Abstract

Based on interviews with journalists and key figures at Sky Tg24 and Tgcom24, the article firstly presents the different structures of the all news systems, i.e. patterns characterizing the relationships between on air, web and social media departments, created by Sky Italia and Mediaset. Secondly, the paper analyzes (in term of frequency, content and formal elements) all posts published on Twitter and Facebook between the 20th of April and the 20th of May 2015 in order to define the main features of social media approaches adopted by the two organizations, with a specific focus on direct connections established with activities carried on air and on the website. Finally, grounding on all these data, the paper shows that the two different approaches to social news characterizing Sky Tg24 and Tgcom24 can be linked to the structure of their all news systems and to main editorial and commercial goals of the companies. We conclude by arguing that organizational and entrepreneurial patterns matter when it comes to the way news organizations have entered and are inhabiting the social media environment.