Journalism Studies

ISSN: 1461-670X (Print) 1469-9699 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjos20

Journalism as Multichannel Communication

Christoph Neuberger, Christian Nuernbergk & Susanne Langenohl

To cite this article: Christoph Neuberger, Christian Nuernbergk & Susanne Langenohl (2018):
Journalism as Multichannel Communication, Journalism Studies

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1507685

Published online: 15 Aug 2018.

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 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL
COMMUNICATION
A newsroom survey on the multiple uses of
social media

Christoph Neuberger, Christian Nuernbergk, and

Susanne Langenohl

The use of social media reinforces the change in journalism from a single-channel activity to multi-
channel communications. News organizations and journalists must learn to simultaneously operate
several social media channels. Furthermore, social media is multi-functional and applicable in all
phases of news production and distribution. Taken together, journalism is reaching a higher
level of complexity. This study’s main objective is to systematize the multiple uses of social
media in journalism and explore related newsroom strategies. To this end, we surveyed editors-
in-chief of German internet newsrooms (n = 105, response rate: 70 per cent) about social media
use in their newsrooms. We systematically distinguished five general dimensions, with 24 specific
uses of social media in journalism. The results show that Facebook and Twitter serve multiple jour-
nalistic purposes. In contrast, blogs and YouTube are more specialized tools. We conducted a cluster
analysis to explore if and how these patterns vary by different strategic approaches in organizing
social media use in newsrooms. While the overall pattern remains stable, more experienced and
strategy-oriented newsrooms use Twitter notably more often for various tasks.

KEYWORDS Journalism; social media; newsroom strategy; multichannel communication;

Facebook; Twitter

Introduction
The use of social media has reinforced journalism’s shift from a single-channel activity
to multichannel communication. News organizations and journalists must now learn to sim-
ultaneously operate several channels. The phrase channel is broadly used here to mean any
institutionalized opportunity for public communication with specific qualities. Such chan-
nels can be distinguished on at least two levels: That of media, and that of formats
within a medium. At the level of media, the use of several channels is called cross-media
or media convergence. In the last two-and-a-half decades, traditional journalistic brands
have expanded their activities into new digital media, such as the internet and mobile
media. Cross-media strategies and convergent newsrooms have been a central topic in
journalism research for many years (e.g. García Avilés, Kaltenbrunner, and Meier 2014;
Menke et al. 2018). The same development can now be observed at the level of formats.
The introduction of social media added a number of new communication channels.
Social media is defined here as a format that facilitate participation and interaction in
public communication. It is a format within the internet medium, contrary to its name.
Journalism Studies, 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1507685
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 CHRISTOPH NEUBERGER ET AL.

Such social media formats include social network sites, blogs, micro blogs, wikis, video
portals, and podcasts. Many editorial offices have set up accounts on Twitter, Facebook,
Google+, YouTube, and other platforms. In this case, they are providers on external plat-
forms, on which the operating companies govern possible uses (Helmond 2015; Nielsen
2017). These spin-offs of journalistic brands in social media are linked to the editorial
website, which remains at the centre of the brands’ internet activities. In contrast, blogs
(which also count as social media) are integrated into the editorial website (Neuberger,
Nuernbergk, and Rischke 2009; Nielsen 2012). In 2014, when the survey was conducted,
87 per cent of media outlets in Germany (n = 151) had at least one account on Facebook,
74 per cent were on Twitter, 40 per cent on Google+, and 15 per cent on YouTube, while 40
per cent had at least one blog (Neuberger, Langenohl, and Nuernbergk 2014, 12). Multi-
channel communication can be observed, not only in the realm of journalistic providers,
but also in the realm of the audience. Users switch between social media channels many
times a day for different purposes (Costera Meijer and Kormelink 2015; Nielsen and
Schrøder 2014): Users write, comment (Oz, Zheng, and Chen 2017), and read; retweet on
Twitter; like and share on Facebook; and watch videos on YouTube. Audience surveys
show a growing news use of social media (e.g. Neuberger 2014; Newman et al. 2016,
2017). Concerning social media, editorial offices are now confronted with similar strategic
questions to those faced by cross-media: How can the diverse possibilities of social media
be adequately used? Where do social media’s particular strengths and weaknesses lie? How
can these social media channels complement and strengthen each other? The present
study deals with these questions.

Literature Review
Multifunctionality of Social Media
Social media is not only channels for publishing editorial content like traditional mass
media. It is multifunctional and applicable in all phases of the news-production and -distri-
bution process. There are at least five general uses of social media in journalism: Publishing,
investigation, user participation, editorial staff meta-communication, and audience moni-
toring (Artwick 2013, 215–217; Broersma and Graham 2016, 94–99; Hermida 2012, 313–
319; Neuberger, vom Hofe, and Nuernbergk 2014, 348–351). Furthermore, these general
uses have several manifestations, which create many new opportunities for journalism.
Publishing. Social media are qualified differently for the use as publication channels.
Twitter and blogs are appropriate for live news coverage (Neuberger, vom Hofe, and Nuern-
bergk 2011, 48–50; Thurman and Newman 2014). Brief breaking news often spreads via
Twitter (Vis 2013); Facebook can give an overview on a newspaper’s content (Larsson
2018); blogs are written by journalists as individual columns and articles; and videos are
broadcast on YouTube. Many individual professional journalists use blogs as a publication
and marketing tool (Garden 2016; Gil de Zúñiga et al. 2011).
Investigation. Social media offers the opportunity to observe a variety of actors, and
widens the spectrum of sources, especially of non-established actors that cannot develop
large-scale PR activities to draw attention to themselves (Lecheler and Kruikemeier 2016;
Santana and Hopp 2016). Journalists can also search large quantities of published infor-
mation, with the help of search engines and social-media aggregators. Furthermore, jour-
nalists can continually follow interesting sources, such as politicians or celebrities, without
 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION 3

