Now Tweet This: How News Organizations Use Twitter

Abstract

This content analysis examined how Twitter is used as a content dissemination tool within the news industry. Using Gans’ conception of news values as a theoretical framework, this study looked at tweets of nine news organizations during a 4-month period to determine how individuals, links, news headlines and subject areas were employed within the 140-character limits. Results indicated that regional media tended to differ in Twitter usage from both local and national media and that broadcast news agencies were more likely to tweet multimedia packages than were print-based organizations. Crime and public affairs were the most tweeted topics. Implications of results were discussed.