5.1 The use of social media

Journalists have a complicated and conflicted relationship with social media. Looked at in one way, they are clearly among the most active users of the technology. Many journalists have embraced social media both professionally and personally, using it for news-gathering, gauging public opinion, sourcing quotes, and to be part of the conversation around news events (Canter 2015; Molyneux and McGregor 2022). But at the same time, some journalists – especially in recent years – believe that social media has disrupted traditional journalistic practices and encouraged patterns of news use and dissemination that have undermined journalistic authority and weakened public trust (Ross Arguedas et al. 2022). When it comes to trust, the evidence suggests that they may be right (Fletcher et al. 2024).

The survey included two questions concerning how widely social media is used by journalists. First, they were asked how frequently they used social media to discover stories, and second, how frequently they used it to promote journalism.

Despite the recent backlash, the results show that a clear majority of UK journalists regularly used social media to discover stories. More specifically, 70% said that they ‘always’ or ‘often’ used social media to ‘discover potentially newsworthy events, and/or to find sources, information, and opinions for stories’. Well over 90% said that they used social media for this purpose at least some of the time (‘rarely’ or more frequently). Just 5% said that they ‘never’ used social media to discover stories.

Slightly fewer UK journalists (57%) said that they regularly used social media to ‘promote journalism produced for other platforms’ – with 30% saying they did this ‘sometimes’ or ‘rarely’. But again, just 11% said that they ‘never’ used social media to promote their journalism (see Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1

Social media, then, has clearly become an integral part of the work of many UK journalists. Although data from analytics company Chartbeat suggest that referrals to news websites from Facebook and X declined by around 50% and 25% respectively between 2022 and 2023, most news organisations still put effort into reaching audiences through their social channels – it’s just that they are putting more effort into networks like WhatsApp, TikTok, and YouTube rather than Facebook and X (Newman 2024). This aligns with data from the Reuters Institute Digital News Report showing that the proportion who use social media for news has remained stable at around 40% since 2017 (Newman et al. 2024).

If we break the data down by the type of organisation that journalists worked for – commercially or publicly owned media – we see that the use of social media for finding and promoting news was equally widespread at each. Among journalists who worked for commercial media, 70% said that they ‘always’ or ‘often’ used social media to discover news, compared with 74% of those working for publicly owned media. Similarly, using social media to promote journalism was equally widespread among those who worked for commercial (57%) and publicly owned (55%) media (see Figure 5.2). Although some might question whether publicly owned media really need to use social media to promote their journalism, it should be remembered that they still have a commitment to serve all parts of the public – and social media is the only effective way of reaching some audiences, particularly younger people and those with low interest in news.

Figure 5.2

If we drill down a little deeper and group the respondents by the media cultural background of their main employer (internet-native, broadcast, and print), some small but relevant differences start to emerge. Journalists that worked for outlets with an internet-native media background were more likely than those that worked for organisations with a print background (newspapers and magazines) to use social media for news discovery (77% vs 67%), and were more likely than those working for outlets with both a broadcast (television and radio) and print background to use social media to promote their journalism¹ (see Figure 5.3). Internet-native news organisations are typically more reliant on social media to build and maintain their audience, in part because they do not have the benefit of a legacy brand from the pre-internet era, meaning that people are less likely to go to their websites and apps directly (Fletcher et al. 2023).

Figure 5.3

At the individual level, there are differences in social media use by age. Younger journalists were more likely to use social media to find news and to promote it, which aligns with the fact that younger people in the UK general population are more likely to use social media (Ofcom 2024a). Similarly, female journalists were also more likely to use social media in their work than their male counterparts.

Social media is often criticised for doing too little to stop users abusing and harassing one another. In journalism, this has led to fears that the expectation that journalists should be active on social media exposes them to greater risk of such threats. The survey data lend some support to this idea. Among those who said that they ‘sometimes or rarely’ used social media to promote their journalism, 9% said that they ‘often’ or ‘very often’ had demeaning or hateful speech directed at them. However, this figure rises to 19% among those that ‘always’ or ‘often’ used social media to promote their journalism. The pattern is similar for public discrediting of their work. Just 8% of those that ‘sometimes or rarely’ used social media to promote their work often experienced public discrediting of their work, but this rises to 15% among those who regularly used social media professionally (see Figure 5.4). These findings are similar to those in Chapter 3, which described how journalists who produced for social media were also more likely to experience some threats. It is also worth keeping in mind that most UK journalists always or often used social media to promote their work, so these are issues experienced by a significant number of working journalists (see Chapter 6).

Figure 5.4

It is not possible with cross-sectional data to know whether there is a causal relationship between professional social media use and experiencing hateful speech and public discrediting of work. But it is noticeable that for some of the other threats asked about in the survey – which are unlikely to be enabled by social media, such as ‘arrests, detentions or imprisonment’ and ‘legal actions against you because of your work’ – there was no difference by social media use in the proportions of journalists that had experienced these.

5.2 The use of newsroom analytics

The survey also included a question on the related issue of newsroom analytics. It asked respondents how frequently they used ‘technology that tracks and analyses information about the characteristics and behaviour of online audiences (such as which stories they read and for how long) … [e.g.] … Chartbeat, Parse.ly, and Google Analytics’.

The results show that around one third (35%) of UK journalists said they ‘always’ or ‘often’ used newsroom analytics in their work. A similar number (36%) said that they used them ‘sometimes’ or ‘rarely’, and 27% said that they ‘never’ used them (see Figure 5.5). This means that although newsroom analytics were not used as widely as social media, they have still become a key part of the workflow of many journalists.

Figure 5.5

Journalists working for commercial media were slightly more likely to regularly use this technology than those working for publicly owned media (39% vs 32%), but there are much larger differences if we group journalists by the media cultural background of their main employer. Journalists working for internet-native media (53%) were more likely than those working for outlets with a print media background (38%) to use newsroom analytics, and twice as likely as those working for organisations with a broadcast media background (26%) (see Figure 5.6).

Figure 5.6

These differences are likely to be partly rooted in the fact that internet-native media tend to have business models based on online reach rather than reader revenue, and thus have a stronger incentive to understand what drives traffic. Some print media are in a similar situation, but many of the upmarket UK titles now have paywalls or rely on donations and membership. Some UK broadcasters have shown little interest in online news, and the news sections of their websites are not widely used by the public.

5.3 Conclusion

In summary, social media and newsroom analytics have become important tools for UK journalists to discover news stories, promote their journalism, and understand their audiences better. Social media in particular is now widely used by those working for print and broadcast media (whether commercially or publicly owned) – but it is especially widely used by those working for internet-native media. Journalists and news organisations clearly recognise that social media offers some benefits to them – but it also carries risks. Platform dependency is one such risk – as those working in newsrooms that have seen social referrals tumble in recent years know all too well. Another is safety and well-being. Journalists who regularly used social media to promote their work also reported being more exposed to hateful speech and attempts to discredit their work, and there may be other downsides that are not captured by the survey. Whether social media continues to be used so widely by those in the profession in the future will likely depend on how the balance between these risks and benefits evolves.

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