International Journal of Sport Communication, 2013, 6, 107-119
© 2013 Human Kinetics, Inc.
www.IJSC-Journal.com
SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY
Social Media and Flemish Sports
Reporters: A Multimethod Analysis
of Twitter Use as Journalistic Tool
Annelore Deprez, Peter Mechant, and Tim Hoebeke
Ghent University, Belgium
Literature states that incorporating social media as a journalistic tool in news
reporting generates opportunities for journalists to not only dialogue with the
audience but also to publish, to seek information, and to profile themselves or
their organizations. This study broadens the empirical data on the journalistic
use of social media, more specifically Twitter, by sports journalists in Flanders.
A multimethod research approach was used to examine the content of tweets, the
followings, and the profiles of the sports journalists. Results show that almost half
of the sports journalists have a Twitter account, just over a third of them actively
post tweets, and Twitter serves predominantly as an information source to learn
more about athletes and their teams. Journalists also publish and communicate on
Twitter and to a lesser extent use Twitter to interact with their audience. The study
also reveals that Twitter is rarely used as a profiling tool for self-presentation.
Keywords: sports journalists, content analysis, sport communication
Journalism is currently rethinking and reinventing itself (Deuze, Bruns, &
Neuberger, 2007). It is going through a huge transformation by force of globalization, digitalization, and technological evolutions (Boczkowski, 2004; Deuze,
2002; Meier, 2007; Pavlik, 2000). The Internet as a catalyst has boosted various
communication and information channels, creating interesting tools for journalists. In particular, social-networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
(for a definition of social-networking sites see, e.g., Boyd & Ellison, 2007) have
become popular to communicate, publish, and spread personal and professional
information (Bakker & Bakker, 2011). Thus, in the last few years journalists have
increasingly focused on social-networking platforms and the opportunities they
provide. The use of Twitter is often encouraged by news organizations, but also
the journalists themselves recognize the possibilities of a media platform such
as Twitter to collect news and interesting stories; to disseminate information; to
promote their organization, their programs, and their articles; and to dialogue with
Deprez and Hoebeke are with the Dept. of Communication Sciences, and Mechant, iMinds-MICTUGent, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
107
108 Deprez, Mechant, and Hoebeke
their audience. However, to what extent are these social-media affordances indeed
used by journalists?
In this scholarly commentary, we focus on the use of Twitter by Flemish sports
journalists for two main reasons. First, we note that sports reporting lends itself
perfectly to Twitter messages as it is about fast-evolving news. Twitter is an ideal
medium for such updates, certainly in comparison with the mainstream media (Farhi,
2009). Second, an overview of global Twitter trends (HootSuite Media Co., 2011)
shows that sport is one of the most trending topics. The current study examined the
content of sports journalists’ tweets posted between April 1 and 15, 2012, a period
characterized by big sports events, and involved an analysis of quantitative data
on their profiles and followings. This article is structured in five parts. In the first,
a literature review on the use of Twitter in sports reporting is presented. Next, we
discuss why it is interesting to study tweets in sports journalism, and we elaborate
on our research approach and methodology. In the last two parts of the article, our
research results are presented and discussed and a conclusion is formulated.
Twitter and Sport Reporting
Twitter, founded in October 2006, is a microblogging service (McFedries, 2007)
originally developed for mobile phones, enabling users to send and share short
text messages of maximum 140 characters, called “tweets” (Arceneaux & Schmitz
Weiss, 2010). Due to its accessibility and ease of use Twitter became very popular
in a very short time (Armstrong & Gao, 2010; Murthy, 2011), resulting in more than
145 million registered users (Van Grove, 2010) and more than 50 million tweets
sent every day (“Measuring,” 2010). Figures show that in Belgium the number of
Twitter users increases year after year. A study representative of Flanders (N = 1,084;
the Northern part of Belgium) showed that 14% of the Flemish population have a
Twitter account, an increase of 6% compared with 2010 (IBBT-iLab.o, 2011). Global
figures confirm the Belgian statistics and the boom of Twitter users (Armstrong &
Gao, 2010; Kwak, Lee, Park, & Moon, 2010). A closer look at these Twitter users
indicates that more than one in four online adults age 18–29 uses Twitter, nearly
double the rate for those age 30–49, and that 31% of Internet users age 18–24 have
a Twitter account. Only 9% of Internet users age 50–64 have a Twitter account, a
percentage that drops to 4% for older age groups (Pew Research Center, 2012).
