Eli Skogerbø, University of Oslo (UiO), Axel Bruns,

Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Andrew

Quodling (QUT) and Thomas Ingebretsen (UiO)

Agenda-Setting Revisited: Social

Media and Sourcing in Mainstream

Journalism

Social media and agenda-setting

• Theory

– Is the agenda-setting hypothesis transferrable to an online, hybrid media environment where social media increasingly constitute tools for both journalists and their sources?

– How are tweets included in journalism and thereby in agenda setting processes?

• Media agenda-setting, intermedia agenda-setting, online agenda-setting and agenda-building

- Previous studies yielded varying results

Research questions

• How do social media, in this case Twitter, contribute to media agenda-building and agenda-setting in different political and cultural settings?

• What sources are cited and what functions do their tweets have in journalism?

• What differences and similarities do we findacross media in different countries?

Methods and DataComparisons across Australia, Norway & Sweden

• Similar cases: Small in population, welfare states, stable multi-party democracies, many media outlets

• Election campaign coverage in news media – news articles mentioning election or similar phrases and citing tweets.

• Collection period: 10 weeks prior to Election Day (Australia 9 September 2013, Norway 12 September 2013, Sweden 14 September 2014)

• Australian sources: The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald (Sunday version, the Sun Herald), Australian Financial Review, online news of ABC, wire service AAP.

– 214 articles

• Norwegian sources: VG, Aftenposten, and Dagens Næringsliv, online election news of NRK, the NTB wire service

– 69 articles

• Swedish sources: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Aftonbladet, the online news of SVT, the wire service TT.

– 76 articles

Twitter citations in election coverage over the ten weeks

prior to the 2013 Australian general election.

Tweet citations and functions in articles in the 2013 election coverage

in Australia (excl. ‘media diary’ sections).

Twitter citations in election coverage over the ten

weeks prior to the 2013 general election in Norway.

Tweet citations and functions in articles in the 2013 election

coverage in Norway (excluding VG’s ‘Sagt’ section).

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Aftenposten

Dagens Næringsliv

NRK

NTB

VG

17% / 5 28% / 8

44% / 8 17% / 3

10% / 3

35% / 6

21% / 6

24% / 4

80% / 4

22% / 4

14% / 4

40% / 240% / 2

12% / 212% / 212% / 2

20% / 1

20% / 1

7% / 2

6% / 1

6% / 1

6% / 16% / 1

Cited Groups

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Aftenposten

Dagens Næringsliv

NRK

NTB

VG

88% / 15

100% / 5

69% / 20

67% / 12

17% / 5

60% / 3

17% / 311% / 2

20% / 120% / 1

7% / 2

6% / 1

6% / 1

6% / 1

Tweet Function

Actor Type

Politician

Named user

Relative of politician

Journalist

Unnamed user

Expert

Celebrity

Other

Tweet-Function

Opinion

Acknowledgment

Joke

Announcement

Other

Fact

Twitter citations in election coverage ten weeks prior to

2014 general election in Sweden.

Tweet citations and functions in articles in

the 2014 election coverage in Sweden

Comparing the Role of Tweets 1

Journalistic practices

Similarities and differences between the media

• No pattern: The Australian (broadsheet/quality) and VG (tabloid/popular) used a larger number of tweets in election coverage articles than theircompetitors.

Similarities and differences between the countries:

• Australian media cited tweets in election-related news articles more frequently than their Scandinavian counterparts, 155 articles compared to 77 articles in Sweden and only 39 articles in Norway.

• Considerably greater chance that tweets cited in the news media could influence or set the media agenda in Australia than in Sweden and especially in Norway – suggesting that intermedia agenda-setting power of Twitter sources is lower in Scandinavia than in Australia.

• Australian and Swedish media cited tweets of

politicians and fellow journalists, as well as ordinary

users.

• Norwegian media devoted less space to the tweets of

political actors or journalists, and instead presented a

broader range of tweeters. Ordinary users and

relatives of politicians emerging were prominent

categories.

Does Twitter set the agenda?

• The sheer difference in the number of tweets quoted shows that Twitter contributed more often to agenda-setting and agenda-building in Australia than in Scandinavia.

• Tweets were included into the election coverage regularly in Australia, while Norwegian and Swedish news media included them less often but were somewhat more open to citing non-elite sources, named and unnamed.

• The diversity of sources quoted was larger in Scandinavia than in Australia.

Conclusions – for further research

• Twitter’s influence on media agendas differ between media organizations (resources?/journalistic cultures?) and national settings (political cultures?)– When journalists resources are limited, Twitter becomes

more influential?

• The relationship between political journalists and their sources may be of different quality and character in different settings– Actual and perceived distance between journalists and

political elites, may be smaller in Scandinavia than in Australia.

Thank you!