More Inclusive and Wider Sources: A Comparative Analysis of Data and Political Journalists on Twitter (Now X) in Germany

Abstract

Women are underrepresented in many areas of journalistic newsrooms. In this paper, we examine if this established effect persists in the new forms of journalistic communication, namely social media networks. We use mentions, retweets, and hashtags as measures of journalistic amplification and legitimation. Furthermore, we compare two groups of journalists in different stages of development: political and data journalists in Germany in 2021. Our results show that journalists identified as women tend to favor other women journalists in mentions and retweets on Twitter (now called X), compared to men. While both professions are dominated by men, with a high share of tweets authored by men, women mention and retweet other women more than their male colleagues. Female data journalists also leverage different sources than men. In addition, we found data journalists to be more inclusive of non-member sources in their networks compared to political journalists.