This study explores forms of social media fatigue described by professional journalists, including frustration with the perception of their increased affective labor, dissatisfaction with communication environments on particular social media platforms, and increased anxiety about the possible impact of social media use on both their professional reputations and personal well-being. We argue that these forms of social media fatigue have influenced new professional practices on social media practice that include strategies of disconnecting from, but not necessarily terminating, social media use. Using a comparative analysis of semistructured interviews with Australian and American professional journalists, this study illustrates that experiences of social media fatigue over time have resulted in a careful renegotiation of professional and personal boundaries around journalists’ social media use, influenced by the technological, social, and cultural affordances of specific media platforms, organizational and institutional constraints, as well as the online literacies and behaviors of journalists themselves.

Governments across the world are struggling to address the market dominance of technology companies through increased regulation. The Australian Federal government found itself leading the world in platform regulation when, in 2021, it enacted the Australian News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code. The furore surrounding the introduction of the legislation, and Facebook's subsequent Australian ‘news ban’ exposed the limits of a regulatory model that has previously left the tech industry to moderate itself. In this paper, we argue the introduction of the Code is a leading example of a global trajectory towards regulatory change, which sees governments move from a reactive regulation model to specific interventions around the governance of digital media spaces. We discuss how best to measure the successes and failures around this more interventionist model through a case study of the implementation of the Code in Australia. More broadly we consider how global platforms have responded, and whether the reform is an effective regulatory model for other national governments to emulate.

Research on journalists’ social media practices has not yet developed clear platform specificity; that is, how these practices might differ according to a platform’s unique culture and vernacular affordances. This paper explores how journalists have mediated aspects of Instagram’s unique visual cultures within their professional journalism practices. It argues journalists develop representations of their professional identity and role using mediated journalistic practices that also adhere to Instagram’s culture and “vernacular” social practices. Using a visual content analysis and semi-structured interviews with Australian journalists, this paper shows that journalistic practices on Instagram are context-specific and dynamic. Unique journalistic practices develop and change according to the journalist’s perception of professional need for, and personal satisfaction with, Instagram’s specific culture of interaction, its vernacular communication practices, and professional and personal communication outcomes. This is important to establish how journalistic practices are negotiated within Instagram’s visual cultures, and the consequences for changing practices on production, distribution, and audience reception of news on the site.

Journalistic use of social media for sourcing, distribution and promotion of news comes at a time when the newsroom itself can be said to be in a state of “transition”. Previous research about social media and journalism has focussed on the transition of journalistic practices to the “social media age”, but less attention has been given to the ways in which new workplace relationships might contribute to a social media-enabled newsroom. It is thus important to analyse the policies and procedures different media organizations have implemented to integrate and regulate the use of social media in their newsrooms and how this might impact on news production and dissemination overall. The aim of this paper is to compare and critically analyse social media management policies and procedures in Australian newsrooms, as well as the relations between various editorial staff, to manage its introduction into journalistic practice. Based on 25 qualitative research interviews with editors, social media managers and news media staff from major Australian media companies, this study also reflects more broadly on the potential conflicts created by the regulation of social media use in newsrooms and how various personnel respond to them.

Based on interviews with Swiss journalists who specialise in war and international reportage, this article investigates the extent to which social media impacts on reportage of war and conflict. The interviews examine journalists’ perceptions of the threats and opportunities posed by use of social media in reporting conflict, by investigating how journalists position themselves and their practices within this new media ecosystem. In particular, the interviews explore whether challenges to professional journalism encountered in previous studies of reportage of war and conflict are overcome by the use of social media. It explores if social media can mitigate the effects of military and government restriction of information, changing newsroom dynamics and issues of audience engagement in reportage of conflict. The findings highlight that in the context of war and conflict the dynamism creates opportunities for fast, news dissemination, pluralised voices in reportage and extended audience reach. However, reporters must also negotiate the complexities that fast, multi-medium and multi-sourced information create for reporting practices, especially in terms of verification of information and contextualisation. Thus this article argues that although social media adds dynamism to journalistic environments, this dynamism also brings new levels of complexity to journalistic practice that professional media workers must negotiate.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the different ways in which journalists negotiate representations of their professional and personal identity on social media platforms. We argue that the differing representations of personal and professional identity on social media correspond to the professional, organisational and institutional tensions that have emerged in this new space. Using qualitative interviews with various journalists and editorial staff from Australian media organisations across television, radio, print and online publications, we indicate that journalists present their personal and professional identity on social media in three different ways. The first group create public, professional social media accounts, but also create secondary, private accounts that are only accessible to personal networks. The second group either choose, or are required by their media organisation, to only have a professional presence on social media; that is, they have public accounts that are only associated with their media organisation and display only their professional activities. The last group merge a professional and personal identity on their social media sites, showing aspects of their personal and their professional lives on publically available accounts.