeling van de jonge onderzoeksdiscipline tot een geïnstitutionaliseerd onderzoeksdomein met eigen theorieën, aangepaste en ook nieuwe onderzoeksmethoden illustreert.