Comparing Disaster News on Twitter and Television: an Intermedia Agenda Setting Perspective

Intermedia agenda setting predicts a high degree of convergence between news media agendas. However, the rise of social media forces a re-examination of this expectation. Using the 8.8-earthquake of February 27, 2010 in Chile as a case study, this article compares which topics were covered by professional journalists on broadcast news and Twitter, analyzing both cross-sectional and longitudinal trends. A positive, reinforcing influence was found among the journalistic agendas of TV and Twitter. However, counter to the idea that social media are echo chambers of traditional media, it was found that Twitter influences TV news more so than the other way around. Thus, the study provides an early lens into the agenda setting function of social media among television news professionals, and its findings are consistent with Twitter succeeding among journalists due to its provision of valuable information.