Study: News outlets are using Twitter for one-way distribution, not engagement

A new study from the Pew Research Centre’s Project for Excellence in Journalism reveals that most news outlets are using Twitter as a one-way publishing platform rather than a social networking tool. According to the report titled How Mainstream Media Outlets Use Twitter, news organizations are primarily using the micro-blogging tool to push content to readers.

The study shows that, "for these organizations, Twitter functions as an RSS feed or headline service for news consumers, with links ideally driving traffic to the organization’s website.”

Furthermore, the study found that over the course of one-week, 93 percent of tweets posted by media outlets included links to news stories on the organization’s own website.

Pew studied 13 U.S. print, television and radio news organizations, both large and small in size.

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