Journalists as Relational Actors: Towards a Scalable Method for Performative Publics

Abstract

This paper presents 'Practice Profiles' as a scalable method for understanding journalists as relational actors in public discourses who negotiate roles with other groups of actors. Informed by a framework of performative publics and practice theory, the innovative research design combines social network analyses (SNA) with standardised analyses of actors and practices (SAPA) and applies them to two contrastive case studies - #systemrelevant and #coronaeltern - during the Corona pandemic in Germany. Social network analyses of discourses on Twitter (now: X) between 2020-2021 show the emergence of different issue networks through personal and professional practices of engagement among six actor groups (journalism, civil society, science/education, politics, non-institutionalised media, and private individuals). We find marked similarities in modes of engagement among rather professional uses of Twitter in distinction from private individuals. The study puts forward a relational understanding of journalism through a scalable method, implementing a medium-data approach. The method is positioned as a contribution to digital journalism studies to reveal discourse-specific absence or presence of journalistic actors in the formation of public discourses through a focus on practices of journalists and their audiences alike.