Abstract

Social media platforms, Twitter in particular, have become a key arena of political discourse and communication, both for professional politicians and for the journalists who cover the news activity. Thus, while politicians use these platforms extensively to promote their campaigns and criticize their rivals, journalists use social media to post headlines, tell stories, find sources, and present evidence (Pradhan 2018). Embracing the internet with varying degrees of enthusiasm, journalists have gradually adjusted to Twitter, a relatively new social media platform. Many adjustments have involved certain work practices that combine text with links, audio, and various types of video. Undeniably, this convergence involves some ethical issues and prompts discussions concerning online journalism ethics, specifically with regard to social media’s impact on the traditional practices and norms of both political leaders and journalists. To explore journalists’ and politicians’ use of Twitter, Twitter’s role as a digital arena for ongoing political confrontations, Twitter’s challenges to the norms and ethics of these two groups and its impact on public discourse, a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses was used to analyze and compare the behaviors of journalists and politicians on Twitter during the 2019 Israeli political elections. The conclusions reflected a distinct increase in frequency of Twitter use with regard to both politicians and journalists, although many other things tested came as a slight surprise.