much difficulty (such as on Twitter, by using TweetDeck). Social media, especially Twitter,
can also be helpful in building permanent networks, such as experts and politicians
(Verweij and van Noort 2014), who can be contacted through the platform. In addition, eye-
witnesses can be identified (Allan 2016) and pictures and videos can be collected, especially
in case of sudden negative events (such as terror attacks and natural disasters) (Johnston
2016; Mast and Hanegreefs 2015; Wall and El Zahed 2015). Through multiple participants,
it is not only possible to cite individuals, but also observe the distribution of opinions on
controversial issues or trends (Neuberger, vom Hofe, and Nuernbergk 2011, 53–61).
However, the representativeness of social media users for the general population in such
cases must be taken into consideration. Information of unclear origin, and skepticism
about the credibility of sources, leads editorial offices to not exclusively rely on social
media. Instead, they get ideas for research and stories, and verify elsewhere the information
gathered on social media (Schifferes et al. 2014). A survey of German internet editors-in-
chief in 2010 (Neuberger, vom Hofe, and Nuernbergk 2014, 352) found that journalists’
most common use of Twitter was to detect the general mood regarding current topics.
Another important use for journalists was to obtain feedback on their own reporting.
Twitter was hardly searched for eyewitnesses, experts, facts, and information for cross-
checking. Similarly, Coddington, Molyneux, and Lawrence (2014) investigated journalistic
fact-checking on candidates’ debates in the 2012 US presidential elections, finding that
Twitter was not often used for this purpose.
User participation. In journalism, social media is also used in multiple ways to interact
with the audience (e.g. Domingo et al. 2008; Hermida and Thurman 2008; Himelboim and
McCreery 2012; Jönsson and Örnebring 2011). Two basic types of user participation can be
distinguished. The first type includes reactions to published editorial contributions. This is
equal to the traditional letter to the editor. In the case of television, user feedback is even
possible simultaneously, during a live broadcast (second screen; e.g. Trilling 2015). By con-
trast, long-term discussions, detached from day-to-day events, are also possible because of
the storage capacity of the internet and networking technologies (such as hyperlinks or
@mentions). Studies mostly refer to comments below articles and debates in forums of jour-
nalistic websites (e.g. Ziegele and Quiring 2013), rather than to social media. The second type
of user participation is the inclusion of amateurs in the editorial process (Hille and Bakker
2013, 668), which Bruns (2008) termed produsage. This form of inclusion can involve research
tasks, such as forwarding photos and videos (Kristensen and Mortensen 2013), or crowdsour-
cing (Aitamurto 2016; Muthukumaraswamy 2010), but also writing and correcting articles,
which helps to enhance editorial products (Scott, Millard, and Leonard 2015).
Meta-communication. Beyond that, editorial offices use the opportunity to promote
their articles on Facebook or Twitter, and link to them on journalistic websites (Neuberger,
vom Hofe, and Nuernbergk 2011, 46–48). In this way, editorial offices attract users from
different places on the internet, and guide them to the journal’s website. Such websites
not only gain traffic through recommendations from users (news sharing; Kümpel, Kar-
nowski, and Keyling 2015), who become secondary gatekeepers (Singer 2014), but also
through their own advertising activities. In particular, Facebook and Twitter direct the audi-
ence’s attention to journalistic websites (e.g. Newman, Levy, and Nielsen 2015, 75–76;
VanNest 2016).
Monitoring the audience. Social media investigates further into topics of professional
journalism. The audience can observe their own reactions on a website and follow them on
the internet (Neuberger, vom Hofe, and Nuernbergk 2011, 55). Social media’s high
4 CHRISTOPH NEUBERGER ET AL.

transparency in relation to journalism, the public, and sources leads to stronger reciprocal
observation and probably to an increase in reactions as well (Wendelin, Engelmann, and
Neubarth 2017).
Most studies have only analyzed one, or a few of these opportunities of social media.
This is an artificial restriction because journalism as a process changes on the internet. Tra-
ditional mass media has a periodical production process with a linear order of separate
steps. In the case of a newspaper, this process starts and ends every day. At the end of
this process, a complete, finalized article is published. The public resonance usually
remains marginal and rarely exerts any influence on further journalistic work. On the inter-
net, we are increasingly confronted with a never-ending news cycle (Robinson 2011) and a
diminishing linear order. For example, a user comment can correct a story, give it a new
spin, or even be the starting point for the next article. Fifteen years ago, Bowman and
Willis (2003) discussed this vision of journalism as a circuit-flow. There was also a clear dis-
tinction between on-stage (in front of the audience) and off-stage processes in the old style
of media. However, the editorial work no longer occurs behind the walls of the newsroom
on the internet, if users are engaged in the editorial process as reader-reporters, investi-
gators (via crowdsourcing), or critics. Multifunctional social media contributes to blurring
boundaries in journalism.

