High-choice Media Environment Research Articles

How are news portals integrated into daily news habits? A study on news trust, news repertoires and political participation in South Korea

PurposeThe modern high-choice news environment has changed the way people consume news. We examined the structure of news repertories, the role of news trust (and cynicism) in shaping news repertoires, and the effects of different news repertoires on political participation in the South Korean news environment, where news portals function as major news sources.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted a two-wave national survey of adults in January and February 2022 with a three-week time interval. Latent profile analyses and latent profile regression were employed.FindingsFour major news repertoires were identified: news portal-concentrated, portal and TV combination, all except print and SNS, and platform omnivores. Trust in mainstream news media was found to be high in the following order: platform omnivores, all except print and SNS, portal and TV combination, and portal-concentrated repertoires. Cynicism about mainstream media was found to be higher among the users of portal-concentrated repertoire than those using the other three repertoires. Those who rely mainly on news portals for news (i.e. portal-concentrated) were less likely to participate in politics.Originality/valueThis study provides comprehensive insights into how audience perceptions of trust and cynicism toward mainstream news media shape news consumption patterns in today’s high-choice media environment. In particular, the findings of this study illuminate the function of news portals as a substitute platform for those who exhibit lower trust and higher cynicism toward mainstream news media.

The Dynamics of Political Interest and News Media Avoidance: A Generational and Longitudinal Perspective

ABSTRACT Despite the abundance of political information in today’s media environment, an increasing number of people tune out from the news. Scholars have traced these developments to both individual motivational factors gaining importance in the high-choice media environment and generational differences related to changing news habits and changing norms around news consumption. However, research that integrates these perspectives is scarce, and studies investigating this relationship longitudinally are especially rare. Thus, this paper investigates the conditional effects of (1) political interest and (2) age on the probability of avoiding traditional news media, and (3) whether these conditional effects have changed over time. Using data from 1986 to 2021, this study shows that the number of people tuning out from news media is increasing. The effect of political interest and age on the probability of news media avoidance has also increased over time. Additionally, there were only small age differences in the impact of political interest in earlier periods, but these differences have increased over time. Today, being uninterested in politics is clearly a stronger predictor of news media avoidance among younger people compared to older individuals.

Why mainstream news media still matter

It is frequently claimed that mainstream news organisations are in crisis and becoming ever more marginalised in the contemporary high-choice media environment. Such claims frequently conflate different challenges facing the industry, resulting in over-generalised claims about the prospects for established news brands. In this article, we identify four related crises: reach, resource, reputation and relevance. Through the analysis of each, we show that many claims about the displacement of mainstream news are overstated, but that the interactive aspects of these crises are presenting particularly significant challenges for local news production and news organisations orientated towards impartiality norms.

The Psychophysiology of News Avoidance: Does Negative Affect Drive Both Attention and Inattention to News?

ABSTRACT Technological change has produced a high-choice media environment in which selective exposure and news avoidance are increasingly feasible and common. The literature has suggested several correlates of news avoidance, and recent work has particularly emphasized the potential significance of negative affective responses to news. This paper argues for the use of psychophysiological methods to better understand how emotional responses drive news avoidance. In doing so, we question the assumption—evident both in the literature on physiology and news, and in the literature on news and newsmaking—that physiological activation is positively associated with attention. We also offer an expository analysis of data from a physiological experiment in which respondents viewed stories for which activation quite likely motivated increased prolonged attention amongst some respondents, but a desire to avoid that content amongst others.

Political Opinion Leaders in High-Choice Information Environments: Are They More Informed Than Others?

ABSTRACT One implication of the transition to high-choice media environments is that what information people are exposed to depend less on journalistic curation and more on social, algorithmic, and personal curation. This has sparked a renewed interest in the concept of political opinion leaders, who are often assumed to be more interested in and informed about politics and society. Theoretically, political opinion leaders could hence help disseminate information to less interested and informed. At the same time, there are theoretical reasons for why political opinion leaders may be more prone to politically motivated reasoning, which may lead them to believe in and disseminate misinformation. Thus far, there is only limited research on whether political opinion leaders are more informed than others that also takes into consideration that some facts are contested, whereas other facts are uncontested. Hence, this paper seeks to investigate the relationship between political opinion leadership and knowledge, distinguishing between (a) uncontested and (b) contested facts. Among other things, findings show that those who score high in political opinion leadership traits in general are not more knowledgeable about contested and uncontested facts.

LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF THE MODERN NEWSPAPER LANGUAGE: ANALYSIS AND RESEARCH

In contemporary high-choice media environments, the issue of media trust and its impact on people's media use has taken on new importance. At the same time, the extent to which people trust the news media and how much it matters for their use of different types of media is not clear. To lay the groundwork for future research, in this article we offer a focused review of how news media trust has been conceptualized and operationalized in previous research and research on the extent to which news media trust influences media use, and offer a theoretically derived framework for future research on news media trust and its influence on media use.

