Creating the Newsfeed: How Social Media Editors Remediate the News for Facebook and Instagram

Social media editors (SMEs) play a vital role in disseminating the news from the news website to the social media platforms. A growing body of literature is exploring how they adapt – or as we argue remediate – the news for social media. Such remediations typically involve headline shortening, image and video modifications, and crafting status messages and captions that align with what they perceive as an effective fit for the social media logic. However, thus far there is little clarity on the motivations for the choices they make. This paper shines light on these motivations through 20 expert interviews with Flemish SMEs responsible for managing the Facebook and Instagram platforms. Our findings provide insights into the strategic decision-making processes of SMEs in shaping news for social media platforms and contribute to a deeper understanding of the evolving landscape of news dissemination in the digital age.