Comparative Studies on the Use of Social Media in Journalism

Social media has special properties that shape communication in different ways.
Twitter is a tool for rapidly disseminating short messages, while blogs are more adequate
for in-depth discussions of political topics. These differences are obvious, but many others
are not. The question that then arises is: How do journalists make different uses of different
types of social media? To answer this question, comparisons must be drawn between types
of social media and their uses. Comparative research is a strategy that is not limited to a
special dimension, even though most comparative research in communication studies
focuses on international or intercultural comparison. Comparative studies aim to create
case descriptions and/or typologies, or explain differences and commonalities (Esser and
Hanitzsch 2012). Comparative research designs are necessary for internet research,
especially on social media because of its heterogeneity. However, research on social
media and on the internet in general is still mostly lacking in this respect. Presently, a
large number of narrowly focused studies exist on single formats (blogs; e.g. Bruns and
Jacobs 2006; Nielsen 2012; Thurman and Newman 2014), single platforms (Twitter; e.g. Cod-
dington, Molyneux, and Lawrence 2014; Engesser and Humprecht 2015; Hermida 2013;
Metag and Rauchfleisch 2017; Verweij and van Noort 2014; Weller et al. 2014), and single
uses of social media (such as on investigation, and user participation, as seen in the pre-
vious section). As a result, existing research offers an extremely fragmented picture of
the use of social media in journalism. Therefore, there is a demand for comparisons
between different types of social media and their uses. Until now, such comparisons
have only been drawn in a few journalism surveys (Gulyas 2013, 2017; Hedman 2015;
Hedman and Djerf-Pierre 2013; Rogstad 2014; Santana and Hopp 2016; Willnat and
Weaver 2014, 18–21) or newsroom surveys (Neuberger and Nuernbergk 2010; Neuberger,
Langenohl, and Nuernbergk 2014).
In a representative journalism, including more than 1,000 participants, Willnat and
Weaver (2014) identified 13 uses of social media. Journalists most often mentioned the
 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION 5

following benefits: Checking for breaking news (79 per cent); checking what other news
organizations do (73 per cent), finding ideas for stories (60 per cent), keeping in touch with
audience (60 per cent), and finding additional information (56 per cent). The authors also
asked respondents which social media they regularly used. Journalists most often used
microblogs (such as Twitter) (54 per cent), then blogs by other journalists (24 per cent),
and then crowdsourcing (such as Wikipedia) (22 per cent). Hedman and Djerf-Pierre
(2013) asked Swedish journalists (n = 1,412) how often they used different types of social
media. Twenty per cent wrote for a blog (at least monthly), and 26 per cent wrote
tweets, but 83 per cent did not use any networking sites at all. The authors also asked
about the perceived usefulness of social media for 14 different purposes. However, the jour-
nalists were asked to judge social media only as a whole (as in Willnat and Weaver 2014),
rather than comparing types of social media to each other. A repetition of the survey in
2014 (n = 957) only showed a slight increase of usage. The perceived usefulness of social
media dramatically dropped (Djerf-Pierre, Ghersetti, and Hedman 2016, 857).
Two studies analyzed the use of social media in different countries. Schmitz Weiss
(2015, 94) questioned 444 journalists in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru
regarding their contact with social media. Facebook (68 per cent) and Twitter (64 per
cent) were used more often than YouTube (8 per cent), Google+ (6 per cent), and blogs
(5 per cent). The type of usage was registered solely with an open-ended question.
Gulyas (2013) covered several dimensions in her study. She surveyed journalists in four
Western European countries (Finland, Germany, Sweden, and the UK) as to how they
used social media. Her sample was not representative and was based on self-selection
(n = 1,560). She compared six types of social media and tested the impact of the length
of professional career, type of media sector, and size of the media organization on the
use of social media. Ninety-six per cent of the respondents already used some form of
social media. German journalists lagged behind and had the most negative attitude
toward social media. In contrast, UK journalists used social media most often and had
the most positive attitude toward it. Publishing and promoting own content was considered
the most important purpose of social media, followed by networking, monitoring, sourcing,
and verifying information. This order was consistent in all four countries. The results showed
which social media was preferred for certain tasks between countries. For example, content
communities and crowdsourcing sites were used relatively often for publishing und promot-
ing in Germany, while microblogs were considered to be highly important in the UK. These
differences reflect the special conditions in these countries. A repetition of the study in
2013 in seven countries (adding the Netherlands and the US) showed an increasing use
of social media, although Germany still had the lowest use.
A closer look at the relative strengths and weaknesses of social media for journalism
is important in a practical sense. Newsroom staff is still at an early stage of experimenting
with social media. Journalists must develop professional practices and norms for the use of
social media (Hedman and Djerf-Pierre 2013; Nielsen 2012; Opgenhaffen and Scheerlinck
2014). In doing so, traditional norms, roles, knowledge, and skills are questioned or read-
justed (Bentivegna and Marchetti 2018; Braun and Gillespie 2011; Hermida 2012, 319–
324; Herrera and Requejo 2012; Lecheler and Kruikemeier 2016, 166; Singer 2005, 2010).
Journalists should also find successful strategies to gain clicks and earn money (Ju,
Jeong, and Chyi 2014; Wikström and Ellonen 2012). Today’s journalism lacks effective
ways of making use of innovations in newsrooms (Boczkowski 2004), especially in the
case of social media (Hille and Bakker 2013, 677). However, the effective use of these
6 CHRISTOPH NEUBERGER ET AL.

