Abstract

The paper aims to analyse the relationship between identity and professionalism of journalists in the shift between news media and personal accounts on social network sites. On the one side, in fact, the correspondence between journalistic identity and journalistic professionalism is clear; on the other side, this correspondence might not be explicit. The paper presents a theoretical analysis on the main critical issues raised by the use of SNs by journalists, and the results of the two first steps of a qualitative research (survey and in-depth interviews), which show that the value of responsibility in journalism acquires an increased centrality: it emerges as the main reference for journalists in order to respect and enhance their role also in not explicitly journalistic contexts.