Journalist Use of Social Media: Guidelines for Media Organizations

Basic journalistic tenets such as transparency, gatekeeping and objectivity were considered at risk due to the rise of use of social media by journalists and news media. Resultantly, large numbers of news agencies have started issuing provisions and guidelines for their staff to manage their social media use. This study explores the complex relationship of selected news organizations with given use of social media. The content analysis is applied on the guidelines for the use of social media obtained from 12 news organizations, and their link with basic journalism principles is explored. The key purpose of the current study is to provide insight for scholars and Arab media management to have better understanding of journalists use of social media and how these guidelines are implemented by various leading news agencies. Practically, the observations in the study are helpful for news organizations who are defining their provisions or rules for social media use by their journalists.


Introduction
In digital media age, apparently, a post, tweet, picture and video for fun or personal attitudes may lead to some serious consequences for the media organizations and for journalist himself. Several examples are available in which employer ended up in the downward spiral due to their journalists who cross their boundaries during their use of social media. However, it would not be favorable to exaggerate this particular incidence and relate it to the negative consequences for the use of social media. Currently, moving parallel with the traditional media, social media including Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter have become the platforms for direct communication with the public and they can be used both for additional publications and for research purpose. But, the stronger the tool, the dangerous are its consequences. Thus, it is pivotal for a journalist to better understand the social media policy to avoid the hazards associated with its use.
Many of media organizations are still practicing traditional patterns in dealing with new media platforms and unwillingness of the owners of these institutions in changing the journalism style. Therefore, it is necessary to organize the process of dealing with the news platforms and social sites by journalists and media organizations in order to ensure a high level of confidence in the stories and issues and the preservation of the position of journalists among the general public and officials as a credible source.
Thus, the current study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by discussing the complexities related to the social and traditional media relationship. Additionally, the study also provide a better understanding for the ways Arab news broadcasters should adopt to manage their journalists' social media presence.

Social Media Uses among Journalists
From the mid-2000s, the use of social media by journal public has increased rapidly. The changing trends of news presentation have made the audience realize that the news is transforming and the audiences are more eager to constantly get updated news. The working style of the journalists has been changed with the availability of social media and websites. These sources support them in newsgathering and provide a better platform for content publishing.
According to the research centers of Reuters and Pew, use of social media including Twitter and Facebook have increased and widespread over the years (Pew Research Center, 2015; Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2015). Resultantly, it has attracted journalists due to its mass adoption. Social media have become the only meaning of the internet for many people and have emerged fully as a new ecosystem of online users in the past few years. For journalists, social media, for instance Twitter, has contributed a lot during the recent past events including propagating terror campaign of ISIS, uprising Arab Spring, shooting of Sandy Hook, murder of Charlie Hebdo, and the riots in London. Since 2009, after the Twitter changed its tagline from "What are you doing?" to "What's happening?" the platform is switched from sharing, regular and ambient chatting to platform for event-tracking (Rogers, 2014). This implies an increase in followers, followed by large number of readers and increase in journalists reporting using social media.
Previous research, on journalistic view about the use of social media including Twitter and Facebook, provide several evidences about how journalists discuss, break, research and distribute news using these platforms (Bruns, 2012;Hermida, 2010;Lasorsa, 2012;Safori, 2018;Vis, 2013), and use them as a tool for individual promotions (Molyneux and Holton, 2015).
The impact social media have in the development of ambient journalism was described by Hermida (2010). The study reveals some important findings about how social media provides awareness and help identifying the news and the recent media trends. According to Hong (2012), journalists' presence on social media helps media organizations and journalists to attract more traffic on their online sites. In addition, Lasorsa (2012), added that social media platforms are helpful for transparent production process.
Today, news agencies are up taking social media and journalists are using Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to post stories, updates and blogs (Safori, 2018). The demand for new stories has altered traditional way to obtain and display information. The encouragement of journalists for providing updated news is due to the increasing desire and perceptions of the users (Mourtada and Salem, 2012;Stroud et al., 2015). One of the greatest benefits of social media platforms for journalists is the ability to deal with huge audiences in same place.