innovations is important for the future of journalism because social media is not only a tool
for journalists, but also for their (former) sources and (new) competitors, which can bypass
traditional media and directly reach audiences. In addition, answers to this question are also
important in a more theoretical sense. The internet is characterized by enormous hetero-
geneity and dynamics, compared to newspapers or television, which were much more
homogenous and stable for a long time. The online public sphere unites a great variety
of contexts, and the boundaries between these contexts are blurring (e.g. Anderson
2016; Chadwick 2013; Domingo, Masip, and Costera Meijer 2015). This not only results
from the numerous technical options of the internet, but also from the many different
uses of these options and ongoing testing to find out better ways to make use of the inter-
net. An elaborated theoretical framework should consider the use of different channels of
communication (repertoires) (Hasebrink 2016) and the dynamic relationship between jour-
nalism and its audience (reciprocity) (Lewis, Holton, and Coddington 2014). Such a rela-
tional and dynamic framework would help in analyzing the mutual adjustment in the
institutionalization of online journalism. In this context, different organizational factors
that support the development of certain repertoires in dealing with communicative inno-
vations could also be investigated (e.g. Küng 2008).
Against this background, this study seeks to systematize how the various options of
social media are being adopted in newsrooms for journalistic tasks. This leads to our
research questions:
RQ1: For what specific tasks do newsrooms use which social media?

RQ2: Which types of newsroom strategies can be distinguished, concerning the adoption
of social media?

Methods
Sample
This study seeks to answer these research questions by conducting a newsroom
survey. The survey presented here was conducted in 2014 in Germany (Neuberger, Langen-
ohl, and Nuernbergk 2014). In this survey, unlike the surveys of individual journalists men-
tioned above, editors-in-chief were asked about the social media use and strategy of their
news organization. All German internet newsrooms with supra-regional reporting and dis-
tribution were invited to participate in the study. An exception was made for daily news-
papers. Regional and local papers were also included in the sample because there are
only a few supra-regional (national) dailies in Germany. Furthermore, the vast majority of
German journalists work for regional and local dailies. The three other subpopulations
were weekly newspapers and public magazines (only general interest titles), broadcasting
(TV, radio), and internet-only providers. Only those providers with professional journalists
were included; citizen media were excluded. This decision was made primarily for prag-
matic reasons. The effort to identify relevant cases of citizen media is much higher in com-
parison to traditional mass media. The relevant newsrooms were identified in three steps:
(1) we compiled a list of mass media outlets with the help of relevant German media direc-
tories for each media sector1; (2) we identified the corresponding websites for all listed
outlets and checked basic requirements (German language and location, news in text
form, editorial autonomy, and contact details); and (3) we conducted a content analysis,
 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION 7

in which timeliness of the news and the variety of topics (universality) were both criteria to
be met. After this preliminary analysis, 151 of 186 newsrooms were in the final sample for
the survey. The online survey tool SoSci Survey (soscisurvey.de) was used for the fieldwork,
which lasted from May 5 until June 3, 2014. The response rate was 70 per cent (105 respon-
dents) but differed between groups.2 We sent invitations to the editors-in-chief who were
identified by name. They were allowed to forward the invitation to another staff member
with a good overview of social media activities.3 Therefore, we asked all respondents to
assess their own overview of how members of their newsroom use social media. Forty
per cent (n = 104) of the participants stated that their own overview was very good.
Nearly half estimated their overview as quite good. Nevertheless, editors-in-chief may
have limited insight into the day-to-day work of their staff. Editors-in-chief may also tend
to give self-advantageous and socially desirable responses.
According to the survey results, 100 per cent of the editorial offices in our sample
already managed at least one account on Facebook, 95 per cent on Twitter, 86 per cent
on Google+, 75 per cent on YouTube, and 74 per cent managed at least one blog in
2014 (n = 105). However, these percentages related to newsroom accounts, and did not
reflect the number of individual accounts personally maintained by staff members.
Whether these editorial offices are already highly involved in social media, or engage
with it, cannot be determined by the number of official accounts alone. Therefore, the
survey also systematically explored the different uses of social media in these newsrooms.
Therefore, all respondents had to reflect on how the editorial staff in their office typically
used social media.

Data Analysis
Social media. Only the most frequently used social media platforms in German jour-
nalism were selected for the questionnaire, since not all social media could be considered
as response categories. The selected platforms were: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, YouTube,
and blogs (according to a link list of the German newspaper publishers’ association BDZV:
http://www.bdzv.de/maerkte-und-daten/digitales/social-media/).

Uses of social media. The list of tasks was developed, based on the results of five
explorative interviews and a systematic literature review.4 In the questionnaire, 24
special tasks in five dimensions were mentioned. The respondents commented on 240
different items in total (five social media formats and platforms, 24 tasks, and two
aspects: use and appropriateness). To reduce the effort required, only dichotomous vari-
ables were applied, which limited the possibilities for statistical analysis of the data.
RQ2 asked the surveyed newsrooms for different types of editorial strategies and
organizational decisions in the use of social media. We did this by conducting a cluster
analysis on a set of questions, which asked about strategic management of social media
activities and evaluated editorial competence in dealing with social media. The following
variables were included as binary variables in our analysis.

