In the social media age, individual journalists have become more visible than ever, write Cara Brems, Martina Temmerman, Todd Graham and Marcel Broersma. In their new article the focus is on journalists personal branding on Twitter.

According to the writers personal branding offers journalist the opportunity to become “news and opinion hubs” and to increase their “market value”. Researchers analyse tweeting behaviour of 40 journalists and explore the way they use social media to present themselves and which dilemma’s they are facing.

Study finds that journalists struggle with four key dilemmas: broadcasting information and interacting; remaining factual and being opinionated; sharing personal information and remaining professional; and promoting the self in an implicit or explicit way.

Article Personal Branding on Twitter: How employed and freelance journalists stage themselves on social media is published by Digital Journalism. It is available here. 

Picture: Twitter by Uncalno Tekno, licence: CC BY 2.0

Edited on 6.5.2016: The authors’ surnames were corrected, having been misspelled earlier.