Journalism in a new medium

The aim of this study was to find out how journalism students at two universities in Sweden, Gothenburg University and Linnaeus University in Kalmar, use the social networking service Twitter. We were primarily interested in whether the students are using Twitter as a journalistic tool, which includes gathering, production and distribution of material. The study focused on journalism students because they soon will enter the working life and therefore can provide an indication of whether Twitter is a part of the future of journalism. We have used theories of mass communication to describe the development in the area and explore how journalism has adapted to this change. The study was conducted in the form of a survey in which the students answered questions about how they use Twitter and what they think about the social networking service. The results show that a large percentage of the journalism students use Twitter as a journalistic tool, but not in a particularly high degree. We noticed, however, that their usage differ from their thoughts and that many see Twitter as a useful tool in journalism