News Media Appropriation: strategical possibilities of pro-am on Twitter

Abstract

This paper aims to characterize Pro-Am possibilities in a specific social network site, Twitter microblog, considering it as a journalistic strategy. The exploratory study is based on the observation of Twitter's use of two world leading newspapers, El Pa, from Spain, and The Guardian, from United Kingdom. We've perceived some practices that point to a collaboration between amateurs and professionals on the production and circulation of news, showing traces that Twitter can be integrated into the journalistic process as a whole. Among other things, we've noted two movements that indicate that Pro-Am may take place on Twitter or from Twitter. As we show in the article, this can be perceived a) by invitations to collaborate and the establishment of conversations with the public (specially in The Guardians Twitter account) and b) by the use of hashtags that can be replicated by the users when posting or commenting on Twitter about news (on both Twitter accounts analyzed).