Social Media and the Digital Shift
The discussion above clearly provides evidences about the inextricable link between journalism and social media in the modern era. Additionally, social media generate added values for journalist and news consumers. However, plenty of arguments that do not favor the use of social media as a complete force for good, also exist. According to Cision (2012), the high immediacy of social media has raised concerns for journalists in the British market about lack of objectivity, unreliability of information and privacy issues. Relative to the online journalists, the dimmer view of traditional journalists about the use of social media shows their serious concern about possible drawbacks (Hedman and Djerf-Pierre, 2013;Opgenhaffen et al., 2011). In addition, news consumers also fear the same. Current research highlights that news consumer are concerned about the reliability of news on social media. When compared with broadcast and online news, consumers feel highly distrust about the information available on social media platforms. On the other hand, consumers and news makers show concern that social media can endanger the objectivity and credibility of the professional work and the journalist itself.
The fear that new technology affects the profession and the work quality of journalist has become an established fact (Deuze, 2005;Pavlik, 2000;Safori, 2018). In 2005, Singer identified the impact social media have on principles and routines of blogging journalists, also known as J-bloggers (Singer, 2005). The findings suggest that there is nothing to worry as blogging has only increased the expression of personal opinions, journalists are linked to the mainstream news sites articles and are also stuck to the principles of gatekeeping. Additionally, Lasorsa et al. (2012), in their study examined the interaction of journalist's social media practices (specifically on twitter, Jtwitter) with principles and standards of journalistic work, and vice versa. The study was based on analyzing 500 tweets posted by different journalists. Findings imply that the process of gatekeeping becomes public as expressing number of personal opinions on social media platform provides greater work transparency. They determined that use of Twitter by journalists "appear to be normalizing microblogs to fit into their existing norms and practices but, at the same time, they appear to be adjusting these professional norms and practices to the evolving norms and practices of Twitter" . The above discussion along with other studies related to the effect of social media and new technologies suggest that practices of journalistic work are changing due to the impact of social/new media. The shift in opinions regarding the limitations of "social journalism" has created a mental context where different views prevails on the significance of routines and principles of journalistic work (Safori, 2018), and also provide new understandings on the relationship amid news consumers and news professionals.
Thus, this shift in mental paradigm is never easy. For example, Lewis (2012), confer that newsmakers and organizations that use traditional media suffered from shift towards more social and participatory form of journalism. This has happened in most cases to the bigger news organizations. At the New York Times, an ethnographic research was conducted, that highlighted reorganizing of routines and flows of news and the real clash of emerging and traditional values. At present, there are several means of interaction for the press and the audience at the New York Times. However, these platforms are used by higher levels mainly for the promotional purposes, and most journalists have zero interest for their interaction with their readers (Usher, 2014).
During a research on outlets of Dutch news, Tameling (2015), observed that management and journalists were struggling to describe any specific strategy for online media. On one side they are confronted of the possibilities of the new digital reality; on the other side they wanted to stick to traditional routines of journalistic work. Thus, it was not a simple condition for media firm managers. Although social media provide several opportunities in terms of promotion, interaction and contact but the risk it brings to the reputation of organization through a simple post by journalists on Facebook or Twitter hinders change.
Within media organizations, this duality is similar to the conflicting demands that continuously exist between management and product design (Underwood, 1993), or between commerce and arts (Caves, 2001). Stated differently by Achtenhagen and Raviola (2009), "the editors-in-chief are responsible for making the daily product, but not for the economic results of its circulation, and tensions between editorial and management staff often occur". Thus, in case of social media, management may decide to restrict the use of Twitter and Facebook primarily for promotion and branding and less for curating, story telling and new developments (Bloom et al., 2015;Hille and Bakker, 2013). Henceforth, the possible conflicts may occur in similar to the example in the start where journalist cross the lines on social media by relaxing principles and standards that are well accepted for journalists work. This would definitely raise concerns for the managers and may create tension within the media firm. Definitely it would never be easy for management to have direct influence for setting requirements and prohibiting matters on the newsroom floor. After all, journalists having liberal attitudes believe that workplace autonomy vital (Breed, 1955). Additionally, being independent of management it becomes difficult for journalists to respond to social media.
The approach that is to be applied by the journalists is mostly determined by organization. Along with the values developed, Professionalism is determined and defined primarily by the management that is in accordance with the organization need. According to Schoemaker and Reese (2014), this is tough and may increase tension as "media organizations selectively promote certain aspects of professionalism, not all of which place a strong emphasis on individual freedom". In relation to the possible conflicts between editors and managers, a contrasting argument was raised by Achtenhagen and Raviola (2009). According to them, in the current era of digital revolution where media environment dynamics are becoming complex and are changing rapidly, it is not appropriate to choose any side when there is a conflict. Instead, the objective would not necessarily be to resolve the conflict by finding immediate solution but to minimize the possible negative impact of the existing duality. This can be achieved by providing trainings to the conflicting parties on particular issues and further reducing the communication gap between journalists and management to make them aware of the rising conflicts.
In order to fill the above highlighted research gap for the exiting tension instigated by the use of social media within media organizations, the current study discuss the guidelines issued by several media organizations for the strategic use of social media by Arab media organizations. Additionally, this study is helpful for Arab media organizations as it provides clarity on the prevailing issue and effectively reduces the tension between management of Arab media organizations and editorial staff.

