Social Media & Investigative Journalism in Pakistan: Prospects and Challenges
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32350/mcr.61.09Keywords:
the observation highlighted in discussion has been successfully addressed.Abstract
The current study examines the modern issues and potentials of investigative journalism in the context of social media. The closed linkage of Technological Affordance Theory is applied to analyze how online platforms are changing investigative journalism by providing new opportunities to gather information, linking audiences, and uncover the facts & truth behind any news story. Nevertheless, it also highlights the manipulation of these platforms such as fake news, online harassment, surveillance, and legal restrictions. For the present study, a sample of 125 investigative journalists has been acquired using snowball and purposive sampling approach to explore how they use social media in the current era of technological modifications, perceived opportunities, and challenges in the field of investigative journalism. Findings of the present study state that most of the investigative journalists participated in the present study’s survey were from a political beat. Twitter is the most common platform they use for audience engagement, public awareness regarding human rights, corruption and political issues. Whereas, limited digital literacy, fake information & ethical issues on social media are the major challenges to investigative journalism. Perceived future needs and trends, as per findings of the study, are fact checking tools, regulatory measures, data & multimedia journalism.
Downloads
References
Aryal, D. R. (2026). Investigative journalism: Challenges and prospects. The Academia: An Interdisciplinary Research Journal, 6(1), 52–62. https://doi.org/10.3126/ta.v6i1.90320
Bossetta, M. (2018). The digital architectures of social media: Comparing political campaigning on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat in the 2016 U.S. election. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 95(2), 471–496. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018763307
Bradshaw, P. (2018). The online journalism handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the digital age (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315761428
Carson, A., & Farhall, K. (2018). Understanding collaborative investigative journalism in a “post-truth” age. Journalism Studies, 19(13), 1899–1911. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2018.1494515
Deuze, M. (2007). Media work. Polity Press.
Ettema, J. S., & Glasser, T. L. (1998). Custodians of conscience: Investigative journalism and public virtue. Columbia University Press.
Graves, L., & Konieczna, M. (2015). Sharing the news: Journalistic collaboration as field repair. International Journal of Communication, 9, 1966–1984.
Giachi, F. (2018). Rethinking the practice of accountability journalism in the digital age: The inception and development of the first Portuguese university-based investigative journalism centre and whistleblowing platform [Master’s dissertation, NOVA University Lisbon]. RUN—Universidade NOVA de Lisboa.
Hermida, A. (2010). Twittering the news: The emergence of ambient journalism. Journalism Practice, 4(3), 297–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512781003640703
Hutchby, I. (2001). Technologies, texts and affordances. Sociology, 35(2), 441–456. https://doi.org/10.1177/S0038038501000219
Jacobson, S. (2012). Transcoding the news: An investigation into multimedia journalism published on nytimes.com, 2000–2008. New Media & Society, 14(5), 867–885. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444811431864
Karadimitriou, A., von Krogh, T., Ruggiero, C., Biancalana, C., Bomba, M., & Lo, W. H. (2022). Investigative journalism and the watchdog role of news media: Between acute challenges and exceptional counterbalances. In J. Trappel & T. Tomaz (Eds.), Success and failure in news media performance: Comparative analysis in the Media for Democracy Monitor 2021 (pp. 101–125). Nordicom, University of Gothenburg. https://doi.org/10.48335/9789188855589-5
Konow-Lund, M., & Høiby, M. (2023). Female investigative journalists: Overcoming threats, intimidation, and violence with gendered strategies. Journalism Practice, 17(8), 1591–1606. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2021.2008810
Lewis, S. C., & Molyneux, L. (2018). A decade of research on social media and journalism: Assumptions, blind spots, and a way forward. Media and Communication, 6(4), 11–23. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v6i4.1562
Martens, B., Aguiar, L., Gomez-Herrera, E., & Mueller-Langer, F. (2018). The digital transformation of news media and the rise of disinformation and fake news: An economic perspective (JRC Digital Economy Working Paper 2018-02, JRC111529). European Commission, Joint Research Centre. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3164170
Napoli, P. M. (2019). Social media and the public interest: Media regulation in the disinformation age. Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/napo18454
Nazir, S., & Gillani, S. (2024). Investigative journalism in Pakistan: Issues and opportunities. International Journal of Contemporary Issues in Social Sciences, 3(1), 742–755.
Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. Basic Books.
Papacharissi, Z. (2010). A private sphere: Democracy in a digital age. Polity Press.
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2019). Fighting misinformation on social media using crowdsourced judgments of news source quality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 116(7), 2521–2526. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1806781116
Posetti, J. (2017). Protecting journalism sources in the digital age. UNESCO Publishing.
Siebert, F. S., Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1956). Four theories of the press: The authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility, and Soviet communist concepts of what the press should be and do. University of Illinois Press.
Skjerdal, T. S. (2010). Research on brown envelope journalism in the African media. African Communication Research, 3(3), 367–406.
Tandoc, E. C., & Maitra, J. (2018). News organizations’ use of native videos on Facebook: Tweaking the journalistic field one algorithm change at a time. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1679–1696. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817702398
Velasquez, A., & Rojas, H. (2017). Political expression on social media: The role of communication competence and expected outcomes. Social Media + Society, 3(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117696521
Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2017). Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Council of Europe
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Ayesha Sadaf, Tayyaba Jabeen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
