Newspaper and Online News 2015 Abstracts
Open Competition
Framing Oil on the Media Agenda: A Model of Agenda Building • Mariam Alkazemi; Wayne Wanta, University of Florida • A path analysis tested an agenda-building model in which three real-world indicators – price of crude oil, U.S. production and U.S. consumption of oil) would lead to discussions of oil in Congress and media coverage of oil. The model showed the level of U.S. oil production produced the strongest path coefficients. Congress and the media formed a reciprocal relationship. The model worked better when oil was framed as an economic issue than as an environmental issue.
Error message: Creation and validation of a revised codebook for analyses of newspaper corrections • Alyssa Appelman, Northern Kentucky University; Kirstie Hettinga, California Lutheran University • This project seeks to create and validate a corrections codebook that accounts for modern-day content and technology. In Study 1, we qualitatively analyze applications of previous corrections codebooks and identify areas for revision. In Study 2, we apply our revised codebook to a new set of corrections (N = 104) and analyze its effectiveness. Based on these analyses, this study recommends its new typology for future analytical studies of corrections.
Who’s Responsible for Our Children’s Education? Framing a Controversial Consolidation of School Systems • Morgan Arant, University of Memphis; Jin Yang, University of Memphis • This content analysis found that newspaper coverage of a controversial consolidation of Memphis City Schools into Shelby County Schools was dominated by official government sources while the voices of ordinary citizens, students and teachers were absent in the coverage. Pro-consolidation sources far exceeded anti-consolidation and neutral sources. In terms of news frames used, the responsibility frame was the most prevalent, followed by the conflict frame, the economic consequences frame and the human interest frame.
Personalization without fragmentation: The Role of Web Portal and Social News Recommendations on News Exposure • Michael Beam, Kent State University; R. Kelly Garrett, The Ohio State University • This study investigates the over-time impact of receiving personalized news recommendations through web portals and social media on online and offline selective exposure. Some scholars have worried that the increased control given to users of online algorithmic and social news recommendation technologies might lead to increased fragmentation of news exposure and political polarization, while others have argued that digital technologies provide people a path to accessible and personally relevant news, which fosters increased news consumption. Nationally representative survey panel data collected over three-waves during the 2012 US Presidential election show that using news recommenders from web portals and social media is related to greater news exposure across the board, including pro-attitudinal & counter-attitudinal partisan news sources, and non-partisan news. Using online news recommenders is positively related to offline news exposure. Furthermore, over-time analysis show that, while pro-attitudinal news exposure drives over-time engagement in news, people are not likely to turn away from news sources that challenge their perspectives. We discuss these findings and their implications for the ongoing debate about the democratic consequences of technological selective exposure.
Following the leader: An exploratory analysis of Twitter adoption and use among newspaper editors • Kris Boyle, Brigham Young University; Carol Zuegner, Creighton University • Some media critics say Twitter use by newsroom leaders sends a strong innovation message to the rest of the newsroom. This exploratory study examined Twitter use among 74 editors at top U.S. newspapers to evaluate their adoption and use of the social media tool. A content analysis of Twitter accounts revealed many of them were not frequent users. Those who do are primarily using it as a tool to promote content from their own publications.
Disrupted Lives, Disrupted Media: The Social Responsibility Role of Newsprint 10 Years after Hurricane Katrina • Jan Lauren Boyles, Iowa State University • This study profiles how The Times-Picayune has operated in the social responsibility tradition of newswork, after the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and the disruptions of the paper’s digital shift to less-than-daily print publication. Through in-depth interviewing, fieldwork, content analysis and network mapping, this multi-method approach illustrates the extent to which New Orleans residents depend upon the circulation of civic information necessary to navigate urban life.
The Third-Person Effect of News Story Comments • Gina Masullo Chen, The University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism; Yee Man (Margaret) Ng, The University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism • Results of an experiment (N = 301) showed that people thought civil disagreement comments posted on a news story about abortion were more persuasive than uncivil disagreement comments. In addition, results showed a third-person effect (TPE) of the comments, whereby people felt comments had greater persuasive power over others compared with themselves. Findings also supported the TPE social distance corollary such that subjects perceived comments as having the largest TPE perceptual gap between the self and those who disagreed with them. Results are discussed in relation to TPE and face and politeness theories.