Social Media Guidelines
It may be concluded from the above discussion that in journalistic work social media is a popular tool and there are certain advantages associated with its use. Additionally, the impact of social media on principles and routines of journalistic work cannot be ignored. Carim and Warwick (2013), stated that in various industries, managing behavior of employee's use of social media on workplace has become increasingly common and media organizations may also develop guidelines to control the journalist's behavior regarding social media. Social media advantages can be elaborated in these guidelines and journalists may be motivated to use these platforms to lure and attract social media users to traditional news sites, encourage journalists to upsurge transparency, conduct research and enhance public interaction. Additionally, these guidelines may also become a tool or reminder for their basic professional standards, and prevent social media from deflating any discretion principles, gatekeeping and non-partisanship. For instance, these may clarify that any homophobic tweet is undesirable.
As very little research on media organization guidelines is available, no specific estimate is available for the firms that employ social media guidelines. Bloom et al. (2015), conducted a research on international news firm regarding social media policies and reported that only half of these firms have some specific guidelines. The same was reported by Opgenhaffen and Scheerlinck (2014). According to the latter study, several journalists pointed out that there is no such need for any specific policy related to social media use because the use of common sense is effective to avoid mistakes on these platforms. On the flip side, several other opinions were uncovered during oneon-one interviews. On expression of personal opinions, few agreed that it is possible while other denied it. The same was the case on political statements. On transparency and gatekeeping principles of social media the views were diverse. However, no general consensus exists among the journalists on the social media policies. Few of the journalists regretted management for not providing guidelines as they were not aware of the content to be or not to be posted on social media. Henceforth, it would be easier for journalists if news organizations provide specific guidelines in order to avoid blunders and remain more productive.
The purpose of this article is to determine the guidelines of social media for Arab organizations under the light of policies issued by leading news agencies and media organizations in recent years. More precisely, the aspects covered by the existing guidelines are examined that may be linked to the existing practices in journalistic work.

Method
The prevailing guidelines for social media are analyzed to answer the research question of this study. Sensitizing concept was used as a reference frame for analysis (Blumer, 1954), and was derived from the existing literature on the relationship between journalistic standards and social media i.e., non-partisanship (or objectivity), gatekeeping and transparency Lasorsa, 2012;Lawrence et al., 2014;Lewis and Usher, 2013;Singer, 2005). Later, the guidelines of social media were analyzed using selective, axial and open coding in order to develop more specific trends in cluster guidelines. The guidelines with original formation were used in analysis. While, during reporting, the guidelines were mapped out under various categories by assigning provisions. The actual wordings of the guidelines are not presented in the findings table. Guidelines were assigned a descriptive summary in a specific category. Only those guidelines were repeatedly included which could not be assigned under specific category.
Several approaches were used to explore the guidelines for social media issued by leading news organizations. Firstly, we check the online availability of the document. Simple search on google helped us to access guidelines of various press agencies and media organizations. Emails were sent to various news agencies for providing guidelines, and only two agencies responded and provided guidelines. For one of the agencies where email was not responded, a personal contact provided us the required information. Finally, the data obtained included non-static and scattered material which helped us to initiate the process. In total 12 organizational guidelines were available, ranging from an informal document of one page with 8 provisions to a manual having full chapter. The available guidelines were all from leading newspapers, media organizations, broadcasters, and news agencies: ABC (Australia), AFP (France), AP (United States), HLN (Belgium), BBC (United Kingdom), CBC radio (Canada), Mediahuis (Belgium), Reuters (United States/United Kingdom), The Washington Post (United States), The Guardian (United Kingdom), Sky News (United Kingdom) and VRT (Belgium).

