Journalist social media practice in China: A review and synthesis

Abstract

The growing influence of social media on journalistic work has attracted scholarly attention worldwide in recent years. However, due to cultural and language barriers, we lack comprehensive understanding of the journalist social media practice in non-Western countries. To help fill this gap, this study offers a review and synthesis of existing scholarship on journalist social media practice in China. The authors systematically analyzed recent research studies published in both English-language journals in the West and Chinese-language journals in Mainland China. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field theory, the synthesis provided a comprehensive review of the patterns of practice as well as key tensions that social media use helped amplify and with which Chinese journalists had to contend.