Social Media and Pakistani Journalists: WhatsApp Usage for News and Ethical Performance

Abstract

With the fast expansion and acceptance of the Social Media in Pakistan, it is observed that the traditional journalism has entered in a new avenue because social media not only facilitating networking platform for the communities but also it has also been becoming a source of news for the traditional media journalists. As previous studies discussed that social media including Twitter and Facebook become the important tool to disseminate the news. Previous researches are the evidence of the usage of social media as a news source however they also pointed out the questions of the credibility of the information provided by these social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp therefore the objective of this study is to find out how social media especially WhatsApp is being used as source of information for the journalists working in the traditional media and to what extent it is influencing the ethical performance of the journalists in Pakistan. This will be a qualitative study in which interview technique is employed and theoretical framework has been used based on the diffusion of innovation theory. Population of the study is all the news TV channels in Pakistan. Sample of the study will be ten field reporters and news room personnel from one private and one public main stream news TV channels of Pakistan. The results show that the Journalists, newsroom personnel and reporters use WhatsApp because of its extra ordinary features to enhance their reporting magnitude. Results also show that journalists and reporters ignore ethical rules and regulations during the reporting and in field even they are aware of rules and regulations of journalism.

Keywords: Online media, journalists, news, diffusion of innovation, credibility, ethical performance, WhatsApp

DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/88-02

Publication date: February 29^th 2020