Personal Use
In the first group, we identified journalistic guidelines related to tips, advice, principles and rules of nonpartisanship which implies avoiding advancement towards personal agenda and remain neutral. Several provisions related to non-partisanship were identified and are presented in Table 1 across the organization from which they were originated.
In the first group, limitations and duties are arranged that are related to an individual's profile or account. The individual has to use his real name on his account, is prohibited to share professional information on his personal account and vice versa, is obligated to mention whether views on his personal account are on behalf of his employer or personal statements. The individual is suggested to restrict his privacy settings so that the profile or status updates are not view able by everybody (for example on Facebook). The point here is that the views regarding the use of private or professional account are varying. Some media organizations (Reuters, BBC, ABC, AFP) clearly entail their media persons to differentiate their professional account from private one, while other entail the use of same account for both professional and private purpose (in this case AP). Moreover, employees of SKY News are restricted from posting personal views through their professional profile. Provision by Reuters, AFP, The Washington Post, BBC, ABC and Mediahuis are slightly less strict and compelling than the previous one as journalist are required to mention whether a particular statement is on behalf of his firm or his personal view. Thus, the views related to the use of professional and personal account among media organizations vary.
In the second group, the provisions for the content of message displayed on social media account are arranged. Agencies including Reuters, The Washington Post, AFP, AP and VRT clearly restrict journalists to avoid criticism or insult of any individual or colleagues and avoid posting personal views on controversial topics. An interesting VRT guideline in relation to the tweet posted in the beginning of article states: "Humor is allowed on social media. But you should avoid insulting or hurting people. Do not lash out at colleagues. Not even colleagues from other media". (VRT, 2014). Organization should not be discredited Always remember that you are representing a firm Avoid criticizing and offending colleagues and people Retweeting straight is not allowed Source truthfulness need to be checked before posting Some media agencies specify in their guidelines that journalist while posting on social media must think about how this specific post may affect their employer. This implies that when journalist plan to post any video, image, or text on Twitter or Facebook, he should give a thought to both negative and positive impact this post may have on image of their firm. The provision for BBC is much strict where all posts of the journalists are examined and scrutinized before publication. Under this category the most common guidelines for journalists is to remain nonpartisan on all the matters including politics (AP, BBC, Mediahuis and CBC). Journalists working in The Guardian are required to provide, when applicable, declaration of personal interest.

Gatekeeping
The media organizations are well aware of the benefit of making news consumers a part of their process. Certainly, several guidelines clearly confer the relationship between public and the journalist. These provisions are classified in Table 2 under two sub-dimensions. Firstly, stage sharing rules are observed , which implies that consumers are involved in production and research process of journalistic work. Journalists are encouraged to reward and involve public to contribute and interact regarding the news. Some specific provisions in this regard are provided by AP, The Washington Post and The Guardian. Additionally, AP focus on the additional benefits associated with the large networks, and VRT focus on crowd sourcing by searching eyewitnesses. Some ensure online presence of the journalists and encourage them to do so (Reuters, AFP, AP and ABC).
Notably, only few guidelines are cautious related to stage sharing, or clearly prevent Tweets or information from external sources (and The Guardian and SKY), or retweeting straightly (AFP and AP), as they fear that these sources are non-professional and endorsing them may not favor journalists. In the second set, guidelines are related to dealing with information that journalists receive from regular users or through social platforms. HLN has special provision for this: the newspaper has strict provisions that avoid people privacy violation, especially taking photos in the vulnerable situation, where people are dead or seriously injured and remain highly cautious about individuals respect. These guidelines were adopted by HLN, after the Flemish Press Council takes the similar position on the March 13, 2012 Sieerre coach crash incident. The incident killed 28 people including 22 children's and HLN along with other newspaper printed the pictures of the deceased that were posted on Facebook. The above incident clearly explains the need for correct use of personal source data on ethical grounds.