“Everything is Biased”: Populist Supporters’ Folk Theories of Journalism

Populist supporters have a complex relationship with journalism (e.g., embracing elites’ negative rhetoric, yet consuming news profusely). This study explores this relationship. The notion of folk theories informs an inductive analysis of thirty-three in-depth interviews conducted in 2021 with right-wing and left-wing populist supporters in the United States and Spain to understand how they (RQ1) make sense of their news consumption habits and (RQ2) navigate the current high-choice media environment to stay informed. Findings reveal three interconnected folk theories that populist supporters drew from in explaining their news consumption: (1) “everything is biased,” (2) “it’s a way of seeing what other people think,” and (3) “it’s a pleasurable source of information.” Findings additionally support an important role of emotion underlying these folk theories, which helped participants reconcile their negative views of journalism with the pleasure they derived from meeting ingrained normative democratic ideals.

Climate Change-related Counter-attitudinal Fake News Exposure and its Effects on Search and Selection Behavior

ABSTRACT Disinformation in today’s high-choice media environment, particularly regarding environment- and science-related issues, poses threats to individuals and society. It is argued that online users turn primarily to attitude-confirming content (selective exposure effects) which amplifies existing opinions and societal polarization. However, with the increasing prevalence of online disinformation and fake news, it is also likely that people will be exposed to disinformation that contradicts their current beliefs. Regarding the controversial issue of anthropogenic climate change, we elucidate how users react when they are (incidentally) exposed to counter-attitudinal anthropogenity-denying fake news by investigating their search and selection behavior after the exposure. The innovative research design of our case study includes pre- and post-surveys, stimulus exposure, and content analyses of web activities (n = 39). Importantly, the exposure to climate-change-denying fake news decreased acceptance of climate change and its human causes. Selection behavior was mainly attitude-confirming, while search behavior was more diverse. Journalistic sources were used most often and for longest. Individual characteristics affected searches and selections. KEY POLICY HIGHLIGHTS In the information-saturated online environment comprising scientifically correct and incorrect information, users are frequently exposed to counter-attitudinal fake news, e.g. videos denying anthropogenic climate change. After exposure to an attitude-opposing fake news video, participants’ climate change acceptance decreased. In a free internet search after stimulus exposure, attitude-confirming anthropogenity-accepting positions and journalistic content dominated users’ selection but not search behavior. Future climate change-related communication activities should note that participants who stated they knew little about climate change knowledge were mainly interested in solution-oriented websites. The higher participants’ willingness to take personal responsibility or acknowledge others’ responsibility, the more they searched for anthropogenity-opposing content.

Ecological constraints on audience size in the digital media system: evidence from the longitudinal tracking data from 2019 to 2022

Abstract The current high-choice media environment is characterized by increasingly intense competition for audience resources among media products. Drawing on research in organizational ecology and communication, audience behavior, and media economics, this study provides an ecological explanation for audience size in the digital media system. The analysis of Comscore’s aggregate audience data on the use of 64 digital media platforms over a 38-month period from 2019 to 2022 shows that a platform’s audience size is negatively associated with its niche overlap with another platform. This competitive effect of niche overlap on a platform’s current audience size is moderated by its previous audience size (size dependence) and species membership in the environment (species dependence). The results also support the short- and long-term stability of audience size.

Digital-native news media: Reach in 46 countries, top brands and user profiles in Spain

Digital-pure news publications have become competitive players in many countries, populating audience rankings in the context of a high-choice media environment. With the aim of gaining insight into the performance of digital-native news brands around the world and into how their audiences are similar or different to those of media with traditional roots in Spain, we draw on survey data for 2021 and 2022, respectively. First, we examine what proportion of online adults use any of the most popular digital-pure news brands in 24 mostly European countries and in 22 markets in America, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, and we highlight how the main digital-native brands rank among online news sources, based on their weekly audience reach. Then we compare the user profiles of the five most-used online-only news organizations in Spain, against the audiences of the top five legacy brands (N = 2028), looking at reader loyalty, gender, age, income and education levels, and political leaning. With this media-centric approach to audiences, we find that digital-native news media brands either lead (in 15 out of 46 countries) or occupy some of the top positions by weekly reach in most markets, with Nordic countries standing out as an exception. In Spain, audiences of the top digital-native brands check them slightly less frequently than the users of news sites with traditional roots. News sites in our study are slightly more popular among males, older people, and more affluent and formally educated users who can define their political stance. Nevertheless, the diversity of editorial approaches found among sites in an externally pluralistic news media market inevitably results in brands with user profiles that show exceptions to these trends.

