Open AccessSocial infomediation of news on Twitter: A French case study
Author(s) -
Nikos Smyrnaios,
Bernhard Rieder
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
necsus
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2215-1222
pISSN - 2213-0217
DOI - 10.5117/necsus2013.2.smyr
Subject(s) - mainstream , sample (material) , social media , the internet , period (music) , order (exchange) , media studies , politics , internet privacy , advertising , productivity , phenomenon , political science , sociology , world wide web , computer science , business , art , law , chemistry , physics , finance , chromatography , quantum mechanics , economics , macroeconomics , aesthetics
Social infomediation is an emerging phenomenon that sees growing numbers of Internet users share and comment on news items on Facebook and Twitter. This study analyses a large sample of French-speaking Twitter users over a period of two months. First, we study some general characteristics of our sample’s usage of Twitter, such as timescale, productivity, hashtag, and URL distribution. We then compare the French online media agenda to the most shared and discussed news items in our sample in order to highlight similarities and differences. Our findings show that even though they depend on mainstream media coverage, Twitter user preferences often push political and technological stories that have been overlooked or even ignored to the forefront