Journalism, the Market, and The Kingdom: Emergent News Values in Online News Selection in Saudi Arabia

Online editors using Saudi Arabian social media platforms are in a novel position,providing news in an environment where they themselves are not trained journalists, on publication platforms that developed independently of legacy news organizations, and in a cultural context where journalism is constrained by government and societal concerns. Yet, they provide a highly popular and growing venue for news distribution. As such, the news values they consciously consider and profess they choose when selecting and posting their news content online is of substantive interest in terms of local and global practice. The potential ramifications of their choices include the framing and documentation of past, present and future events and perspectives. Therefore, this research seeks to determine and understand the news values that online editors on Saudi Arabian social media platforms consciously consider and believe they choose when selecting and posting their news content online. It also explores whether those online editors consider audience news preferences when they select what they report or republish. This dissertation relied on qualitative in-depth interviews with nine online editors who worked for the top news accounts on social media in Saudi Arabia. Analysis of interview responses showed that impact, timeliness, proximity, novelty, positivity, and nationalism were the common news values the online editors held. The analysis, which concluded that the online editors used the different engagement tools available in social media to enhance their understanding of the audience and their news preference, suggests further interpretation regarding a market orientation. The interactivity played important roles in making profits for the news accounts, facilitating and mapping the news accounts’ work, and measuring the online editors’ personal success and progress. Finally, although the online editors said they prioritized and assured the importance of selecting news based on audience news preference, they professed an awareness of their role as journalists in the society. In the interviews, they give insight into how they select some content based on their own preferences and their understanding about what the audience should know. This suggests an evolving journalistic environment in Saudi Arabia on the fastest-growing information-sharing publication platform. KEYWORDS: Journalism, social media, engagement, interactivity, online editors, audience, news values, news selection, audience news preferences, in-depth interviews, Saudi Arabia.