Comparing Interactivity on Twitter by Political Reporters at TV Networks, Online-Only News Websites, and Newspapers

Abstract

Although the public regularly attempts to interact with reporters on Twitter, it is not clear to what extent reporters at various types of news outlets engage with citizens, politicians, and other users on the microblog. To find out, a content analysis was conducted on 4,500 tweets during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign from political reporters at TV networks/cable news, online-only news websites, and large newspapers. Findings indicate significant differences in Twitter interactivity by news outlet type, with TV political reporters most likely to interact with politicians and online-only political reporters most likely to interact with citizens. However, interactivity was generally low except with fellow journalists, which supports the normalization hypothesis.