Media stereotypes, prejudice, and preference-based reinforcement: toward the dynamic of self-reinforcing effects by integrating audience selectivity

Abstract The media portray various social groups stereotypically, and studying the effects of these portrayals on prejudice is paramount. Yet, audience selectivity—inherent within today’s high-choice media environments—has largely been disregarded. Relatedly, the predominance of forced-exposure designs is a source of concern. This article proposes the integration of audience selectivity into media stereotype effects research. Study 1 (N = 1,166) indicated that prejudiced individuals tended to approach prejudice-consistent stereotypical news and avoid prejudice-challenging counter-stereotypical news. Using a forced-exposure experiment, study 2 (N = 380) showed detrimental effects of prejudice-consistent news and beneficial effects of prejudice-challenging news. Relying on a self-selected exposure paradigm, study 3 (N = 1,149) provided evidence for preference-based reinforcement. Study 4’s “net-effect perspective” (N = 937) indicated that operationalizing exposure as forced or self-selected can lead to different interpretations of actual societal effects. The findings emphasize the key role played by audience selectivity when studying media effects.

Preexisting Stereotypes and Selection of Counter-Stereotypical Genius Representations in Entertainment Media

Abstract: Broader, more diverse representation in mass media is frequently imagined as a tool for reduction of harmful stereotypes at scale. Increasingly, entertainment media in the United States feature representations that challenge or counter prevailing stereotypes. However, emergence of a high-choice media environment offers and facilitates the opportunity to be selective about the entertainment one consumes. Using a US sample, we show that entertainment media selection is predicted by preexisting beliefs — greater endorsement of a particular stereotype predicted a decrease in the selection of shows featuring representations challenging that stereotype. Findings indicate that those who could benefit most from these representations are less likely to be exposed to them, undermining the utility of mass media in the widespread reduction of harmful stereotypes.

Surfing to the political extremes: Digital media, social media, and policy attitude polarization

AbstractBackgroundCable news makes it possible for consumers to avoid information that challenges their predispositions, and the Internet makes it even easier. Cable news consumption is related to attitude extremity, but the extant literature is absent empirical examination of how the two may work together.ObjectivesThis study aims to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between media consumption and policy attitude extremity. In particular,, it asks how digital media consumption may combine with cable or traditional mass media to drive higher levels of polarization and attitude extremity.MethodsWe use American National Election Studies and data reduction methods to model and measure the gathering of political information to compare the relationship between different forms of media consumption and policy attitude extremity.ResultsOur results indicate that, independently, the consumption of both “partisan” cable news and “non‐partisan” political digital information have the same positive relationship to attitude extremity across four major issue domains (economy, federal spending, social issues, and foreign affairs) and that when combined into a single index, the relationship is stronger than their independent relationships. Finally, the results suggest that the combined effect is strongest among those who consume more liberal cable news.ConclusionOur high choice media environment contributes to the polarized climate in the United States today.

The effect of selective exposure on agenda diversity: An experimental analysis of high-choice media environments and issue consensus

In the age of the high-choice media environment, there is less and less consensus over America's most important problem. Over the last two decades, several studies have demonstrated that agenda diversity—the degree of disagreement over the most important issue—has grown drastically in the U.S. Despite the importance of public consensus in the policy process and for representation, we lack a causal understanding of the mechanisms underpinning changes in agenda diversity. This paper hypothesizes that selective exposure causes greater agenda diversity, as individuals avoid news on issues they are less interested in. This study leverages an experiment (N = 433) to investigate the effect of varying levels of selectivity in the media environment on individual-level agenda diversity. Results support the notion that a media environment that allows for selective exposure compared to forced exposure more typical of the broadcast-era results in higher agenda diversity. These findings support the theory that rising levels of media selectivity contribute to a rise in agenda diversity. The implications of an increasingly diverse national agenda are discussed.

Who Consumes Political News through YouTube?: An Application of the OMA Framework to YouTube Use in South Korea

This study analyzes how individual motivations including political interest and media trust and cognitive abilities affect news consumption through YouTube in a high choice media environment of South Korea. In the empirical analysis, we use a nationally representative dataset differentiating respondents in tree types of users concerning YouTube - namely, non-users, non-news consumers, and news consumers. Applying a binary response model with sample selection, we resolve a potential selectin bias and prove that political interest is the strongest motivation leading individuals to consume news through YouTube. In addition, the positive impact of political interest is shown to increases as individuals trust less traditional news media. However, we do not find any evidence that news consumption through YouTube is biased toward a specific party or ideological orientation.

