Social Networks as a Source of Newsworthy Events for Russian Journalism (a Case Study of Using Youtube and Instagram (Banned on the Territory of the Russian Federation))

Download paper
Svetlana N. Gikis

PhD in Pedagogics, Associate Professor at the Chair of Journalism, Media Communication, and Public Relations, Pyatigorsk State University, Pyatigorsk, Russia

e-mail: gikissvetlana@mail.ru

Section: New Media

The article presents the results of analyzing the way Russian journalists use the YouTube and Instagram social networks as a source of newsworthy events for four popular media: two newspapers (Komsomolskaya Pravda, Rossiyskaya Gazeta) and two news agencies (RIA Novosti, RBC) for the period from June 1, 2021 to June 1, 2022. The nature and thematic focus of the newsworthy events, the frequency of resorting to them before and after access limitation to Instagram in Russia on March 14, 2022 were identified. The author of the article used content analysis and comparative analysis, which showed that when working with YouTube and Instagram, journalists of the leading Russian media choose to find the most popular publications on these social networks for their subsequent brief presentation to the print media audience. Notably, more than 90% of the journalistic publications based on YouTube and more than 80% of the publications based on Instagram were materials dealing with new videos, photos and news from the lives of show business celebrities and sports stars.

Keywords: social networks, newsworthy events, Russian journalism, YouTube, Instagram, information resource, modern Russian media
DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.2.2023.7390

References:

Anan’eva M. V. (2020) Issledovanie sotsial’nykh setey kak media [A Study into Social Networks as Media]. Nauchnye mezhdistsiplinarnye issledovaniya 8–2: 304–311. (In Russian)

Bezbogova M. S. (2016) Sotsial’nye seti kak faktor formirovaniya sotsial’nykh ustanovok sovremennoy molodezhi: dis. ... kand. psikhol. nauk [Social Networks as a Formation Factor of Social Attitudes of Modern Youth: PhD psychol. sci. diss.] Moscow. (In Russian)

Ivan’ko A. F., Ivan’ko M. A., Likhtina E. K. (2020) Sotsial’nye seti kak element informatsionnykh tekhnologiy [Social Networks as an Element of Information Technologies]. Nauchnoe obozrenie 1. (In Russian). Available at: https://scientificreview.ru/ru/article/view?id=77 (aссessed: 20.03.2022). DOI: 10.17513/srfar.77

Kul’chitskaya D. Yu. (2017) Sotsial’nye seti kak instrument v rabote rossiyskogo zhurnalista: rezul’taty oprosa [Social Networks as a Tool in the Russian Journalist’s Work: Results of a Survey]. Vestn. Mosk. un-ta. Ser. 10: Zhurnalistika 4: 119–135. (In Russian)

Mansour E. (2016) The Adoption and Use of Social Media as a Source of Information by Egyptian Government Journalists. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. 50 (1): 48–67. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000616669977

Matusevich A. A. (2016) Obshchenie v sotsial’nykh setyakh: pragmaticheskiy, kommunikativnyy, lingvostilisticheskiy aspekty kharakteristiki. Dis. ... kand. filol. nauk [Communication on Social Networks: the Pragmatic, Communicative, Linguostylistic Aspects of the Characteristics. PhD philol. sci. diss.] Kirov. (In Russian)

Pantic M., Cvetkovic I. (2020) Journalism Practice in a Digital Age: Utilization of Social Media in Online News. American Communication Journal 22 (2): 1–12.

Pradhan P., Kumari N. (2018) A Study on Journalistic Use of Social Media. Amity Journal of Media & Communication Studies 8 (1): 49–59.

Rony M., Yousuf M., Hassan N. (2018) A Large-Scale Study of Social Media Sources in News Articles. Social Network Analysis. Available at: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1810.13078.pdf (aссessed: 01.06.2022).

Vasil’ev N. A. (2021) Novyy sotsial’nyy mir: opisanie osnovnykh sotsial’nykh setey [A New Social World: a Description of Major Social Networks]. Gumanitariy Yuga Rossii 12 (5): 31–53. DOI: 10.18522/2227-8656.2021.5.2 (In Russian)

Voronkin A. S. (2014) Sotsial’nye seti: evolyutsiya, struktura, analiz [Social Networks: Evolution, Structure, Analysis]. Obrazovatel’nye tekhnologii i obshchestvo 17 (1): 650–675. (In Russian)

Wang Y., Diakopoulos N. (2021) Journalistic Source Discovery: Supporting the Identification of News Sources in User Generated Content. In CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Yokohama, Japan. Pр. 1–18.

Xinzhi Z., Wenshu L. (2019) From Social Media with News: Journalists’ Social Media Use for Sourcing and Verification. Journalism Practice 14: 1–21. DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2019.1689372


To cite this article: Gikis S.N. (2023) Sotsial'nye seti kak istochnik infopovodov dlya rossiiskoi zhurnalistiki (na primere ispol'zovaniya materialov YouTube i Instagram (organizatsiya, zapreshchennaya na territorii RF)) [Social Networks as a Source of Newsworthy Events for Russian Journalism (a Case Study of Using Youtube and Instagram (Banned on the Territory of the Russian Federation))]. Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta. Seriya 10. Zhurnalistika 2: 73–90. DOI: 10.30547/vestnik.journ.2.2023.7390