DEMOGRAPHIC, OCCUPATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL PREDICTORS OF TWEET DELETION AMONG U.S. JOURNALISTS

Abstract

Twitter and other social media platforms have become a key infrastructure for contemporary journalism (Kleis Nielsen & Ganter, 2018). Journalists use Twitter to gather information (Powers & Vera-Zambrano, 2017). They employ it to maintain a relationship with their audiences and sources and through that to cultivate their individual personal and professional brand as well as their employer’s brand (Molyneux et al., 2018). They also communicate with journalistic peers and hence participate in the ongoing production of aN interpretive community (Carlson, 2016).

While most research has focused on journalists’ publication practices, much less work has examined their decision to delete content they have already published on social media, an action that could have a meaningful impact on Twitter as a repository of public knowledge. In in-depth interviews, American journalists reported deleting tweets frequently. They also claimed such practices were common among their peers (Ringel & Davidson, 2022). In this study, we examine how journalists’ demographic identity, occupational status, and professional standing might be related to their tendency to delete tweets.