Getting Their Stories Short: News Aggregation and the Evolution of Journalistic Narrative • Mark Coddington, Washington and Lee University • With its emphasis on stripping out key facts and quotes from stories, news aggregation might seem to represent a breakdown of the narrative conventions that have undergirded professional journalism. Using participant observation and interviews with aggregators, this study explores the use of narrative in aggregation, conceptualizing news narrative as a three-tiered phenomenon extending beyond individual texts. It finds that narrative is a crucial part of aggregation, shaping news’ trajectory more broadly than in traditional forms.
Who Makes (Front Page) News in Kenya? • Steve Collins • This content analysis of articles (n = 118) in Kenya’s three leading English language newspapers explored issues of balance and source diversity. Only slightly more than half of stories were balanced. About two-thirds of stories included a government source but those directly affected by government policies were seldom included. Front page articles were more balanced, more likely to include a government source and less likely to include an average citizen than were stories teased on the front page. Finally, stories from press conferences and other pre-planned events were ubiquitous. The results are considered in the context of Gatekeeping Theory.
How is online news curated? A cross-sectional content analysis • Xi Cui, Dixie State University; Yu Liu, Florida International University • This paper examines journalists’ curatorial practices on linked and embedded sources in various types of online news platforms. It aims to understand the curatorial practices in online journalism and explicate the continuity and changes in journalistic principles in the online environment. Differences in the prevalence of the curatorial treatments to linked sources as references, quotations or interpretations are found and can be attributed to the news platforms’ institutional history, journalistic orientations, and technological features.
Imaginary Travelers: What do travel journalists think their readers want? • Andrew Duffy, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information • Travel journalists cannot know each traveler who they work for, so they must imagine what a reader wants. Starting from an agenda-setting perspective, this paper uses a modernist/post-modernist framework to identify how they imagine readers’ interests. It finds that the reader is more often imagined as modernist and adventurous than post-modernist and concerned with tourist sights. However, the latter were more common in Asia, which suggests that travel writers across the globe imagine readers differently.
Interactivity in Egyptian newspapers • Ahmed El Gody, Örebro University • The utilisation of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in Egypt has irrevocably changed the nature of the traditional Egyptian public sphere. One can see the Egyptian online society as a multiplicity of networks. These networks have developed, transformed and expanded over time, operating across all areas of life. Nonetheless, in essence they are sociopolitical and cultural in origin. This trend changed the way audiences consumed news, with traditional media –especially independent and opposition – started to utilise ICTs to access online information to develop their media content to escape government control. Several media organisations also started to expand their presence online so that, as well as providing news content, they also provided them with a space to interact amongst themselves and with media organisations. Audiences started to provide detailed descriptions of Egyptian street politics, posting multimedia material, generating public interest and reinforcing citizen power hence democratic capacity.
Strangers on a Theoretical Train: Inter-Media Agenda Setting, Community Structure, and Local News Coverage • Marcus Funk, Sam Houston State University; Maxwell McCombs, The University of Texas at Austin • Agenda setting and community structure theories are conceptual inverses of one another that are rarely considered in tandem. This study employs DICTION 6.0 and McCombs and Funk’s (2011, 2013) research design to compare news coverage of immigration and abortion over a 10-year period in national, high demographic interest, and low demographic interest newspapers. Although only modest support is found for inter-media agenda-setting, considerable support is found for community structure effects.
Tailoring the Arab Spring to American Values and Interests A Framing Analysis of U.S. Elite Newspapers’ Opinion Pieces • Jae Sik Ha, Univ Of Illinois-Springfield • This study investigated the portrayal of the Arab Spring by conducting a qualitative framing analysis of editorials and columns in two U.S. elite newspapers —The New York Times and The Washington Post. It found that the American papers filtered the unfolding events in the Middle East through a lens of national interest. Specifically, the democratic transformation of the Middle East was the most prominent ideological package in the American coverage. Overall, the American papers epitomized the viewpoints of American political elites, ex-officials, newspaper columnists and scholars. By contrast, they marginalized the viewpoints of guest columnists –such as activists and Arab scholars– who may be prone to highlight the faults and wrongdoings of successive U.S. administrations. Overall, the Arab Spring coverage in the American press strongly coincided with the worldviews of U.S. elites and government officials, with little mention of their country’s immense economic interests in the region.
Hubs for innovation: Examining the effects of consolidated news design on quality • Matthew Haught, University of Memphis; David Morris II, University of Memphis • In an effort to cut costs, newspaper chains nationwide have consolidated design operations at a few sites. These design hubs have changed the newspaper production process and removed designers from newsrooms; yet, top designers are able to work with their peers in a major city to produce all titles for a chain. This study uses a quantitative analysis of front pages collected from 435 newspapers throughout the United States to examine the quality of newspaper designs at hub and non-hub designed newspapers. It concludes that hub designed newspapers are generally better designed than non-hub newspapers.
