Embedding Elites: Examining the Use of Tweets Embedded in Online News Articles across Reliable and Fringe Outlets

TL;DR

Embedded tweets are a persistent feature of online news across both reliable and fringe outlets. Using a mixed-methods approach combining Structured Topic Modeling with qualitative coding, the study reveals that embedded tweets primarily relay elite opinions, syndicate information, or self-cite, with fringe outlets embedding more and using tweets as sources more often. Topic and outlet reliability modulate these patterns, with elites and curated lists featuring prominently in fringe contexts. These findings underscore the persistence of elite-driven framing in hybrid media and raise concerns about decontextualization and the normalization of social media in journalism.

Abstract

This study examines the use of embedded tweets in online news media. In particular, we add to the previous literature by exploring embedded tweets across reliable and unreliable news outlets. We use a mixed-method analysis to examine how the function and frequency of embedded tweets change across outlet reliability and news topic. We find that, no matter the outlet reliability, embedded tweets are most often used to relay the opinions of elites, to syndicate information from another news source, or to self-cite information an outlet previously produced. Our results also show some notable differences between reliable media and fringe media's use of tweets. Namely, fringe media embed tweets more and use those tweets as the source of news more than reliable media. Our work adds to the literature on hybrid media systems and the normalization of social media in journalism.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: Steps in our qualitative sampling method, where articles are sampled from the 12 topics that were associated with more embedded tweets.
• Figure 2: Example of 'Curated List' category described in Table \ref{['tab:codes']}. In this example, we have an article from Breitbart that contains a curated list of Hollywood celebrities opinions expressed on Twitter. While we show three in this image, the article contains eight embedded tweets of this nature.
• Figure 3: Top 25 embedded Twitter accounts for (a) Reliable (b) Fringe outlets, and (c) all outlets. This count was done across the full dataset of 9952 articles with embedded tweets. Importantly, the frequency of an account being embedded does not perfectly align with the number of articles that one is embedded in, as multiple tweets can be embedded in one article. Further, note that the X-axis are at different scales.