Online branding of journalists refers to a situation where a journalist presents his or her work to a wide audience through social networks sites and other online tools. Social networks sites, by their very nature, mediate a direct exchange of information between the producer and consumer of content, allowing journalists to communicate with their readers independently of the media house that employs them. The second essential characteristic of social networks sites is that it is possible to build one’s own online identity within them. Indeed, as Danah Boyd and Nicole B. Elisson note, social networks sites have an egocentric design and their centrepiece is therefore not topics but people.
But by blurring the line between what is private and what is public, social networks sites raise the question of what information journalists should share and how much they can afford to express their opinions. Equally challenging for them is the balancing between appearing authentic to the audience while also complying with organizational pressure from their employers, who often want them to represent the media outlet through their profiles, thus aiding the corporate marketing of that media house.
It is also typical that media houses tend to interfere in journalists’ communication with their audiences and set the rules according to which they can operate on social networks sites; journalists have to admit in their “bio” which media house they are part of.