Picturing the Scientists: A Content Analysis of the Photographs of Scientists in The Science Times • Hwalbin Kim, University of South Carolina; Sei-Hill Kim; Christopher Frear, University of South Carolina; Sang-Hwa Oh, Appalachian State University • Analyzing photographs of scientists in The Science Times, this study examines how scientists have been portrayed visually in the newspaper. The results showed that the actual gender distribution among U.S. scientists was quite accurately represented in the newspaper. However, a race gap still existed at least in newspaper photographs, with non-white scientists being significantly underrepresented. The analysis of visual framing indicated that The Science Times portrayed scientists as expert professionals.
Exploring the influence of normative social cues in online communication: From the news consumers’ perspective • Jiyoun Kim • This quantitative study investigates how the presented normative social cues influence people’s cognitive processing. Findings of this research indicate a positive effect of normative social cues on news processing in the online space. The online content with a high numbers of likes and shares (i.e., normative social cues) show significant direct and interactive effects on respondents’ news consumption intention, presumed different levels of others’ engagement with news content, and perceived importance of the news story.
Social Media as a Catalyst for News Seeking: Implications for Online Political Expression and Political Participation • Yonghwan Kim, University of Alabama; Joon Yea Lee, University of Alabama; Bumsoo Kim, University of Alabama • Employing 2-wave national panel survey data, this article investigates whether and how individuals’ general social media use is associated with their further news/information seeking behaviors. It further examines how such information seeking behaviors influence citizens’ online political expression and political participation. The results show that the more individuals use social media, the more they tend to seek news and information through social media platforms. The findings also demonstrate that such further information seeking behaviors have a significant implication for political expression and political participation. In other words, general social media use positively influences news/information seeking behaviors via social media, which, in turn, influences online political expression, which consequently increases individuals’ participation in politics.
Conceptualizing the Impact of Investigative Journalism: How a Prominent Journalistic Nonprofit Talks About Its Work • Magda Konieczna, Ursinus College; Elia Powers, Towson University • Journalists are typically wary of discussing the impact of their work, often articulating perspectives that suggest their responsibility for what they do ends at getting the story right. Not only can this be disingenuous, some commentators argue that it could be costing journalists an opportunity to regain respect from the public and to be more deeply involved in democracy. This article focuses on a project by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a collaborative, journalistic nonprofit. We conduct a discourse analysis of the organization’s own language around one particularly high-profile project and discover that these journalists embrace discussing the impact of their own work, while stopping short of articulating particular goals. We posit that this could be a result of the consortium’s nonprofit funding, as well as its desire to push journalism to perform better. Given that news organizations in 120 countries made use of the reporting in this project, we argue that mainstream journalists are already engaging with impact-oriented work. We suggest that investigative journalists be more forthcoming about their impact orientation.
The Role of Twitter in Speed-driven Journalism: From Journalists’ Perspective • Angela Lee, University of Texas at Dallas • This study examines the effectiveness of Twitter as a social media tool connecting news workers and users. Through interviews with 11 journalists, this study revealed different ways in which Twitter is useful in journalists’ pursuit for speed. However, most interviewees used Twitter to interact with other journalists while paying little attention to audiences. They also believed Twitter promotes news use but does not contribute to news organizations’ bottom line. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
To the backburner during crisis reporting: Citizen journalists and their role during the Boston Marathon bombings • Josh Grimm; Jaime Loke, University of Oklahoma • This study examined the role of user-generated content during the coverage of the Boston marathon bombings. In-depth interviews were conducted with the interactive team at the Boston Globe who were in charge of the live blog during the week-long coverage. The study identified the perceptions journalists held of user-generated content during crisis reporting. The findings suggest that user-generated content is still perceived as fluff within the confines of a traditional newsroom.
Death Threats, Workplace Stress and the American Newspaper Journalist • Jenn B. Mackay, Virginia Tech • Workplace stress and journalistic death threats were studied using the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model. The model suggests that an imbalance of the efforts used on the job in comparison to the rewards is associated with poor health. A survey was administered to a random sample of American newspaper journalists (n=185). Women had higher effort-reward imbalances and overcommittment scores than men. Participants who had received a death threat (20.9%) described how the threat affected coverage.
