With the invention of social media we have traded personal privacy for international relationships. A Twitter account is used to criticise others in 140 characters.
Facebook pages are meant to share milestones and Instagram is used to screw reality with a filter.
I have always been weary of social media because it is quite literally your life online. Through posts followers construct the person that they think you are; they do this by gauging inspecting your liked and shared posts.
When this concept is translated to journalism it becomes tricky because as a journalist the expectation is that you are objective. By liking, sharing, retweeting anything you slowly make a personal brand that could either help or harm you depending on the audience and content as seen in this study about what journalists think about social media.
The compromise is to have a professional account and a personal profile. The separation of the two accounts make breathing room for a journalist while staying connected on a global level.
Reviewed by Rajneesh.