Transparency
Four different groups of guidelines for transparency, presented in Table 3, are identified in our analysis. The general guidelines include that journalist is expected to behave openly and must provide source reference for any information posted, are the part of the first group. The first rule was adopted by four media agencies and second was adopted by other five. Complete transparency is dangerous due to information sensitivity or secrets disclosure risk. Several media agencies issued provisions after anticipating this risk and entail journalists for proper behaviors, preventing them from disclosure of information which is confidential and criticizing internal operations and colleagues. The provision issued by AP clearly prohibits information sharing which may harm any individual. As discussed in the review of literature, scoops may also be considered as a form of transparency. Several guidelines formulated by different media organizations are presented in Table 3. Journalists are prohibited from breaking any news on social media, and they are restricted from tweeting any news which is not reported by the newsroom. Live tweeting is allowed by AP and SKY during an event. Nevertheless, reporting accuracy of news on social media is also one of the concerns of news media. In relation to information checking four different guidelines were found. According to these guidelines, prior to releasing information, source truthfulness needs to be checked. There is also a need to rectify any flawed information that has been published. Besides, this may be considered as an attempt towards transparency where new post by journalist clearly mentions the flaw in the older post.

Conclusion and Discussion
This study aims to explore how guidelines for social media consider journalistic standards that were influenced by the use of social platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and others. The study concluded that several guidelines are available which guide journalists about transparency, gatekeeping and non-partisanship. Based on their organizational perspective, these firms have different views about how journalists ensure right use of online platforms. This is evident, for instance, form the category of personal use. Thus, guidelines for the use of social media lack homogeneity. Review of the existing literature clearly highlights that social media development has raised several concerns within news organizations. Therefore, guidelines for media use are considered as a significant tool to clearly identify between what is prohibited or encouraged, or what is allowed or not by the management. Indeed, being a clarification tool, guidelines are clearly meant to not only keep journalists and management aligned, but also reflect the social media use by journalists and the editorial culture. It is also evident from the literature that there is a disagreement among the news makers regarding what is prohibited and what is accepted in terms of scoops, stage sharing and personal opinions. Since the guidelines we examined are for the firms from different countries, corporate culture, activity, media type and organization size, therefore, it is reasonable to believe that these guidelines vary a lot.
Thus, from management perspective, it would not be possible to develop uniform and universal provisions that are applicable globally across different news organizations. Since Arab media organizations are aiming to develop guidelines for social media, the recommendations of the current study may be helpful for them. It is also recommended that future research must ensure external validity by taking a large sample. These studies must consider different organizational structures and the differences in their guidelines for the use of social media. Ethnographic research would be helpful to better identify how management produce these guidelines, how specific formulation is arrived, and to what extent activities on editorial floor are considered.
The study also highlights that there exist a number of formulations regarding the transparency and public involvement. Furthermore, provisions are identified which call journalists to take part in discussions on online platforms and also provide relevant sources during discussions.
Based on the small sample used in this study it may be argued that news firms have realized the importance of gate opening and participation of public in the news process as these have been embedded in guidelines for social media use. The question here rises that why these directives are included: are these organizations genuinely aware that involving public is important as they are key stakeholders and are entitled to journalist responsiveness and transparency, or because it is implicit that interactivity and transparency are significant for reputation of the brand and have positive impact on journalism quality? Although the answer to this question is beyond the scope, but only few organizations having clear guidance on safeguarding sources makes it suspicious that while formulating guideline the organization ignored user-centered approach and used medium-centered approach. The future research in this area may include interviews from the person assigned for guidelines formulation and using multiple news organizations for a better insight.
Notably, it must be considered that lack of guidelines on a specific topic does not simply imply that it is ignored by media organizations. The reason may be that some policies are well accepted and are generally used due to which they were not included in the guidelines. In addition, news agencies may have general set of rules which are also applicable for online platforms. For instance, the guidelines for social media issued by Guardian clearly refer to general principles that include all features of moderation and interaction and capture all aspects of online platforms (including article pages, blogs or comments). Previously, Bloom et al. (2015), have also discussed the similar aspects. The analysis on the differences and similarities between social media and general editorial guidelines may be covered in future research.
The current study has explicitly highlighted guidelines defined for the social media use and the basic tenets of the journalistic work that are being challenged after the current upriser of social media. The study has contributed by highlighting the prevailing diversity of restrictions and recommendations that may provide insight for Arab media organizations and news agencies. These insights may be helpful for Arab journalist to better understand social media use and for media organizations to formulate guidelines in this area. Practically, the observations in the study and the accompanying summary can be helpful for news organizations who are defining their provisions or rules for social media use by their journalists.