Clear social media strategy. The editors-in-chief were asked if a clear social media
strategy was implemented in their news organization on a scale, ranging from 1 (not
true at all) to 4 (very true) (M = 3.14, SD = 0.83). For analytical reasons, this item was sub-
sequently folded into a binary variable (scores 1 to 3 were recoded as 0, and a score of 4
8 CHRISTOPH NEUBERGER ET AL.

was recoded as 1), ranging from no clear strategy to clear social media strategy, which was
stated as very true (without clear strategy = 63.0 per cent; with clear strategy = 37.0 per
cent; n = 92).

Social media competence. Respondents were also asked to assess the competence of
their employees in dealing with social media on a three-point scale, ranging from 1 (no need
for improvement) to 3 (strong need for improvement). This item was transformed into a dichot-
omous variable (scores of 1 or 2 were recoded to 0, and a scores of 3 was recorded as 1),
which specifies whether or not a strong need for improvement was recognized (without
strong need for improvement = 71.6 per cent; with strong need = 28.4 per cent; n = 89).

Social media editors. In addition, we asked the respondents whether or not they
employed social-media editors, who are mainly concerned with the use of social media.
Newsrooms without social-media editors were assigned a value of “0,” and those with
editors were assigned a value of “1” (without social media editors = 55.4 per cent; with
editors = 44.6 per cent; n = 92).

Specialized minorities with specific social media tasks. The editors-in-chief were first
asked whether a majority or a (specialized) minority of editorial staff members use social
media for journalistic research and newsgathering tasks (not a minority task = 40.9 per
cent [assigned value 0]; specialized minority task = 59.1 per cent [assigned value 1]; n =
88). We then asked whether publishing tasks in social media were organized by a (special-
ized) minority or a majority of staff members (not a minority task = 25 per cent [assigned
value 0]; specialized minority task = 75 per cent [assigned value 1]; n = 92).
The cluster analysis could identify patterns in respondents’ answers and group the
respective newsrooms according to these patterns. We identified three types of managing
and organizing social media within the surveyed newsrooms. The three groups also
assessed the social-media competence within their staff differently.
We retracted the three groups in a two-step procedure (see Hanitzsch [2011] and
Denner and Peter [2017] for a similar procedure; Bortz and Schuster 2010, 462; Sarstedt
and Mooi 2014). Our first step was a hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward’s method
(squared Euclidian distances with binary measures; see also Matthes and Kohring 2008)
to decide on the number of clusters. The inspection of the dendrogram and the Elbow cri-
terion indicated that either three or five cluster solutions could be justified. Overall, a three-
cluster solution promised the best results. The second step was a k-means clustering pro-
cedure. This process starts by randomly assigning the objects to the pre-specified number
of clusters, as determined in the first step of our analysis. Then, the objects are successively
reassigned to other clusters to minimize the within-cluster variation, which is the (squared)
distance from each observation to the centre of the associated cluster. The comparison of
the hierarchical cluster solution and the k-means-clustering show that the partitioning
method resulted only in a few changes, with five objects removed from their initial
cluster to another cluster.

Results
The participants were asked to select the social media that their staff generally used
for a particular task (RQ1). A basic evaluation showed a specialized use of social media for
 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION 9

TABLE 1
Use of social media to publish editorial content (in %, n = 96, newsroom survey, 2014)

Twitter Facebook Google+ YouTube Blogs

Fast-breaking news 85.4 81.3 30.2 – 2.1
Real-time reporting 71.9 65.6 15.6 7.3 13.5
Own videos 32.3 56.3 15.6 65.6 9.4
Editorial (subjective view of an 14.6 30.2 13.5 3.1 42.7
author who writes regularly)

publishing tasks (Table 1). Twitter was most often used for brief breaking news and real-
time reporting. Not surprisingly, YouTube was the most popular place to publish videos,
while blogs were used for regular posts with a subjective view on news. Facebook was con-
sidered the second-best solution for each of these tasks.
Editorial staff most often used Facebook and Twitter for investigation and monitoring
in terms of journalistic research (Table 2). Twitter was used to contact elite sources, such as
experts and prominent people, or for monitoring their public appearances. Facebook was
more often used to obtain an overview of what people thought, their opinions about an
issue, or their feedback on reporting. Facebook was also used to find topics, sources and
eyewitnesses, and was also the most important for acquiring facts about news events
and background information.
Facebook and Twitter were, respectively, most often used for user participation
(Table 3). Participation usually meant that users could comment on editorial articles (see:
Traditional letters to the editor). It was much less common for users to be part of the edi-
torial process itself. This occurred when users wrote their own articles or helped staff
members investigate stories. Advertisement for editorial content was also very widespread.
In sum, editorial production was preserved. The results confirmed the thesis of normaliza-
tion (Singer 2005). The editorial offices were quite reserved in their use of social media for a
few tasks. Social media was rarely used for tasks that required greater effort (such as edi-
torials, crowdsourcing, expert networks, or ongoing discussions) or could possibly reduce
the quality of the supply (such as articles written by users).