These figures indicate that Twitter appeals to an audience that news organizations hitherto barely reached, namely, young adults. Based on these findings, Palser
(2009) states that traditional news media must seize the opportunity to use Twitter
to reach young people who do not use traditional media such as printed newspapers.
In addition, the large group of Twitter users age 30–49 should not be overlooked,
since these are “the sort of people that media people should love—those who are
interested in and engaged with the news” (Farhi, 2009, p. 30). In other words, news
organizations can use Twitter to reach and link up to this part of their audience.
A closer look at figures for Flanders reveals that most Flemish media have
Twitter accounts. However, only a small number of these media outlets effectively
post messages on Twitter on a regular basis. To gain insight into the number of
employed Flemish sports journalists with Twitter accounts, we contacted the sports
newsrooms of the TV and radio channel Sporza and the newspapers Het Laatste
Nieuws and Het Nieuwsblad—the two dailies with the largest amount of sports news.
Twitter and Flemish Sports Reporters 109
This inquiry showed that the newspapers Het Laatste Nieuws and Het Nieuwsblad
had, respectively, 12 and 16 sports journalist on the payroll (freelancers were
not included), each including seven journalists with Twitter accounts. The sports
channel Sporza employs 34 sports journalists of whom 15 have Twitter accounts.
In total, 29 of the 62 sports journalists working for the main Flemish sports media
have Twitter accounts. However, a closer look reveals that of these Twitter-using
journalists, only 21 (34%) send out messages on a regular basis (by which we mean
more than one tweet a day). Journalists with high visibility (mainly the Sporza
journalists) who actively use their Twitter accounts have numerous followers, with
two Sporza journalists (covering cycling news) each having more than 15,000 and
56,000 followers.
Various authors point to the opportunities Twitter can provide journalists
(Armstrong & Gao, 2010; Heinrich, 2008), such as supporting information search,
dissemination, profiling, or conversing. For instance, journalists use Twitter to find
information because it can offer new sources of information (Armstrong & Gao,
2010; Farhi, 2009; Hermida, 2010). Research shows that in 2011 just under half
of journalists actually used Twitter as an information source (Oriella PR Network,
2012). Journalists “follow” Twitter users who can provide information that might
contribute to the coverage of a certain topic (Hill, 2010). Many sports journalists,
for example, follow sportsmen to process their tweets in sports coverage. This opens
up information (e.g., what the athlete is doing at that moment) that is often hard to
get through the traditional channels journalists tend to use to collect news. In addition, this kind of information is likely unknown to the larger audience. Twitter can
provide story ideas and can inform journalists on topics the audience is interested
in (e.g., via trending Twitter hashtags; Farhi, 2009; Hermida, 2010; Hill, 2010).
Twitter can also be used as a publishing platform by journalists. Journalists
then distribute their news stories and updates on Twitter. A study by Pew Research
Center (2011) shows that up until now predominantly self-generated material
is communicated on Twitter and that information from other sources is rarely
tweeted. Twitter also provides added value to disseminate news posted on the news
organizations’ legacy platforms: “Its speed and brevity make it ideal for pushing
out scoops and breaking news” (Farhi, 2009, p. 27). From this perspective, Twitter serves as an additional live channel. A study by Sankaranarayanan, Samety,
Teitlery, Liebermany, and Sperlingz (2009) illustrates the advantage of Twitter
with its minimal lag between an event and the time the event is posted on Twitter.
However, journalists must remain cautious when they disseminate breaking news
that they did not acquire firsthand. Credibility of the news is at least as important
as the speed with which news is spread. Therefore, some news organizations have
adopted a Twitter policy. Reuters, for example, states in its policy that doublechecking sources is also applicable for Twitter posts. In addition, breaking news
can only be communicated in consultation with the editors. Reuters (2012) also
requires its journalists to launch news through the official Reuters Twitter channel
with the possibility to retweet it afterward.
