Twitter as a news source in data journalism

Abstract

– This paper discusses the use of Twitter as a news source, especially in data journalism. This practice uses public databases as sources for its investigations, but has now started to make use of less conventional sources, such as Twitter, which politicians now use as an official communication channel and thus avoid giving interviews to the press. In this study, we analyze news articles published over a period of a little less than two months by the data journalism team at Vortex Media. Our focus was on political coverage. Twitter may be classified as a reproductive or statistical documentary news sources, depending on the case. We argue that, by using this social networking site as a news source, data journalism could be able to provide new knowledge. Its limitations lie within the working order of the social network itself, which is highly mediated by algorithms and conditioned to spread disinformation.