摘要：Media communication is now inconceivable without the use of social networks. Social networks have penetrated every pore of both business and private life. What’s more, these two spheres often overlap in the realm of social networks. The objective of this paper is to research the perception journalists have of the importance of social networks in the production of media contents. We started from the presumption that social networks influence upon the production of media contents and aimed at establishing to what extent that is true. We wished to establish how social networks altered the manner of operation of journalists and verify whether they check the reliability of published contents. Our focus was on considering whether they use social network sources and subsequently mention them as unnamed or whether they name them. We also considered the influence of public relations on social media contets. Other issues we considered include the role of social networks in crisis communication, with respect to their reliability. We investigated how much time journalists spend on social networks and whether they are more beneficial or harmful to their work. The research was conducted using the focus-group method, with participation of 13 journalists in two focus-groups. Most respondents agreed that in their work, social networks do more good than harm. This is true only if, when using these contents, they never lose from sight the basic principle of journalistic profession: checking the reliability of information.
关键词：social networks; reliability; media contents; checking information
