Contesting Professional Procedures of Journalists: Public Conversation on Twitter after Germanwings accident

Social media has been increasingly used to gather and share news stories from mainstream news sites. This article aims to extend the analysis to the public interactions between citizens and media on Twitter after the airplane accident of Germanwings’ flight 9525, in which citizens’ eyewitnessing role was minimized. Thematic and interpretative analysis have been carried out of 70,000 messages posted on Twitter with the hashtag #germanwings during the three days after the crash. Results point towards a hegemonic position of accounts connected to news media (mainstream, but also local and specialized outlets) in what regards public interactions in Twitter. However, findings also suggest that this central position coexists with an important role of the “common” citizen in shaping both the agenda of issues that are going to be covered but also the particular narratives and discourses associated to these issues. Furthermore, results also reflect how Twitter users were active in auditing the work of news media, criticising some of the approaches of their coverage that they considered to be negligent, unprofessional or unethical, performing as watchdogs of professional journalists and news media.