Modeling and Validating a News Recommender Algorithm in a Mainstream Medium-Sized News Organization: An Experimental Approach

News recommending systems (NRSs) are algorithmic tools that filter incoming streams of information according to the users’ preferences or point them to additional items of interest. In today’s high-choice media environment, attention shifts easily between platforms and news sites and is greatly affected by algorithmic technologies; news personalization is increasingly used by news media to woo and retain users’ attention and loyalty. The present study examines the implementation of a news recommender algorithm in a leading news media organization on the basis of observation of the recommender system’s outputs. Drawing on an experimental design employing the ‘algorithmic audit’ method, and more specifically the ‘collaborative audit’ which entails utilizing users as testers of algorithmic systems, we analyze the composition of the personalized MyNews area in terms of accuracy and user engagement. Premised on the idea of algorithms being black boxes, the study has a two-fold aim: first, to identify the implicated design parameters enlightening the underlying functionality of the algorithm, and second, to evaluate in practice the NRS through the deployed experimentation. Results suggest that although the recommender algorithm manages to discriminate between different users on the basis of their past behavior, overall, it underperforms. We find that this is related to flawed design decisions rather than technical deficiencies. The study offers insights to guide the improvement of NRSs’ design that both considers the production capabilities of the news organization and supports business goals, user demands and journalism’s civic values.

Telling a Different Story: A Longitudinal Investigation of News Diversity in Four Countries

ABSTRACT News diversity is an important concern of journalism scholars, as its presence or absence can have a profound effect on democratic debate and the information available to citizens. Many have speculated that news diversity decreases over time, due to changing economic circumstances. This expectation especially applies to newspapers. Using nearly two decades of newspaper data from four European countries (Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, UK), we do not find this expected decrease in news diversity. When conducting pairwise, automated comparisons between articles published on the same day in the same country, we rather find a modest over time increase in diversity between newspapers. This result suggests that newspapers differentiate rather than converge in the content they offer, shedding a more positive light on the evolution of the press in our current high-choice media environments.

Irish audiences and news information from official sources during Covid-19

Abstract Audiences exist in highly personalised, high-choice media environments built on a hybrid of established traditional brands and informal digital networks. Officials trying to reach the public must navigate such spaces, but public reluctance to consume news coverage is a challenge for health and government officials when trying to communicate with and inform the public during a national health crisis like Covid-19. Based on a representative survey (N=2,031) from the 2021 Reuters Digital News Report, this article focuses on Irish audiences’ information sources during the pandemic; in particular, how government and political sources were used and perceived. The article is a secondary analysis of the data set and focuses on three questions from the survey related to (i) sources of information about Covid-19, (ii) concern about sources of false or misleading information about Covid-19, and (iii) sources of local information about politics and local updates on Covid-19. The article finds that official sources were relatively effective in being heard, and that health agencies like the Health Service Executive and the National Public Health Emergency Team were more salient than politicians, suggesting the pandemic was perhaps apolitical in the eyes of the public, which is often a key strategy for effective crisis communication. Politicians and government actors also succeeded in not being perceived as the main source of concern in terms of false or misleading information, as audiences were more worried about activists. The article also reiterates the importance of health officials reaching out beyond traditional news distribution channels to engage groups who may not access news through traditional channels.

Mapping Exposure Diversity: The Divergent Effects of Algorithmic Curation on News Consumption

Abstract Diversity is a crucial precondition for a democratic public discourse. In today’s high-choice media environments, exposure to diverse news is largely determined by individuals’ personal selection. Yet these decisions are increasingly shaped by online platforms, whose curation mechanisms may serve to expand or contract the diversity of encountered content. In a major extension of existing research, we show that positive short-term effects of platforms mask detrimental long-term effects. Drawing on a four-month tracking dataset and a comprehensive content analysis covering the online news consumption of over 10,000 German citizens, we demonstrate that even though short-term usage of platforms uniformly increases exposure diversity, long-term reliance can lead to decreases. In addition, platforms vary in their influences: News aggregators are beneficial to exposure diversity, while Twitter and search engines have a limiting effect; Facebook offers no significant influence.

No trade-offs between news and entertainment: Evidence from online engagement data

In today’s high-choice media environment, some scholars are concerned that people selectively consume media content based on personal interests and avoid others, which might lead to audience fragmentation across different content genres. Individually, there might be trade-offs between those genres, especially entertainment versus news. This study analyzed a large user engagement dataset (~40,000 users’ comments) collected from the Chinese information application Toutiao, one of the most popular information distribution platforms in China. The results showed that (1) the commenters were not fragmented between content genres, and (2) the users’ news engagement was positively associated with their entertainment engagement. The findings indicate that the availability of high media choices will not reduce the news engagement of those who have strong interest in entertainment. Instead, news engagement might increase alongside the augmentation of the sum of information engagement. Finally, we discussed the differences between relative news engagement and absolute news engagement.