Twitter is not only interesting as a publishing and information-searching
platform. It can also enable a dialogue between journalists, their peers, and their
news audience. In the context of the changing face of contemporary journalism,
with a focus on a bottom-up journalistic approach (e.g., Bardoel & Deuze, 2001;
Beckett & Mansell, 2008), Twitter is an ideal medium to get in touch with the news
110 Deprez, Mechant, and Hoebeke
audience. Journalists can ask the audience for help in building up a news story, socalled crowdsourcing (Hermida, 2010), enabling the involvement of the audience
with the story and opening up access to scenes where news events are happening.
To dialogue means also to communicate with the audience. The Guardian, for
example, encourages its readers to discuss topics that are covered in the newspaper.
By tweeting to the hashtag #opennews, the readers of The Guardian can tell the
editors and journalists what they think of individual stories and suggest lines of
inquiry. In Belgium, some radio and television programs use Twitter to poll audience opinion or have Twitter integrated in their programs through a second-screen
application. Twitter accounts created for various news programs and documentaries
enable people to ask questions on what they have seen or heard.
Finally, journalists can use Twitter to brand and profile themselves and the news
organizations they work for as “newsmakers.” Promotion, branding, and identity are
so important to media that media have “embraced various techniques to enhance
their position within a market and to distinguish news programming from that of
their competition” (Greer & Ferguson, 2011, p. 203). Greer and Ferguson mention
specialized URLs, teasers, slogans, and advertisements on billboards, in print, and
on radio as branding strategies media have already used in the past. Twitter is one
of the newest tools added by social media. On the Web site Twitter for Newsrooms
(https://dev.twitter.com/media/newsrooms/engage), the importance of customizing
a journalist’s Twitter profile and making it findable and recognizable is emphasized:
• Upload a background image and profile picture, fill out a clear, informative
bio.
• To make sure people can find you, use your first and last name, and include a
link to your website.
• Some journalists, producers, and editors provide an email address as a way to
connect with readers, viewers, or potential sources.
Studying Tweets and Sports Journalism
In this study, we focus on the Twitter content (tweets), profile, and followings of
Flemish sports journalists. Since the late 1980s and, especially, the early 1990s,
the research field of sport and the media has drawn the attention of various media
scholars. Bernstein and Blain (2002) highlight the growing interest of scholars in
themes like gender, national identity, race, and globalization in combination with
media and sport. In journalism studies, focus has shifted—especially in recent
years—toward the relation between social media and sports journalism, covering
topics such as the use of social media in the newsroom or the impact of social media
on journalistic practices, sports communication, and professionalism (Hancherick,
2011; Reed, 2011; Sears, 2011). In this context Farhi (2009) states that “Twitter
works best in situations where the story is changing so fast that the mainstream
media can’t assemble all the facts at once” (p. 27). Sport is a good example of
fast-changing situations. A game situation can change by the minute, whether it is
a bicycle race, a football/soccer game, or any other competition. Another argument
in the study of sports journalism is suggested by the overview of global Twitter
trends (HootSuite Media Co., 2011) that shows that sport is one of the most trending topics. Because the audience is interested in tweeting on sports, we can assume
Twitter and Flemish Sports Reporters 111
that sports journalists, in their attempt to create a bond with their audience, share
an interest in tweeting.
To our knowledge, little academic research has been done on Twitter and
sports journalism. Sears (2011), for example, studied if and how Twitter is affecting
journalistic decision making and news production by sports writers. Reed (2011)
emphasized changing news-gathering practices and focused on the use of social
media and the ethical concerns linked to using Twitter. Hancherick (2011) dealt
with the changing face of sports journalism and its relation with new technologies
and social media. This was also the starting point for a study by Schultz and Sheffer (2010), who investigated the changes Twitter is making in journalism. Despite
the different focal points in these studies, they all rely on in-depth interviews as
data sources to study Twitter and journalistic practices. Most often researchers opt
to interview a sample of sports journalists (sometimes further divided into sports
journalists who work for print, audiovisual, or online media).
Although in-depth interviews provide interesting information, a study by
Sheffer and Schultz (2010) showed that the use of other research methodologies
can expose totally different findings on how Twitter is used by sports journalists.
