Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

Social media’s challenge to journalistic norms and values during a Terror Attack

Konow-Lund, Maria ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5514-3023 and Olsson, Eva-Karin 2017. Social media’s challenge to journalistic norms and values during a Terror Attack. Digital Journalism 5 (9) , pp. 1192-1204. 10.1080/21670811.2016.1243990

[thumbnail of Social Media s Challenge to Journalistic Norms and Values during a Terror Attack(1).pdf]
Preview
PDF - Accepted Post-Print Version
Download (460kB) | Preview

Abstract

Over the past decade, the frequency of terror attacks around the world has increased. In the context of the 22 July 2011 terror attacks in Norway, social media use by citizens, and even victims, became an essential feature of reporting. Social media confronted the legacy media’s way of covering crisis events. It raised questions about traditional journalism’s ability to handle audience’s as, not only news consumers, but also producers. In the present article, we look at the ways in which the professional norms and values of traditional journalism are specifically challenged by social media use in times of terror, using the 22 July 2011 attacks as a case study. We find that Norwegian journalists initially held to their professional roles, and to the classic self-representational principles of journalism, including objectivity, autonomy and immediacy. When they integrated social media into their traditional platforms and modes of coverage, they framed it as a “source” of sorts. As the 22 July 2011 event coverage became more focused on the collective grief felt by the nation, in turn, the traditional journalistic principles of objectivity and autonomy became less relevant, enabling yet more audience participation and social media use in relation to the attack.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Journalism, Media and Culture
Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISSN: 2167-0811
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 15 November 2018
Last Modified: 07 Nov 2023 16:22
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/107972

Citation Data

Cited 11 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics