Local News Sources Research Articles

Geopolitical risk perceptions

Geopolitical risk cannot be measured in a universal way. We develop new geopolitical risk indicators relying on local newspaper coverage to account for different perceptions. Using Russia as a case study, we demonstrate that geopolitical risk shocks identified from local news sources have significant adverse effects on the Russian economy, whereas geopolitical risk shocks identified from English-language news sources do not. We control for restricted press freedom by analyzing state-controlled and independent media separately. Employing a novel Russian sanctions index, we illustrate that geopolitical risk shocks propagate beyond the sanctions channel. Still, sanctions worsen the inflationary impact of geopolitical risk shocks substantially.

The News Crawler: A Big Data Approach to Local Information Ecosystems

In the past 20 years, Silicon Valley’s platforms and opaque algorithms have increasingly influenced civic discourse, helping Facebook, Twitter, and others extract and consolidate the revenues generated<em>. </em>That trend has reduced the profitability of local news organizations, but not the importance of locally created news reporting in residents’ day-to-day lives. The disruption of the economics and distribution of news has reduced, scattered, and diversified local news sources (digital-first newspapers, digital-only newsrooms, and television and radio broadcasters publishing online), making it difficult to inventory and understand the information health of communities, individually and in aggregate. Analysis of this national trend is often based on the geolocation of known news outlets as a proxy for community coverage. This measure does not accurately estimate the quality, scale, or diversity of topics provided to the community. This project is developing a scalable, semi-automated approach to describe digital news content along journalism-quality-focused standards. We propose identifying representative corpora and applying machine learning and natural language processing to estimate the extent to which news articles engage in multiple journalistic dimensions, including geographic relevancy, critical information needs, and equity of coverage.

Paying Attention to the Pandemic: Knowledge of COVID-19 Facts by News Source and Demographics

The structured inequalities built into our sociotechnical institutions shape access to knowledge. During the COVID-19 pandemic, knowledge acquisition was shaped by news sources, class, and race. Through analysis of nationally representative data using logistic models, this study reveals how the use of different news sources differentially shapes access to accurate knowledge about COVID-19 topics for different demographics. Those who rely on informal and local news sources have the largest knowledge gaps about these topics, while those who seek information from national or international news outlets and politicians have the most accurate knowledge. Race and class influence knowledge of government operations, public health, and science of COVID-19. In particular, Black people, people with less education, and those with lower incomes are significantly less likely to have accurate knowledge about COVID-19, all else equal. These findings have implications for knowledge dissemination that impacts public health, as well as for how news media target different audiences in an increasingly fractured landscape.

COVID-19 Vaccine Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices in Alabama: The Case for Primary Health Care Providers.

Objective:To examine knowledge, attitudes, and practices about COVID-19 in Alabama, with a primary focus on vaccination perception and utilization.Design:We used a COVID-19 Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices survey and recruited adult Alabama residents in April-May 2021.Participants:Initial surveys from 1324 Alabamian participants were considered for analysis; after careful review of incomplete responses, 953 were ultimately included for analysis.Main Outcome Measure:Vaccine behavior and hesitancy comprise a self-reported response contained in the survey instrument. Three primary vaccine groups were used to assess differences in demographic characteristics, health status, perception of susceptibility and severity of COVID-19, sources of information, and trust about COVID-19.Results:Of the 953 survey participants included for analysis, 951 had self-identified vaccine status in which 153 (16.1%) reported to have received the vaccine at the time of the survey, 375 (39.4%) were very likely or somewhat likely to get an approved COVID-19 vaccine if it was offered, and 423 (44.5%) were somewhat unlikely or very unlikely to get an approved COVID-19 vaccine. Health care providers were the most trusted sources of information, regardless of vaccine status. For participants unlikely to receive a vaccine, social media and local news sources were consistently more trusted and utilized than those who were vaccinated or were likely to be.Conclusions:The perceptions among unvaccinated participants are actionable and provide teachable opportunities to decrease vaccine apprehension.

Local News in Colorado: Comparing Journalism Quality Across Four Counties

Local journalism is a pillar of democratic societies, and its role becomes more critical during crises. But despite its critical importance, local news has faced immense challenges that jeopardize its sustainability in the U.S. This study examines the Colorado media ecology by comparing local news sources across four different counties during Summer 2020 and exploring the factors behind similarities and differences in coverage. Building on Napoli et al.’s (2017) framework to assessing the health of local news, the study uses content analysis to examine original, local reporting and coverage of critical information needs as well as type of framing in over 600 online stories appearing on the home pages of all news sources in the four counties. The findings reveal that the Colorado journalism ecosystem post-Covid outpaces U.S. local news in quality in the pre-Covid era yet aligns with disturbing trends pointing to inequities and disparities. In other words, rural, poorer, and more racially and ethnically diverse Colorado communities tend to have weaker news ecosystems and are more likely to become news deserts. The study also introduces thematic coverage as a necessary dimension to add to journalism quality assessment frameworks and discusses several approaches to salvage local news.

Pollution in the Press: Employing Text Analytics to Understand Regional Water Quality Narratives

Drinking water has and will continue to be at the foundation of our nation’s well-being and there is a growing interest in United States (US) drinking water quality. Nearly 30% of the United States population obtained their water from community water systems that did not meet federal regulations in 2019. Given the heavy interactions between society and drinking water quality, this study integrates social constructionism, environmental injustice, and sociohydrological systems to evaluate local awareness of drinking water quality issues. By employing text analytics, we explore potential drivers of regional water quality narratives within 25 local news sources across the United States. Specifically, we assess the relationship between printed local newspapers and water quality violations in communities as well as the influence of social, political, and economic factors on the coverage of drinking water quality issues. Results suggest that the volume and/or frequency of local drinking water violations is not directly reflected in local news coverage. Additionally, news coverage varied across sociodemographic features, with a negative relationship between Hispanic populations and news coverage of Lead and Copper Rule, and a positive relationship among non-Hispanic white populations. These findings extend current understanding of variations in local narratives to consider nuances of water quality issues and indicate opportunities for increasing equity in environmental risk communication.

Public health framing in local media coverage of crashes involving pedestrians or bicyclists in Hawai‘i, 2019: A content analysis

Media coverage of traffic crashes involving people walking and bicycling tends to frame crashes as isolated events rather than as a public health problem that disproportionately affects vulnerable populations. This study assessed public health framing in local media coverage of traffic crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists in Hawai‘i. We systematically searched the websites of all major local news sources (newspapers and local television stations) to identify articles about Hawai‘i traffic crashes involving pedestrians/bicyclists that were published in 2019. Using content analysis, we extracted information on title and article attributes, crash details, language patterns, and public health framing elements. After screening 738 news articles for inclusion, 162 articles comprised the final sample. These articles reported on 164 crash events, representing 57 unique crash events. Most articles described the crashes factually as isolated events. Language patterns in article titles were non-agentive (77%) and focused on the pedestrian or bicyclist (77%) without mentioning the driver or vehicle (69%). When articles ascribed agents, vehicles (53%) were mentioned more often than drivers (13%). One-quarter of articles contained a counterfactual that subtly assigned responsibility for the crash to the person walking or bicycling. About 15% of articles described a traffic safety solution. These findings serve as a benchmark for local media coverage and can be used to inform state-level actions to improve local media reporting. Media coverage that considers the contextual and systematic factors contributing to the crash could better support local government policy change to protect pedestrians and bicyclists.

Avant-garde heritage of the regions: Use and development prospects in a museum context (on the example of the museums of Saratov and Smolensk)

In the wake of the growing interest in the history of the Russian avant-garde, leading Russian museums become initiators, organizers and partners of large-scale exhibition projects dedicated to both individual personalities of the avant-garde era and iconic cultural institutions. In this regard, it is also important to understand how the museum community in Russia reacts to the given trend of turning to the heritage of the avant-garde era, and how regional museums are involved in this process. The artistic avant-garde was never limited to capitals, new trends penetrated all cities of the country, one way or another leaving a mark on the appearance of the city, its history and, of course, in museum collections. This is why researchers need to see the fullest possible picture of how regions are using their avant-garde heritage. The article is devoted to the study of the experience of using the avant-garde heritage in Russian regions on the example of the Saratov State Art Museum named after A.N.Radishchev and the Art Gallery of the Smolensk State Museum-Reserve. Based on sources of museum origin, electronic catalogs of museums, texts by regional authors, Internet sources (in particular, the State Catalog of the Museum Fund of the Russian Federation, and the Constructivist Project portal), as well as local news sources the article reviews the avant-garde collections of these museums, considers cultural and educational activity of urban cultural institutions and independent curatorial projects on this topic. An important part of this study is the assessment of the development prospects in the actualization of the avant-garde heritage of the regions, as well as the role of independent cultural institutions of cities in the actualization and use of the avant-garde heritage of these regions.

Review essay: Between the Material and the Ephemeral

Review essay: Between the Material and the Ephemeral

The Influence of Unknown Media on Public Opinion: Evidence from Local and Foreign News Sources

In the Internet era, people can encounter a vast array of political news outlets, many with which they are unfamiliar. These unknown media outlets are notable because they represent potential sources of misinformation and coverage with a distinctive slant. We use two large survey experiments to consider how source familiarity influences political communication. Although this demonstrates the public is averse to consuming news from unfamiliar media, we show that—conditional on exposure to them—unknown local and foreign media sources can influence public opinion to an extent similar to established mainstream news outlets on the same issues. This comparable effectiveness stems from the public’s charitable evaluations of the credibility of unfamiliar news sources and their relatively low trust in familiar mainstream media. We find avoidance of unknown news outlets, not resistance to their coverage, is the primary factor limiting their political influence.

Colourblind coverage: Mainstream media erasure of intersectionality in large-scale cases of anti-LGBTQ violence

Despite extensive critique calling for greater acknowledgement of intersectionality, the LGBTQ community in North America continues to foster a White, upper- and middle-class, gender-normative culture. Media discourse has perpetuated these narratives by downplaying the racism inherent in events centring homophobic violence against racialized LBGTQ people. Through a content analysis and discourse analysis of national and local news sources in the United States and Canada, this study explores the hesitation of journalists to explicitly acknowledge the intersectionality of race and LGBTQ identity in two North American instances of large-scale anti-LGBTQ violence targeting predominantly racialized members of the community. The Bruce McArthur case in Toronto, Ontario involved the serial murder of mostly racialized gay men, while the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida was a mass shooting that took place on Latinx night at an LGBTQ nightclub. In both cases, despite superficial acknowledgement of the victims’ demographics, journalists minimized the racial aspect of the violence in order to present more palatable politicized narratives.

The Local News Sources in The Kurdish Electronic Press

This study aims to identify local news sources in the Kurdish electronic media, the study is a descriptive study using the survey method and rely on the content analysis mannar to collect the necessary information about local news sources. The study community consists of all Kurdish electronic news sites, and the Xendan site was chosen as a sample of the study, and one of the most important findings of the study is that the Xendan website relied heavily on its own resources including representatives and correspondents in collecting and disseminating local news.

Addressing the Decline of Local News, Rise of Platforms, and Spread of Mis- and Disinformation Online: A Summary of Current Research and Policy Proposals

Technological and economic assaults have destroyed the for-profit business model that sustained local journalism in this country for two centuries. While the advertising-based model for local news has been under threat for many years, the COVID-19 pandemic and recession have created what some describe as an “extinction level” threat for local newspapers and other struggling news outlets. More than one-fourth of the country’s newspapers have disappeared, leaving residents in thousands of communities living in vast news deserts.As local news sources decline, a growing proportion of Americans are getting their news and other information from social media. This raises serious concerns, including the spread of misinformation and the use of platform infrastructure to engage in disinformation campaigns. Platforms wield significant advantages over local news sources in the current information environment: the dominant platforms possess proprietary, detailed caches of user data, which the platforms use to force advertisers, users, and news outlets into asymmetrical relationships. In the vacuum left by the disappearance of local news sources, users are increasingly reliant on information sources that are incomplete, and may be misleading or deceptive.This whitepaper examines current research related to the decline of local news, the rise of platforms, and the spread of mis- and disinformation and explores potential regulatory and policy responses to these issues. Some proposals focus on increasing the supply of – and demand for – local news, including increased public education and expanded support for journalists and local news organizations. Other proposals focus on market-based reforms that address the growing power disparities between news producers and platform operators as well as between platforms and their users. Solutions to the difficult problems we face will require a multifaceted, multi-disciplinary approach. No one lever within the market, law, or society will deliver a magic bullet. Instead, experts and policymakers will need to pull at multiple levers using a new vocabulary to talk across the different disciplines – a set of new propositions that recognize the legal, social, journalistic, and economic principles at stake, particularly the harm done to democracy if the status quo continues.In the Appendix we provide a list of recent research studies and resources available for those who wish to engage in more study of these important issues.

Contesting Commemorative Landscapes: Confederate Monuments and Trajectories of Change

Abstract Following the racially motivated shootings at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, a wave of contentious campaigns around Confederate statuary emerged, or at least intensified, in communities across the country. Yet local struggles have culminated in vastly different alterations to the built environment. This paper develops a framework for differentiating distinct “modes of recontextualization” rooted in the relocation and/or modification of commemorative objects. Building on models of memory as an iterative, path-dependent process, we track recontextualization efforts in three communities—St. Louis, Missouri; Oxford, Mississippi; and Austin, Texas—documenting how each mode alters the meaning of contested symbols. An analysis of local news sources in the year following recontextualization shows how each mode exerts identifiable proximate effects on broader political debates and, through that process, structures the horizon of possibility for longer-range outcomes.

