While news outlets make frequent use of Twitter, they do so primarily to disseminate their own content, according to a new study by the George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs and the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
The study examined 3,600 tweets over the course of a week from 13 major news outlets and reporters, including the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and ABC News.
The findings indicate that news outlets and individual reporters rarely use Twitter as a reporting tool or to publicize information that originated elsewhere. Ninety-three percent of tweets examined included links to an organization’s own site, while only 2 percent of the tweets were information gathering and 1 percent were retweets from outside the organization.
The tweets were analyzed and coded by 30 undergraduate SMPA students last spring in seniors seminars taught by Kimberly Gross, associate professor of media and public affairs and of political science, and Robert Entman, the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor of media and public affairs and international affairs. Two graduate SMPA students helped lead the research effort.
“This study gave students the opportunity to work on a significant research project about an evolving medium,” said Dr. Gross, one of the co-authors of the study. “As most of our understanding of Twitter is based on anecdotal evidence, collecting and analyzing empirical data is very valuable to our understanding of it.”
Student Colby Anderson said the project was a great opportunity to do hands-on research with his classmates.
“Working side by side with my fellow political communication majors—most of which I’ve known since freshman year—to create a research project was the culmination of our four years together,” said Mr. Anderson, who received a bachelor’s degree last spring and is currently earning a master’s degree in the Graduate School of Political Management.