Journalistic Branding on Twitter: A representative study of Australian journalists’ profile descriptions

Abstract

While journalism scholarship on Twitter has expanded significantly in recent years, journalists’ use of the social networking platform for self-promotion and branding has only recently received attention. Yet, as Twitter is becoming important for journalists to build economic and social capital, journalistic branding is increasingly relevant to study. This article reports the results from a study of 4189 Australian journalists’ Twitter accounts to examine their approaches to self-presentation and branding in their profile information. We find that journalists self-identify primarily through professional characteristics, but a significant number also mix this with personal information. Yet, they are also wary of providing personal information, with one-third including a disclaimer that their views are their own. Whereas only small differences could be found along gender lines, more significant differences existed in terms of whether journalists worked in metropolitan or regional areas and the nature of their employers’ main platform of distribution.