Indeed, Sheffer and Schultz not only conducted interviews with journalists but also
analyzed the journalists’ tweets. Apparently, journalists’ own interpretation of their
Twitter use seemed to be different from their actual use. Although they suggested
that they use Twitter predominantly to publish breaking news and promotion, Sheffer
and Schultz’s content analysis showed a dominance of commentary and opinion.
These findings clearly demonstrate the importance of examining the journalistic
use of social-media platforms such as Twitter from various perspectives with a
multimethod approach.
Until now, few studies have focused on the content of Twitter messages; most
have relied on in-depth interviews with journalists to get information on Twitter as
a journalistic tool. Therefore, a content analysis focused on Flemish sports journalists’ Twitter profile information and followings and on the content of their text
messages can reveal new findings on the journalistic use of Twitter. More specifically, the current study set out to identify to what extent Flemish sports journalists
working for a traditional medium use the journalistic affordances of Twitter to
search and publish information, present and profile themselves, and engage in a
dialogue with their public.
RQ1: Do Flemish sports journalists use Twitter as a journalistic tool?
RQ2: Do Flemish sports journalists use Twitter to search for information?
RQ3: Do Flemish sports journalists use Twitter to publish information?
RQ4: Do Flemish sports journalists use Twitter to dialogue with their audience?
RQ5: Do Flemish sports journalists use Twitter to present and profile themselves?
We combined a classic content analysis of tweets posted by Flemish sports
journalists with an analysis of their followings (the Twitter users the sports
journalist is following) and of the journalists’ Twitter profile. Because we are
especially interested in how traditional sports journalists have or have not incorporated Twitter as a journalistic tool, we selected sports journalists who work for
the three traditional media: newspaper, television, and radio. We further refined
112 Deprez, Mechant, and Hoebeke
this sample to journalists employed by the only two Flemish newspapers that are
considered sports newspapers (Het Laatste Nieuws and Het Nieuwsblad) or by
the only Flemish sports channel (Sporza), which is a radio as well as a television
station. In total, 62 journalists fit this profile: 16 journalists on the payroll of Het
Nieuwsblad, 12 working for Het Laatste Nieuws, and 34 on the payroll of Sporza.
Not all of these journalists, however, are active on Twitter. In respective order, 7,
7, and 15 sports journalists of Het Laatste Nieuws, Het Nieuwsblad, and Sporza
have Twitter accounts.
Using a custom PHP script that addressed Twitter’s search application programming interface, we collected data on the sports journalists’ tweets over a
period of 2 weeks (April 1–15, 2012) characterized by big sports events in the most
popular Belgian sports such as the football/soccer play-offs and the classic bicycle
races Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. In total, 519 tweets were analyzed.
A second script harvested data about the sports journalists’ Twitter profile pages
and about their followings. Table 1 shows that Sporza sports journalists especially
use their Twitter accounts actively. Those on the payroll of Het Nieuwsblad rarely
send out tweets.
Results
The first research question asked if Flemish sports journalists use Twitter as a
journalistic tool. To answer this research question, we divided the tweet sample
into professional tweets and tweets on personal issues (see Table 2). Of the 519
Table 1 Sports Journalists’ Twitter Use
Number of
journalists
Number of
tweets
Average tweets
per journalist
Het Laatste Nieuws
7
92
13.1
Het Nieuwsblad
7
30
4.3
Sporza
15
397
26.5
Total
29
519
17.9
Table 2 Personal Versus Professional Twitter Messages
Personal issues
Professional use
n
Het Laatste Nieuws
50.0%
50.0%
n = 92
Het Nieuwsblad
13.3%
86.7%
n = 30
Sporza
20.7%
79.3%
n = 397
25.4%, n = 132
74.6%, n = 387
N = 519
Total
Note. p < .001, χ = 36.373.
