Social networks in the communication strategy of the European public radiotelevisions

Public radiotelevisions in European Union are gradually implementing new ways of communication to encourage interactivity and generate mediatic conversation with media audiences. Despite initial reluctance, the twenty-eight corporations analyzed in this study opted by social media and have accounts on social networks, especially Facebook and Twitter, but also on Youtube and Linkedin. This research provides a snapshot of the presence of European public broadcasting service in social networks in November 2014 in terms of number of accounts, use and followers. In addition, it detects that corporations, in general, lack guidelines which guide its task in this area so different from the traditional media. The methodology used in this research was based on the observation of social networks to each and every one of the companies as well as the investigation and analysis of the content of the editorial guidelines on social media of corporations in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, UK and Romania.