TABLE 2
Use of social media for journalistic research and monitoring (in %, n = 97, newsroom survey,
2014)

Twitter Facebook Google+ YouTube Blogs

Finding ideas for topics 64.9 82.5 30.9 29.9 34.0
Finding sources on the internet 58.8 64.9 28.9 20.6 32.0
Eyewitnesses who can be asked or cited 55.7 72.2 18.6 11.3 8.2
Facts about a news event 53.6 55.7 20.6 11.3 16.5
Continuous monitoring of prominent sources 74.2 66.0 24.7 25.8 24.7
Experts who can be asked or cited 39.2 37.1 13.4 8.2 26.8
Building and fostering of expert networks 38.1 28.9 13.4 4.1 20.6
Distribution of opinions about an issue 34.0 61.9 20.6 4.1 11.3
Cross-checking information 48.5 46.4 18.6 7.2 13.4
Background information about 30.9 35.1 20.6 14.4 34.0
selected topics
Feedback on their own reporting 59.8 92.8 38.1 12.4 20.6
10 CHRISTOPH NEUBERGER ET AL.

TABLE 3
Use of social media for user participation and editorial meta-communication (in %, n = 103,
newsroom survey, 2014)

Twitter Facebook Google+ YouTube Blogs

Discussions on articles written by members 50.5 95.1 45.6 9.7 26.2
of editorial staff
Real-time interaction with the audience 38.8 34.0 6.8 1.0 9.7
during the programme (second screen)
Ongoing discussions with no relation to 24.3 47.6 18.4 3.9 24.3
current news
User criticism of articles written by editorial 58.3 95.1 46.6 10.7 11.7
staff
Transfer of photos and videos to the editorial 41.7 70.9 24.3 2.9 8.7
staff
Participation of the audience in tasks of 33.0 57.3 20.4 1.9 11.7
investigation (crowdsourcing)
Articles written by users 26.2 42.7 17.5 1.9 17.5
Editorial staff gives insight into their work 48.5 73.8 29.1 12.6 25.2
References to editorial content 86.4 99.0 68.9 40.8 32.0

TABLE 4
Newsroom cluster overview (in %, newsroom survey 2014)

Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3

(n = 33) (n = 30) (n = 22) Total
Specialized Inexperienced All-rounders (n = 85)
Clustering variables
Newsroom has a clear social media 66.7 3.3 50.0 40.0
strategy (χ2 (2) = 27.50)***
Newsroom employs social media editors 84.8 3.3 54.5 48.2
(χ2 (2) = 42.29)***
Social media competence needs strong 6.1 60.0 4.5 24.7
improvement (χ2 (2) = 31.06)***
Social media research is a task of a 57.6 90.0 18.2 58.8
special minority in the newsroom (χ2
(2) = 27.06)***
Social media publishing is a task of a 100 100 0 74.1
special minority in the newsroom (χ2
(2) = 85.00)***
Media type and geographical focus
Regional/local media (χ2 (2) = 21.39)*** 51.5 96.7 40.9 64.7
Print media (χ2 (2) = 15.28)*** 61.6 100 63.6 75.3
Broadcast media 27.3 0 22.7 16.5
Online-only media 12.1 0 13.6 8.2

Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

According to the initial clustering variables and the media type, the three clusters can
be characterized as follows (Table 4): Specialized, with a high profile on social-media
resources, strategies, and skills (Cluster 1); Inexperienced, with a low profile on resources,
strategies, and skills (Cluster 2); and the competent All-rounders, who see social-media pub-
lishing and social-media research as typical majority tasks (Cluster 3). The all-rounders
 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION 11

exhibited a medium degree on employing social-media editors and prevalence of clear

strategies. Concerning the media type and the distribution area, the inexperienced news-
rooms had a particularly clear profile. In this cluster, we only found print media with a
strong regional focus. The other clusters also contained broadcast and online-only
media. Especially in the all-rounder cluster, we predominantly found national news media.
The strongest degree of strategy orientation was found in the specialized newsroom
cluster. In our survey, we asked respondents to assess different statements concerning the
social-media strategy in their newsrooms. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was cal-
culated, based on respondents’ ratings of these statements by analyzing their cluster mem-
bership. Significant effects were found for five statements (Table 5). Post-hoc tests showed
that inexperienced newsrooms differ significantly from the two other clusters in the
respective cases. They exhibited significantly lower means for the objective of being at
the forefront of the development, for experimenting with social media, for systematically
reviewing the success of their own social media commitment, for regular exchanges of
experiences in dealing with social media, and for cooperation with freelance journalists
who are successful in social media.
How do these strategic patterns and different ways of organizing social media use
affect how newsrooms make use of social media for specific tasks? We address this question
by comparing the respondents’ answers by cluster membership. We focus on the areas of
journalistic research and journalistic publishing with social media.
In the research domain, we found several significant differences between the
examined clusters in this domain (Table 6). The cluster with specialized newsrooms, in
particular, uses Twitter much more frequently to search for eyewitnesses, but also to
find experts who can be interviewed or quoted. The majority of newsrooms in this
cluster also use Twitter to build and foster expert networks and to check the distribution
of opinions. These uses of Twitter are much less common in the other two clusters. In
the two clusters with higher social media competence, Google+ is – surprisingly – used
to a larger extent. A majority of respondents in specialized newsrooms stated that they
use Google+ for researching feedback on their own reporting. The all-rounders are
increasingly using YouTube and blogs to find sources. This time-consuming research
is rare among inexperienced newsrooms, but is more prevalent among the specialized
newsrooms.
Among the four publishing tasks (Table 1), we found significant differences by cluster
membership only in the case of publishing editorials with social media. Here, Twitter was
used to a greater extent in the cluster of the specialized editorial offices (30 per cent, n
= 33) (χ2 (2) = 10.55, p < 0.01).