2
Twitter and Flemish Sports Reporters 113
tweets the sports journalists sent out in the researched period, 132 of them (25%)
concerned personal issues and were not related to sports journalism. This shows
that sports journalists use their Twitter account not exclusively for journalistic
purposes but also in a private context. Table 2 also shows that sports journalists
from the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws used Twitter less frequently as a journalistic tool; half of their tweets were of a personal nature and half related to their
journalistic practices, significantly differing (p < 0,001) from the nature of tweets
posted by sports journalists from the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad and the sports
channel Sporza. Respectively, 13% and 21% of the latters’ tweets focused on personal issues. Thus, the first research question is answered affirmatively: Twitter is
indeed used for journalistic goals. This practice is especially noticeable in the use
of Twitter by journalists from Sporza.
The second research question asked if Flemish sports journalists use Twitter to
search for information. If journalists use Twitter as a tool to find sports information,
we can hypothesize that a significant part of their followings are athletes or people
and organizations active in the field of sports. To answer our second research question, we mapped out the Twitter accounts our sample of sports journalists followed
on Twitter. Results show that 26 of them had public accounts while 3 journalists
had private Twitter profiles making it impossible to harvest data on their followings. The number of followings for the accessible Twitter profiles (n = 26) ranged
from 13 to 840. To gain more insight into these followings, we randomly sampled
100 followings for each journalist’s Twitter account. If a sports journalist followed
fewer than 100 Twitter accounts, all followings were taken into account. Next,
this sample of 2,269 Twitter accounts that were followed by the researched sports
journalists was classified into the categories of sports (athletes and organizations
and people related to sports), peers, and others; see Table 3.
As revealed in Table 3, there are significant differences between the sports
papers Het Laatste Nieuws and Het Nieuwsblad and the audiovisual channel
Sporza. Journalists writing for the newspapers follow significantly more athletes
(or organizations and people related to sports) than Sporza journalists. Indeed, more
than 70% of the followings of the newspaper journalists are related to sports, while
approximately 55% of the followings of the audiovisual journalists are athletes.
However, if we look at the figures indicating the average number of followings
related to sports, we see that Sporza journalists follow more Twitter accounts than
journalists of the written press. Sporza journalists also have far more followings that
we categorized in the peer category. Twenty-eight percent of the Twitter accounts
that audiovisual sports journalists follow are owned by colleagues of different kinds
of national or international media. Only 15% of the followings of journalists of the
written press belong to the peer group.
We note that cyclists and people related to cycling are especially popular Twitter
users being followed by sports journalists, next to soccer players or people related
to soccer (see Table 4). More than 37% and 44% of the followings of newspaper
journalists and 39% of the followings of Sporza journalists belong to the cycling
category. Thirty-three percent of the accounts followed by journalists of Het Laatste Nieuws are related to soccer. The comparative figures for Het Nieuwsblad and
Sporza are, respectively, 45% and 13%, a significant difference. However, Sporza
journalists are more varied in their followings, including Twitter accounts related
to disciplines such as swimming, athletics, triathlon, and volleyball. With regard to
114
51.9
47.6
54.9%
60.8%,
n = 1,379
Sporza
Total
23.4%,
n = 532
28.4%
15.4%
15.0%
Percent
15.8%,
n = 358
16.7%
14.4%
14.1%
Percent
12.3
15.7
10.1
7.3
Followings per
journalist, M
Other
13.0%
24.8%,
n = 342
39.5%
40.3%,
n = 556
Sporza
Total
2.2%,
n = 31
3.5%
0.3%
1.2%
Hockey
9.6%,
n = 133
7.2%
6.1%
21.9%
Tennis
3.0%,
n = 41
5.0%
0.3%
0.4%
Swimming
Note. HLN = Het Laatste Nieuws; HNB = Het Nieuwsblad. p < .001, χ2 = 328.031.
45.5%
44.6%
HNB
32.8%
37.1%
Soccer
HLN
Cycling
7.3%,
n = 100
11.4%
0.6%
3.5%
Athletics
2.6%,
n = 36
4.2%
0.9%
0.0%
Triathlon
2.3%,
n = 32
4.0%
0.3%
0.0%
Volleyball
7.8%,
n = 108
1.4%
3.1%
12.2%
Other
n
N = 1,379
n = 345
n = 256
n = 778
n
N = 2,269
n = 1,416
n = 492
n = 361
Table 4 Categorization of Twitter Accounts Followed by Sports Journalists (Followings) Based on Sport
2
18.3
26.8
10.9
7.7
Followings per
journalist, M
Peers
Note. HLN = Het Laatste Nieuws; HNB = Het Nieuwsblad. p < .001, χ = 62.278.
