
Research Methods for Social Media Journalism
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 3. November 2025
Book
Hardback
192 pages
978-1-032-94063-2 (ISBN)
Description
This volume summarizes novel and diverse research methods for both quantitative and qualitative social media journalism-based research.
Focusing in turn on the production, contents, and consumption of social media journalism, the authors explore a multitude of methods, from real-life student experiment to content analysis, observations, and literature reviews. Moving beyond the use of social media as journalistic tool for newsgathering and sourcing, and the legitimacy crisis of journalism in the social media age, this book instead shines a spotlight on the potential of social media for news presentation and distribution.
The unique methodological focus makes this book an important resource for early-career and experienced scholars alike who want to study the flow of contemporary news content across various social media platforms.
Focusing in turn on the production, contents, and consumption of social media journalism, the authors explore a multitude of methods, from real-life student experiment to content analysis, observations, and literature reviews. Moving beyond the use of social media as journalistic tool for newsgathering and sourcing, and the legitimacy crisis of journalism in the social media age, this book instead shines a spotlight on the potential of social media for news presentation and distribution.
The unique methodological focus makes this book an important resource for early-career and experienced scholars alike who want to study the flow of contemporary news content across various social media platforms.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Academic, Postgraduate, and Undergraduate Advanced
Illustrations
6 s/w Tabellen, 11 s/w Abbildungen, 11 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder
6 Tables, black and white; 11 Halftones, black and white; 11 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
476 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-94063-2 (9781032940632)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Jonathan Hendrickx | Michael Opgenhaffen
Research Methods for Social Media Journalism
E-Book
11/2025
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download

Jonathan Hendrickx | Michael Opgenhaffen
Research Methods for Social Media Journalism
E-Book
11/2025
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download
Persons
Jonathan Hendrickx is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
Michael Opgenhaffen is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at KU Leuven, Belgium.
Michael Opgenhaffen is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at KU Leuven, Belgium.
Content
Introduction: Why We Edited This Volume and Why It Matters
Part 1: The Production of Social Media Journalism
1. "Let's make a TikTok": Unveiling the Role of Social Media Editors through Participant Observation Research
2. Advancing Mixed Digital Methods: Digital Ethnography and Digital Methods in Contemporary Media Cultures
3. "I Just WhatsApped You the Details": Three Recommendations for Observing Social Media Journalism in Practice
4. Studying Fact-Checks on Social Media: Using a Real-Life Fact-Checking Platform to Explore the Feasibility and Practice of Direct Content Interventions
Part 2: The Contents of Social Media Journalism
5. Designing Content and Textual Analyses of Social Media Posts
6. TikTok Journalism: A Methodological Approach to Content Analysis in the Short-Video Platform
7. Clustering Journalistic TikTok Videos: An Unsupervised Machine Learning Approach to Visual Content Analysis
8. Multimodality of Social Media Research in the Field of Journalism Studies: A Qualitative Perspective
Part 3: The Consumption of Social Media Journalism
9. Can I See What You Mean By News? Methodologies for Understanding Young People's Changing News Identification and Consumption
10. Advancing Cross- and Multi-Platform Research: Understanding Digital News Flows via Computational Methods
11. Advancing Systematic Literature Reviews as a Method for Re-evaluating Core Concepts in Social Media Journalism
12. Studying Social Media and Journalism with Publicly Available Cross-national Secondary Data
Conclusion: Advancing Scholarship on Social Media Journalism
Index
Part 1: The Production of Social Media Journalism
1. "Let's make a TikTok": Unveiling the Role of Social Media Editors through Participant Observation Research
2. Advancing Mixed Digital Methods: Digital Ethnography and Digital Methods in Contemporary Media Cultures
3. "I Just WhatsApped You the Details": Three Recommendations for Observing Social Media Journalism in Practice
4. Studying Fact-Checks on Social Media: Using a Real-Life Fact-Checking Platform to Explore the Feasibility and Practice of Direct Content Interventions
Part 2: The Contents of Social Media Journalism
5. Designing Content and Textual Analyses of Social Media Posts
6. TikTok Journalism: A Methodological Approach to Content Analysis in the Short-Video Platform
7. Clustering Journalistic TikTok Videos: An Unsupervised Machine Learning Approach to Visual Content Analysis
8. Multimodality of Social Media Research in the Field of Journalism Studies: A Qualitative Perspective
Part 3: The Consumption of Social Media Journalism
9. Can I See What You Mean By News? Methodologies for Understanding Young People's Changing News Identification and Consumption
10. Advancing Cross- and Multi-Platform Research: Understanding Digital News Flows via Computational Methods
11. Advancing Systematic Literature Reviews as a Method for Re-evaluating Core Concepts in Social Media Journalism
12. Studying Social Media and Journalism with Publicly Available Cross-national Secondary Data
Conclusion: Advancing Scholarship on Social Media Journalism
Index