The Affective Gap: Response to news of humanitarian crisis differs by gender and age • Scott Maier, University of Oregon; Marcus Mayorga, Decision Research; Paul Slovic, Decision Research • Using an online survey with embedded experimental conditions, the study examines gender and generational differences in reader reaction to news reports of mass violence in Africa. Affective response from women was found stronger than for men on 9 of 10 measures of emotion. Women also more strongly supported government intervention and charitable relief. Depending on story framing, older readers tended to express greater affective response than Millennials, and more strongly supported intervention and aid.
Likeable News: Three Experimental Tests of What Audiences Enjoy About Conversational Journalism • Doreen Marchionni, The Seattle Times • This exploratory study tested a new theoretical measurement model for online conversational journalism in terms of newspaper story likeability in a trio of controlled experiments. The conversation feature perceived similarity to a journalist, or coorientation, proved to be a powerful predictor of likeability across the studies. But a reader’s sheer interest in the story topic, along with a sense that the journalist is a real person who is open to citizen interaction, also was key.
Small Town, Big Message Strategy: Media Hybridity at the Hyper-local Level • Laura Meadows, Indiana University Bloomington • This ethnographic study transports Chadwick’s (2013) analytical approach of the hybrid media system into the study of social movements, viewing the movement activities of North Carolina’s LGBT activists through the lens of a system of interactions between older and newer media in order to reveal the complex media strategies deployed by contemporary movement actors at the hyper-local level.
Employing Transparency in Live-blogs • Mirjana Pantic, University of Tennessee; Erin Whiteside; Ivana Cvetkovic • As news outlets strive to adapt to the changing economic landscape, many have engaged in an ongoing process of innovative news reporting and delivery strategies. Among these evolving practices is the live-blog – an ongoing stream of updated information that is a pointed shift from the inverted pyramid format. As a fairly recent journalistic innovation, live-blogs not only provide a logical format for presenting breaking news, but also facilitate a sense of transparency among readers. Transparency may be especially important for the health of news organizations, as it enhances the news outlet’s credibility and trust among readers by drawing back the proverbial curtain that has traditionally masked the production of news (Karlsson, 2010). This research uses a content analysis to measure the quality of live-blogs incorporated by The (UK) Guardian, with a focus on examining how live-blog creators utilize various news elements that are available online. The researchers contextualize the findings within the broader concept of transparency, with a focus on the format’s utility for producing quality journalism.
Examining Interactivity Between Florida Political Reporters and the Public on Twitter • John Parmelee, University of North Florida; David Deeley, University of North Florida • A content analysis of Florida political reporters’ tweets examines the degree to which local and regional journalists interact with the public on Twitter. Interactivity was measured using a four-level model of cyber-interactivity (McMillan, 2002) that was adapted for this study. Findings indicate little of the most genuine form of interactivity between journalists and citizens but more of another type of engagement with fellow journalists.
Using time series to measure intermedia agenda setting in China • Kun Peng • This study sought to explore the intermedia agenda setting relationship between traditional newspapers and microblogs in China. Specifically, it aimed to examine a) whether intermedia agenda setting takes place between newspapers and Microblogs; b) who has the initiatives of the two media, the nature of the relationships; c) the time span needed to generate linkages between two media agendas. Four Chinese newspapers and two microblogs were content analyzed to test for the intermedia agenda-setting relationships. The MH370 event, a time-sensitive and event- driven news event, was used as a case study. This study worked within the traditional methodology of time series to conduct intermedia agenda-setting analysis. As a result, no significant correlation was found between the newspapers’ and microblogs’ agendas, however the intermedia agenda-setting effects vary depending on the type of the news stories. Overall, newspapers need more time to granger causes microblogs’ agendas.
Radically objective: The role of the alternative media in covering Ferguson, Missouri • Mark Poepsel, Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville; Chad Painter, Eastern New Mexico University • This paper, based on in depth interviews with journalists at alternative and advocacy papers in St. Louis as well as interviews with live streaming protestors, a new breed of citizen journalist, applies six characteristics commonly associated with the alternative press to coverage of the protests and police crackdown in Ferguson, Missouri between August 9, 2014 and March of 2015. Journalists from the alternative newspaper in St. Louis focused on progressive or radical values less than the literature predicted, but by treating radical actions objectively they still presented readers with viewpoints that differed from the onslaught of mainstream media coverage. The African American newspaper in St. Louis found itself influencing the national and global agenda regarding Ferguson and the ongoing oppression of blacks in the city and surrounding municipalities while at the same time helping to hold St. Louis together behind the scenes against the most radical elements. Mobile media savvy protestors broadcast police actions from the front lines of dissent in nearly constant live streams day after day from August to November, altering the scope of counternarrative and providing distilled, detailed dissent. In this study, researchers take on a major news event that in some ways is not yet finished and provide a snapshot of the alternative/advocacy press as it rose to fill in gaps in coverage and to find untold stories in one of the most widely broadcast events of 2014.