Discussion
The main objective of this study was to explore the profiles of different social media
and newsrooms strategies. In sum, Facebook and Twitter are very versatile in terms of jour-
nalism and are used for many tasks. In contrast, blogs and YouTube are specialized tools.
Based on a cluster analysis, we detected three different organizational approaches in
dealing with social media. The editorial offices either rely on a stronger specialization in
the team (with corresponding positions) or see social media as a basic task for everyone
in the department. These two approaches were pursued by more experienced newsrooms
with social media, whereas less competent offices exhibited low resources for dealing with
12 CHRISTOPH NEUBERGER ET AL.

TABLE 5
Assessment of strategy statements (one-way ANOVA, newsroom survey 2014)

Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3

Specialized Inexperienced All-rounders Total
M M M M
Statements concerning the social media strategy Our editorial staff …
wants to be at the forefront 3.15a (n = 33) 2.31b (n = 29) 3.18a (n = 22) 2.87 (n = 84)
of development
(F2, 81 = 10.06)***
wants to keep up (F2, 79 = 1.00) 3.33 (n = 33) 3.10 (n = 30) 3.00 (n = 19) 3.17 (n = 82)
does not want to risk too much, 1.91 (n = 32) 2.03 (n = 29) 1.64 (n = 22) 1.88 (n = 83)
as success is not predictable
enough (F2, 80 = 1.01)
provides sufficient freedom to 3.21a (n = 33) 2.43b (n = 30) 3.14a (n = 22) 2.92 (n = 85)
experiment with social media
(F2, 82 = 14.27)***
systematically reviews the 3.39a (n = 33) 2.70b (n = 30) 3.41a (n = 22) 3.15 (n = 84)
success of their own social
media commitment
(F2, 82 = 9.40)***
regularly exchanges 3.64a (n = 33) 2.97b (n = 30) 3.36a (n = 22) 3.33 (n = 85)
experiences in dealing with
social media on a regular
basis (F2, 82 = 7.70)**
closely monitors the social 3.48 (n = 33) 3.17 (n = 30) 3.36 (n = 22) 3.34 (n = 85)
media appearances of other
editorial offices (F2, 82 = 1.67)
is guided by the behavior and 3.00 (n = 33) 2.80 (n = 30) 2.68 (n = 22) 2.85 (n = 85)
comments of the users
(F2, 82 = 1.19)
closely monitors expert 3.56 (n = 32) 3.14 (n = 29) 3.23 (n = 22) 3.33 (n = 83)
discussions on social media
in journalism (F2, 80 = 2.94)
cooperates with freelance 2.55a (n = 33) 1.77b (n = 30) 2.05a (n = 22) 2.14 (n = 85)
journalists who are successful
as bloggers or on Twitter
(F2, 82 = 5.70)**
has invested a lot in 1.56 (n = 32) 1.61 (n = 28) 1.55 (n = 22) 1.57 (n = 82)
unsuccessful social media
concepts (F2, 79 = 0.52)
does not have enough 2.52 (n = 33) 2.83 (n = 30) 2.32 (n = 22) 2.58 (n = 85)
employees to cope with the
new tasks through social
media (F2, 82 = 2.39)

Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

Four-point scale (1 = not true at all and 4 = very true).
Means with different letter superscripts differ significantly (p < 0.05) in post-hoc analyses (Tukey).

social media and a relative lack of strategy. Consequently, staff members in this third case
probably only deal with social media irregularly. The cluster comparison shows that these
different newsroom strategies also shape how social media is being applied for specific
tasks. In the case of less competent newsrooms, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs are less
common for several research and sourcing tasks. These findings also contribute to research
 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION 13

TABLE 6
Use of social media for journalistic research and monitoring (only tasks that differ significantly
by cluster membership, in percent, newsroom survey, 2014)

Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3

(n = 33) (n = 30) (n = 22)
Specialized In-experienced All-rounders
Twitter
Eyewitnesses who can be asked or 78.8 43.3 63.6
cited (χ2 (2) = 8.47)*
Distribution of opinions about an 54.5 20.0 31.8
issue (χ2 (2) = 8.37)*
Experts that can be asked or cited 60.6 30.0 40.9
(χ2 (2) = 6.13)*
Building and fostering of expert 60.6 30.0 36.4
networks (χ2 (2) = 6.61)*
Facebook
Finding ideas for topics a(χ2 (2) = 97.0 83.3 72.7
6.65)*
Google+
Feedback on their own reporting 60.6 20.0 40.9
(χ2 (2) = 10.70)**
Finding sources on the internet 33.3 13.3 54.5
(χ2 (2) = 10.01)**
Experts that can be asked or cited 15.2 3.3 31.8
a 2
(χ (2) = 7.95)*
YouTube
Eyewitnesses that can be asked or 18.2 0.0 22.7
cited a(χ2 (2) = 7.13)*
Cross-checking information a 6.1 0.0 22.7
(χ2 (2) = 9.01)*
Finding sources on the internet 21.2 10.0 45.5
(χ2 (2) = 9.03)*
Blogs
Eyewitnesses who can be asked or 3.0 3.3 27.3
cited a(χ2 (2) = 11.11)**
Facts about a news event a(χ2 (2) = 12.1 3.3 40.9
13.77)**
Finding sources on the internet (χ2 39.4 13.3 54.5
(2) = 10.26)**