49.3
70.1%
HNB
36.6
70.9%
Followings per
journalist, M
HLN
Percent
Sports
Table 3 Categorization of Twitter Accounts Followed by the Sports Journalists (Followings)
Twitter and Flemish Sports Reporters 115
tennis, we notice that journalists from Het Laatste Nieuws have significantly more
tennis players among their followings than the other two media do.
Figures also show that the researched journalists often follow the same athletes.
Tom Boonen and Philippe Gilbert, the two most popular Belgian cyclists, are in
the top five of followings, followed by cycling team manager Patrick Lefevere
(Omega Pharma-Quick step), soccer coach John Van den Brom (RSC Anderlecht),
and Belgian soccer player Vincent Kompany. Most journalists are assigned to one
particular sport, which is also reflected in their followings. For instance, a journalist
who specifically reports on cycling will have mainly Twitter accounts of cyclists or
people related to cycling among his followings. These results show that Flemish
sports journalists do use Twitter to search for information about athletes and their
teams. People related to cycling and soccer are especially popular among the followings, illustrating the popularity of soccer and cycling in Belgium.
The third research question involved Flemish sports journalists’ use of Twitter
to publish information. To answer this research question, we needed to determine
the focus or main message of tweets produced by our sample of sports journalists
during the studied period. Table 5 shows the content of tweets sports journalists
sent out. The first two rows of the table are especially interesting to formulate an
answer to the third research question. The other rows of the table can be related to
the fourth research question (cf. infra).
Sports news and updates are often the main subject of a journalist’s tweet.
In 134 of the 387 relevant tweets (35%), the reporting of sports news events was
predominant. Thirteen percent of the tweets refer to traditional media (programs)
that also focus on sports news. These tweets recommend (live) reports, interviews,
or sports television and radio items. Figures show significant differences in the
content of tweets published by sports journalists working for Het Nieuwsblad,
Het Laatste Nieuws, and Sporza. Investigating the distribution of sports news and
the recommendations for sports news by traditional-media channels on Twitter,
we notice that especially journalists of Het Nieuwsblad use Twitter to disseminate
Table 5 Content of Tweets Sports Journalists Have Sent Out
HLN
HNB
Sporza
Subtotal
Distributing sports news and updates
10.9%
73.1%
34.9%
34.6%, n = 134
Distributing and recommending other
interesting media (sports) output
4.3%
3.8%
14.9%
12.9%, n = 50
Dialogue: asking for help from follower
0.0%
3.8%
1.0%
1.0%, n = 4
Dialogue: asking for opinion of followers
2.2%
0.0%
1.3%
1.3%, n = 5
Dialogue: giving opinion or interpretation
39.1%
3.8%
22.2%
23.0%, n = 89
Dialogue: telling what they are doing
13.0%
0.0%
5.4%
5.9%, n = 23
Dialogue: personal message to a follower
30.4%
15.4%
20.3%
21.2%, n = 82
Total
n = 46
n = 26
n = 315
100%, N = 387
Note. HLN = Het Laatste Nieuws; HNB = Het Nieuwsblad. p < .001, χ = 44.379.
2
116 Deprez, Mechant, and Hoebeke
sports updates (73%). Respectively, 11% and 35% of the tweets posted by journalists of Het Laatste Nieuws and Sporza are on sports news. Sporza journalists more
often post tweets in which they recommend interesting sports reports, interviews,
and so on. Therefore, in conclusion, journalists do use Twitter as a tool to publish
information and disseminate sports news. However, this practice differs significantly
between journalists working for the sports newspaper Het Nieuwsblad and those
working for Sporza and Het Laatste Nieuws.
The fourth research question asked if Flemish sports journalists use Twitter
to dialogue with their audience. Literature shows that to dialogue on the one hand
refers to the activation of an audience by asking them for help or for an opinion.