Social responsibility a casualty of 21st century newspaper newsroom demands • Scott Reinardy, University of Kansas • For newspaper journalists, social responsibility is protected by the First Amendment, outlined in newsroom mission statements, and enforced by a culture entrusted to produce truthful, comprehensive and fair information. The purpose of this study was to examine the social responsibility mission of newspaper journalists following extensive newsroom downsizing, and the incorporation of new and different work demands. Results from a survey of more than 1,600 news workers and depth interviews with 86 indicate that while newspaper journalists continue to embrace the notions of social responsibility, fulfilling the mission has become far more complex amid internal (burnout, job satisfaction) and external (workload, resources) pressures. Additionally, journalists indicate that despite their efforts, the quality of work suffers, particularly among journalists experiencing burnout.
The Buzz on BuzzFeed: Can readers learn the news from lists? • Tara Burton, University of Alabama; Chris Roberts, University of Alabama • Among the Internet’s new forms of news delivery is BuzzFeed.com, which mixes information with humor using text blocks and unrelated images. This storytelling technique raises questions about information retention and credibility compared to traditional news messages and messengers. An experimental study on college-age students, using Elaboration Likelihood Model and credibility theories, compared a BuzzFeed story treatment to a USA Today treatment. Most participants preferred BuzzFeed but retained less information than traditional treatment. Implications are discussed.
Assessing the Health of Local Journalism Ecosystems: Testing new metrics on three New Jersey communities • Sarah Stonbely, New York University; Philip M. Napoli, Rutgers University; Katie McCollough; Bryce Renninger • This research develops a set of scalable, reliable metrics for assessing the health of local journalism ecosystems. We first distinguish different levels of ecosystem analysis, allowing precision regarding the area of analytical focus. We then identify three layers of the journalism ecosystem by which its health may be assessed: infrastructure, output, and performance. We find marked differences in the journalism ecosystems studied here, suggesting further evidence for the digital divide and pathways for future research.
The Effects of Homepage Design on News Browsing and Knowledge Acquisition • Natalie Stroud; Alexander Curry; Cynthia Peacock; Arielle Cardona • Previous research shows that information seeking and knowledge acquisition differ depending on whether people use print or online news. Instead of contrasting online versus print news, we compare two different news homepage designs: a streamlined homepage design that resembles a tablet layout and a traditional homepage design that replicates a common layout for newspaper homepages. Scholarship on clutter and cognitive load suggested that the streamlined site would yield more page views and information recall compared to the traditional site. An experiment (n=874), fielded in February of 2015 using an online panel, found that the streamlined site did result in more page views and greater recall of the details from the articles compared to the traditional site. The results did not vary depending on the respondents’ education or history of using different news formats.
A Little Birdie Told Me: Factors that influence the diffusion of Twitter in newsrooms. • Alecia Swasy, University of Illinois • Twitter has become a global, social media platform that is reshaping the way journalists communicate, gather information and disseminate news. This study builds on the relatively young field of research by using diffusion of innovation theory to gauge what factors influence the spread and adoption of Twitter. Case- study and in-depth interview methods were used in collecting data from 50 journalists at four metropolitan newspapers. Results show that the adoption and implementation of Twitter relies on peer pressure and coaching to get reluctant journalists to try Twitter. Adoption is then immediate because journalists see how Twitter is a gateway to new sources of information and story tips. Ultimately, journalists embrace Twitter because it provides instant gratification because it allows them to build a following and share their stories with a broader, global audience.
Variation in the Media Agenda: How newspapers in different states covered the ‘Obamacare’ ruling • Brandon Szuminsky, Waynesburg University; Chad Sherman, Waynesburg University • This 485-newspaper study investigated the substantive differences in the media agenda of the 2012 Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), as represented by newspaper front page coverage, with emphasis on differences in coverage between red and blue states. This news event provided a rare opportunity to examine how newspapers from all over the country — representing readerships located in all parts of the red-blue spectrum — would present the media agenda on the topic. Attention was paid to framing decisions expressed through headline word choice and space allocation as examples of how the media agenda was portrayed in areas with differing political tendencies. While many agenda-setting studies treat the media agenda as a monolithic entity, the present study found that there were significant variation in the portrayal of a news event within the media agenda. The data showed statistically significant relationships between the political tendencies of a newspaper’s state and county and its framing of the news event. This suggests that agenda-setting studies that treat the media agenda as a singular entity may be missing important nuance in the amount of variance within the media agenda in various parts of the country.
Credibility of Black and White Journalists and their News Reports on a Race-Coded Issue • Alexis Tan, Washington State University; Francis Dalisay, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Zhang Yunying, Austin Peay University; Lincoln James, Washington State University; Han Eun-Jeong, John Carroll University; Marie Louis Radanielina-Hita, McGill University; Mariyah Merchant • Two experiments examined the effects of a newspaper reporter’s name on his perceived race and credibility. Results show that White readers of a newspaper article are able to identify a reporter’s race based on his name alone. A reporter perceived to be Black and his news story on racial profiling were rated as more biased than a reporter perceived to be White and his news story. The White reporter also was rated as more rational and friendly than the Black reporter. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
What’s the big deal with big data? Norms, values, and routines in big data journalism • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Soo-Kwang Oh, William Paterson University • Through a content analysis of data journalism stories from The Guardian (n=260), a pioneer in contemporary big data journalism, we sought to investigate how the practice of big data journalism compare with traditional news values, norms and routines. Findings suggest that big data journalism shows new trends in terms of how sources are used, but still generally adhere to traditional news values and formats such as objectivity and use of visuals.
Objective, opaque, and credible: The impact of objectivity and transparency on news credibility • Edson Tandoc, Nanyang Technological University; Ryan Thomas, University of Missouri-Columbia • This study compared the effects of objectivity, a dominant standard in journalism, and transparency, argued to be replacing objectivity, on perceived news credibility and newsworthiness. An online experiment (n=222) found that objective articles were rated more credible and more newsworthy than opinionated articles. Non-transparent stories were rated more credible than transparent stories. Objective articles were more credible when they appeared on blog sites while opinionated articles were more credible when they appeared on news sites.
Channel Characteristics and Issue Types in the Agenda-Building Process of Election Campaigns • Ramona Vonbun, University of Vienna; Joerg Matthes, U of Vienna • This study investigates the agenda-building process between newswire, television news, newspapers, online news-sites, and political parties during the 2013 Austrian national election campaign. A special focus is on the stability of the agendas, the role of online news-sites as media and policy agenda-setters, the channel characteristics, and types of issues. The findings indicate an important agenda-setting role of newswire and online news-sites challenging the role of newspapers as agenda-setters.
Gatekeeping and unpublishing: Making publishing and unpublishing decisions • Nina Pantic, University of Missouri; Tim Vos, University of Missouri • This paper uses in-depth interviews to study decision-making within newspaper newsrooms regarding the handling of unpublishing requests as well as the influences on editors’ decision-making. The research addresses how editors deal with unpublishing and what factors, including the threat of legal action, influence decisions to publish or unpublish. The paper builds on gatekeeping theory, which catalogues multiple ways that editorial decisions are influenced by external factors.
Writing Ideology: Journalists’ Letters to Editors • Wendy Weinhold, Coastal Carolina University • The word journalist, and the domain of producers and texts that inhabit its boundaries, often lacks a clear and agreed definition. This analysis builds on and extends the depth of definitions afforded the American print journalist offered in literature that dominates journalism studies. This analysis utilizes critical textual analysis to study journalists’ letters to editors of journalism trade magazines published between 1998 and 2008. Deuze’s (2005, 2007) theory of the ideological definitions of journalists provides a framework for the qualitative analysis that identifies the patterned ways journalists define journalists when they write to journalism trade magazines, which perform a special role as watchdogs of the press. Drawing from the corpus of 2,050 letters published in American Journalism Review, Columbia Journalism Review, and Editor and Publisher, critical textual analysis identifies how discourses in the letters reflect or reshape traditional print journalists’ self definitions. The result is a catalog of information that shapes an understanding of the letters within the individual ideological framework of the community of people who volunteer their opinions for publication in these journals.
The Influence of Twitter Sources on Credibility in Online News • Taisik Hwang, University of Georgia; Camila Espina, University of Georgia; Bartosz Wojdynski, University of Georgia • This experimental study explores to what extent the use of Twitter as a news source affects the way audiences perceive the credibility of online news information regarding mass emergency events. A 3 (source format: interviewed sources, paraphrased tweets, embedded tweets) × 2 (source type: official, nonofficial) × 2 (number of retweets: few, many) between-subjects design is designed with 244 participants to implement the test. The results include that source type and system-generated cues do not have significant effect on perceived credibility of a news story about a natural disaster. The interaction between source type and number of retweets, however, occurs at the message level. The practical implications of these findings for journalists are discussed.
Framing E-Cigarettes: News Media Coverage of the Popularity and Regulation of Vaping • Lu Wu, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Rhonda Gibson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This study used content analysis to explore how mainstream media frame e-cigarettes, a popular smoking device that has caused concern among public health advocates and raised questions for policy makers. The result showed that leading daily newspapers identified the most problematic issue with of e-cigarettes was underage smoking and their content is largely supportive of tobacco control policy initiatives on e-cigarettes.
Incivility, Source and Credibility: An Experimental Test of How University Students Process a News Story • Yanfang Wu; Esther Thorson, Missouri School of Journalism • Civility crisis has been a big concern of the Americans and transmitted worldwide since the 1990s. Uncivil attacks in political communication turned into a big threat to political trust. Administering a 3×2 mixed subjects experiment, the study seeks to find out whether source and uncivil commentary in a news story can predict the level of credibility of a news story. An online survey with a 3 (Source: newspaper, blog, student’s class writing) x 2 (Incivility: civil and uncivil) mixed subjects design experiment embedded in was conducted in a large Midwestern University. 447 undergraduate students took part in the experiment. Factor analysis shows that news credibility can be divided into two dimensions–message credibility and news organization credibility. The study found that the gauging of news credibility, both message credibility and news organization credibility, is influenced by both source and the perceived incivility of the story. Party ID is not a significant predictor of neither message credibility nor news organization credibility of a news story. A TPE was found on perceived incivility and news organization credibility but not message credibility.
Newspaper Editors’ Perceptions of Social Media as News Sources • Masahiro Yamamoto, University of Wisconsin-La crosse; Seungahn Nah; Deborah Chung, University of Kentucky • Social media platforms where billions of interlinked users post and share events and commentaries to the larger public can be a useful newsgathering tool for journalists. Based on data from a nationwide probability sample of newspaper editors in the United States, this study investigates the extent to which newspaper editors consider social media as an influential news source. Results indicate that variations in editors’ perceptions of social media as a news source were associated with multiple levels of influence including professional experience as a journalist, organization size, community structural pluralism, and citizen journalism credibility. Implications are discussed for the role of social media in news production.
On Click-Driven Homepages: An analysis of the effect of popularity on the prominence of news • Rodrigo Zamith, University of Massachusetts Amherst • The homepages of 14 news organizations were analyzed every 15 minutes over 61 days to assess the relationship between an item’s popularity and its prominence. The results indicated a large divergence between popular and prominent items, and limited effects of popularity on subsequent prominence. The findings give pause to fears of a shift toward a turn toward an agenda of the audience and underscore the importance of journalism’s occupational ideology and logic.
Student Papers
Inter-Media Agenda Setting Between Government and News Media: Directions and Issues MacDougall Student Paper Award • Abdullah Alriyami, Michigan State University • Intermedia agenda setting is the main focus of this study. This empirical study aimed at identifying the relationship between news media and institutional media through the method of content analysis. To determine how influential the US government’s foreign policy decisions on the reporting of traditional news media, fifty two variables were coded on over 600 items obtained from the White House press briefings, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today during the first seven months of 2011. Cross lag correlation was used to correlate both types of media over two time periods. Results indicate an influence of institutional media over news media bringing an attention to the need to have specific language by the institutions to maintain and enhance such influence. Theoretically, the study adds to the existing literature on intermedia agenda setting research while at the same time applying Rozelle-Campbell Baseline to establish direction of correlation.
Effect of Negative Online Reader Comments on News Perception: Role of Comment Type, Involvement and Comment Number • Manu Bhandari, University of Missouri; David Wolfgang, University of Missouri • Scholarly research on online reader comments (ORCs), a form of user-generated content on online news sites, is growing but still remains rudimentary. To contribute to this pool of literature, a two-part study was done using the Elaboration Likelihood Model as the main theoretical framework. Study 1 experimentally investigated subjects’ perception of online news in the presence of negative ORCs of different types –– testimonial or informational –– and the moderating effect of involvement with the issue or topic of the news story. Since the first study used three ORCs for each ORC type, to disentangle the role of ORC number from that of ORC type, Study 2 examined the possible moderating influence of ORC number on the effect of testimonial vs. informational ORC type. Although results showed some variation, they generally indicated that informational ORC could be more persuasive than testimonial ORC in an online textual health news context, involvement at high levels could moderate the effects of ORC type, higher ORC number has stronger effects than lower numbers of ORC, and the advantage of negative informational ORC in impacting news credibility appears to be more at low (single) rather than high (three) ORC numbers.
The New Norm: Publicness and Self-Disclosure Among U.S. Journalists on Social Media • Justin Blankenship, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Traditionally, journalists demonstrate their credibility and objectivity by creating a distance between their personal opinions and their professional work. This article examined the potential conflict between the traditional distance norms of journalism and the more author-centric nature of social media communication through a survey (N= 201) of local journalists. Results indicate that age and how integrated social media is in one’s daily life lead to more favorable opinions of sharing personal information and reported sharing behavior.
An issue divided: How business and national news differ in Affordable Care Act coverage • Lauren Furey, University of Florida; Andrea Hall, University of Florida • This study seeks to understand how business news covers the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in comparison to national newspapers. Using second-level agenda setting and framing as a theoretical base, content analysis results revealed that business news coverage was highly critical of the ACA, as these publications often highlighted issues and frames related to the financial consequences of the law, while depicting ACA-opposing sources and a negative tone in a majority of their coverage.
The Adoption of Technology and Innovation Among Colombian Online News Entrepreneurs • Victor Garcia, University of Texas at Austin • Media researchers have been interested in investigating how digital technology has shaped journalistic practices and content in online newsrooms. The purpose of this study is to contribute to that discussion by analyzing how native online newsrooms in Colombia are implementing technologies and innovation in their workspaces. This article uses the constructivist approach of the Actor Network Theory and Journalism Practices to investigate four relevant cases of study. In-depth interviews were used as a method. Results show online news entrepreneurs are flexible and creative in the adoption of technologies. They value the quality of content and their journalistic standards more than tools. The integration of users into their editorial process is still limited. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Determinants of issue salience • Catherine Huh, UC Davis • The current study attempted to explore the agenda-setting effects using data mining of publicly available search query data and its determinants. Consistent with the previous studies, transfer of salience between the media and search agendas was confirmed for the prominence of a foreign country in the news. Economic factors were the key determinants of both news coverage and online issue salience.
Taking it from the team: Assessments of bias and credibility in team-operated sports media • Michael Mirer, University of Wisconsin; Megan Duncan, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Team- and league-operated media play a growing role in the sports media system. Few have looked at how audiences perceive the credibility of in-house content, which often mimics traditional sports journalism. Using experimental methods this paper finds that even among fans, independent media content still is rated more credible than that produced in-house. Fans view stories accusing their team of wrongdoing as biased even as they find them credible.
Is the Internet portal an alternative news channel or another gatekeeper? • KYUNG-GOOK PARK, University of Pittsburgh; Eunju Kang, University of Florida • This study explored visual framing effects of online newspapers on readers and how candidates in the 2012 Korean presidential election were covered by the Internet portal as a news aggregator and provider. Three major portal websites (Naver, Daum, and Nate) were utilized as they are currently the primary online news channels. Furthermore, each online newspaper was categorized as conservative, neutral, or liberal/progressive. The data sample (N = 1024) focused on the visual coverage of Park Geun-hye, the candidate for the conservative ruling Saenuri Party, and the opposition Moon Jae-in, the candidate for the liberal Democratic United Party. The findings demonstrated that the news media aimed to generate a balance in their visual coverage of the presidential candidates in the 2012 campaign, whereas some bias also existed among each portal and online newspaper. More specifically, Naver as well as conservative and liberal/progressive online newspapers was not trying to balance the visual images used. These findings provide evidence that the Internet portal and online newspapers might in fact play a significant role in media agenda setting and visual framing.
Real Significance of Breaking News: Examining the Perception of Online Breaking News • Joseph Yoo, The University of Texas at Austin • With a plethora of online breaking news, there is a concern that the increase in the amount of breaking news could impoverish the quality of journalism. This study ascertained the perception of online breaking news by conducting a 2 (news with/without breaking label) x 2 (high and low news value) experiment. Neither breaking labels nor newsworthiness altered the credibility rating scales. Journalists should keep in mind that calling something breaking news neither helps nor hurts.
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