Note. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001.

a
Fisher’s exact test calculated.

into how media companies can organize in order to deal with innovation processes and
multi-platform publishing (e.g. Küng 2015; Lischka 2015). Following considerations of inno-
vation research (e.g. Martins and Terblanche 2003), one could expect that an organization’s
resources, its degree of role specialization in the innovation concerned, and the existence of
clear strategies for dealing with an innovation will have an impact on how an organization
adapts to and reacts to an innovation such as social media in the journalistic working
process. Our findings point to different repertoires of social media use in German news-
rooms. In this respect, the cluster analysis reveals that these varying repertoires can be
also explained with different organizational approaches that go beyond a typical workplace
comparison.
14 CHRISTOPH NEUBERGER ET AL.

The newsroom survey presented here has certain limitations. As the results were a
snapshot from the year 2014, the rapid development of social media use in general and
especially in newsrooms must be taken into account. Some social media has lost popu-
larity (like Google+) while others have gained (like Snapchat and Instagram). Video
streaming applications are more common today (Kalogeropoulos, Cherubini, and
Newman 2016). A number of apps help journalists to surveil social media automatically
(Thurman 2018). The growing distribution of fake news via social media has also
increased the necessity of verification und fact-checking (Brandtzaeg et al. 2016;
Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016). Therefore, the list of applications of social media in
journalism needs to be revised and adapted to the new situation. Editors-in chief may
have a good overview of the social media activities of their editorial staff, but asking
individual journalists how they deal with social media could lead to deeper insights
and more precise answers.
Other methods, such as content analysis, network analysis, and newsroom obser-
vations, could complement the picture; differentiations should be made between
working roles, situations (for example, routine vs. breaking news), stories, and topics. We
compared the social media activities of German news providers, but such comparative
studies need to be expanded. A more far-reaching question is how social media and
other communication channels are used in combination. For this, the complete editorial
process should be analyzed in case studies in order to determine how social media is com-
bined when journalists work on a topic. This starts with the following questions: Where do
they find a new topic? Where do they look for facts and background information? Where do
journalists check their information? Where do they publish the news? This leads to the
question of how the channels can complement and strengthen each other. At best, the
audience is guided from one channel to another in the context of a brand network. For
such a holistic view, a qualitative approach (Powers and Vera-Zambrano 2018) is more
appropriate than a standardized method.
Comparative research is also lacking in other dimensions. Most research on social
media has focused on special types of actor (such as journalists, users, politicians, or
parties), special topics (like politics), certain events (like election campaigns; e.g. Cod-
dington, Molyneux, and Lawrence 2014), or single countries (especially the USA and
several other countries in Western Europe and Asia). The present study also focused
on one country (Germany). However, the national or cultural context may have a
great influence on the process of adaption (e.g. Engesser and Humprecht 2015;
Gulyas 2013, 2017; Powers and Vera-Zambrano 2018; Schmitz Weiss 2015). Moreover,
the study was limited to the activities of journalists. The question remains as to how
journalists interact with other actors, such as politicians, in the context of social
media (e.g. Nuernbergk and Conrad 2016). From a longitudinal perspective, it would
be interesting to see how journalists experiment with new formats and how they
learn to decide which formats are appropriate for a specific task. For this purpose, it
should also be investigated whether the view of journalists corresponds with
the view of the audience (e.g. Gil de Zúñiga, Diehl, and Ardèvol-Abreu 2018; Heise
et al. 2014).

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
 JOURNALISM AS MULTICHANNEL COMMUNICATION 15

FUNDING
The study was funded by the Media Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landesan-
stalt für Medien Nordrhein-Westfalen), Düsseldorf, Germany.

NOTES
1. Among these directories were the BDZV list “Zeitungen Online” and a database of private
radio programmes and TV stations managed by die-medienanstalten.de. A complete over-
view of the directories used in this study has been published in Neuberger, Langenohl, and
Nuernbergk (2014, 36).
2. The response rate was lowest for the internet-only providers with 50 per cent (six respon-
dents). The daily newspapers made up the largest group, with 75 cases (response rate: 66
per cent). The other respondents came from weekly newspapers/public magazines (eight
respondents, response rate: 89 per cent) and broadcasting stations (16 respondents,
response rate: 100 per cent).
3. Of the 91 fully completed questionnaires, 67 were answered by journalists in a leading
position.
4. Before the questionnaire was developed, we interviewed five journalists with leading roles
(editors-in-chief) or with managerial roles with responsibility for social media from the fol-
lowing media outlets: Bayerischer Rundfunk, Sat.1 Online, Süddeutsche Zeitung (sued-
deutsche.de), Zeit Online, and Huffington Post Deutschland. The interview guide
covered the topics of editorial responsibility and coordination, strategy, appropriateness
and possible uses of social media, quality and rules, as well as training and further
education.

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Christoph Neuberger (author to whom correspondence should be addressed), Depart-

ment of Communication Studies and Media Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University
München, Germany. Email: neuberger@ifkw.lmu.de
Christian Nuernbergk, Department of Communication Studies and Media Research,
Ludwig-Maximilians-University München, Germany. Email: nuernbergk@ifkw.lmu.de
Susanne Langenohl, Department of Communication Studies and Media Research, Ludwig-
Maximilians-University München, Germany.