On the other hand, it refers to the direct communication of a journalist to his or
her audience. Table 5 shows that journalists often use Twitter to communicate with
their audience, but seldom with the clear goal of provoking interaction with them.
Journalists communicate their personal opinion on sports (23%), inform their followers on their working day (6%), and send tweets directed at one Twitter account
specifically, so called @-messages (21%). People are not directly asked to react;
in fact only 9 of the 387 tweets (2%) contained a call by journalists asking their
followers for help or to disclose their opinion. So rather than asking their audience
for help or for an opinion, journalists use Twitter for one-way communication.
Again, there are significant differences in the tweets by journalists working
for Het Nieuwsblad and those working for Het Laatste Nieuws and Sporza. Journalists of Het Nieuwsblad rarely use Twitter to communicate (23%). For Sporza
journalists and journalists of Het Laatste Nieuws the communication function of
Twitter is far more important—respectively, 50% and 85% of their tweets are used
to communicate. This shows that journalists from Het Laatste Nieuws and Sporza
use Twitter in a more diversified way. Journalists of Het Nieuwsblad rarely use
Twitter to communicate (23%).
The last research question (RQ5) asked if Flemish sports journalists use Twitter to present and profile themselves. To effectively use Twitter as a profiling tool
it is important to customize the Twitter profile and to ensure recognizability and
findability (cf. supra). Some of the Twitter profiling affordances include profile
background image and profile picture, an informative bio, the use of the first and
last name, an e-mail address, and a link to the organization Web site. Table 6 shows
that all journalists mentioned their last and first name, while 23 out of 29 journalists
Table 6 Journalists’ Twitter Profile Information
Picture
Bio
Name
E-mail
address
Web-site
link
n
HLN
5
5
7
0
0
n=7
HNB
6
4
7
0
1
n=7
Sporza
12
10
15
0
5
n = 15
n = 23
n = 19
n = 29
n=0
n=6
N = 29
Total
Note. HLN = Het Laatste Nieuws; HNB = Het Nieuwsblad.
Twitter and Flemish Sports Reporters 117
integrated a picture in their profile, and 19 of them added a short biographical note.
Hyperlinks to the Web site of the media platform the journalist was working for are
seldom included on a journalist’s Twitter profile, and none of them disclosed their
e-mail address. In other words, our cases show that Twitter is rarely used as a profiling tool. The low uptake of these Twitter profiling affordances by the journalists in
our sample suggests that the fifth research question should be answered negatively.
Conclusion
With this study we wanted to gain insight into how Flemish sports journalists use
Twitter. Applying a multimethod research approach, the focus of our research was
on the content of tweets, as well as on the journalists’ Twitter profiles and on the
Twitter users the journalists were following (their followings). We wanted to know
how and to what extent sports journalists use Twitter. Our results show that Twitter is used by approximately 46% of the journalists who are on the payroll of the
sports media Het Laatste Nieuws, Het Nieuwsblad, and Sporza. Only 34% of them
can be considered regular users (at least one tweet a day). This means that there is
room to further incorporate Twitter in journalism practices. Sports journalists use
their Twitter accounts not exclusively for professional goals but also for personal
reasons, implicating a blurring between professional and personal communication.
Still, 75% of their tweets are posted in the context of professional activities. Journalists especially use Twitter to find information on the athletes they have to report
on, clearly showing the importance of Twitter as information source and reflecting
previous research on the use of social media as an important news source. However,
Twitter is not purely used as a passive source of information but also actively used
as a platform for distributing news and updates. In a lesser way, Twitter serves as
a platform for dialogue with the audience. Twitter is also seldom used to profile
the journalists and the organizations they work for.
To conclude, our results indicate that Twitter seems fairly well established
among the researched sports journalists, although their use of the medium is rather
limited. Thus, there is still huge potential for journalists to adopt and adapt Twitter
affordances in the context of journalism practices, especially with regard to using
Twitter for communication and branding. By shedding light on sports journalists’ use
of Twitter, we believe that our findings contribute to the ongoing debate on Twitter
as a potentially valuable journalistic tool. This article also serves to demonstrate
the strengths of a multimethod approach based on the content of tweets combined
with data on the journalists’ profile and followings.
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