Safe havens: overseas housing speculation and opportunity zones

Since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, financialization and housing speculation have expanded in geography, generalized in the political economy, and ingrained into the regulatory system. This article adds to the growing understanding of global capital flows and transnational housing investment. The main contribution of this paper is an articulation of ‘safe havens’ — districts designed as a harbor for global capital; a place of refuge during market uncertainty; and a place offering favorable conditions for capital growth. In New York, London, and Melbourne, luxury districts functioned primarily as investment vehicles to facilitate the circulation and expansion of capital after the financial crisis. Case studies draw upon census data, non-governmental and industry reports, academic studies, and local news sources and find that (1) capital funnelled into local housing through government incentivization; (2) vacancy increased in areas with rapid price rises; and (3) new investment zones were constructed to accommodate overflows of safe-haven demand and fuel recovery from the financial crisis.

Trust and the Media: Perceptions of Climate Change News Sources Among US College Students

With increasing fake news and polarizing politics, Americans have been exposed to false or misinterpreted scientific information. A disconnect between the scientific community and news outlets has perpetuated public uncertainty about climate change. With the widening of such disconnect, it is crucial to understand how youth, who mainly use digital sources for information, comprehend climate change, as such a demographic will be a vehicle for climate change mitigation. We aim to understand climate change knowledge and attitudes among college students and their trustworthiness of six news outlets as sources of information about climate change. Results from a survey show that students care and are aware of climate change. Moreover, students are hesitant about news sources for climate change information. While students trust more the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, local news sources to the college, they overall neither trust nor distrust CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News, and Breitbart. This hesitation to trust or distrust such contrasting news regarding climate change may be explained by the overabundance of misinformation, the usage of cognitive heuristics, the rise of anti-intellectualism, and the lack of digital literacy, which make processing information more challenging in this postdigital era. We conclude by emphasizing the need to develop different information literacies in higher education. As digital platforms continue to grow, it is important to understand how youth receive and process information about topics like climate change in a complex information ecosystem.

Trust and the Media: Perceptions of Climate Change News Sources Among US College Students

With increasing fake news and polarizing politics, Americans have been exposed to false or misinterpreted scientific information. A disconnect between the scientific community and news outlets has perpetuated public uncertainty about climate change. With the widening of such disconnect, it is crucial to understand how youth, who mainly use digital sources for information, comprehend climate change, as such a demographic will be a vehicle for climate change mitigation. We aim to understand climate change knowledge and attitudes among college students and their trustworthiness of six news outlets as sources of information about climate change. Results from a survey show that students care and are aware of climate change. Moreover, students are hesitant about news sources for climate change information. While students trust more the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, local news sources to the college, they overall neither trust nor distrust CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News, and Breitbart. This hesitation to trust or distrust such contrasting news regarding climate change may be explained by the overabundance of misinformation, the usage of cognitive heuristics, the rise of anti-intellectualism, and the lack of digital literacy, which make processing information more challenging in this postdigital era. We conclude by emphasizing the need to develop different information literacies in higher education. As digital platforms continue to grow, it is important to understand how youth receive and process information about topics like climate change in a complex information ecosystem.

Gender, race, and stereotypes in the 2008 presidential primary

ABSTRACT To better understand the role of local news in voters’ opinions of candidates, we ask whether candidate coverage in local news sources readily activates race and gender stereotypes in voters’ opinions of presidential primary candidates? We conduct an original content analysis of local newspaper coverage of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential primary season. We code 1,849 news articles in 11 battleground and early primary states to evaluate how local news coverage frames issues of race and gender for each candidate. Then we utilize the 2008 Cooperative Campaign Analysis Project (CCAP) to match primary voters with their local news content. We find considerable variation in local news coverage of candidates’ race and gender across states. While local news coverage frames Obama and Clinton in terms of race and gender issues, we find that race is covered more frequently. In addition, we find that as news coverage of gender issues increases, voters are not less likely to characterize Clinton as a strong leader. However, as local news focuses more readily on Obama’s race, voters are less likely to consider him trustworthy. These findings illustrate the power of local news media to activate stereotypes related to race and gender.

Repression After Liberalization: Organizational Embeddedness and Protest Policing in a Hybrid Context

Hybrid non-democracies may repress their civil societies less than full authoritarian regimes, but we know little about the elite strategies guiding the use of state violence against protest groups in a hybrid context. This paper develops an event-level model of protest policing centering the role of social movement organizations (SMOs) in shaping elite threat perceptions and, hence, the likelihood that affiliated protest events will face repression. More than public protest per se, I argue that elites fear the rise of independent organizations capable of initiating and sustaining mobilization. In a hybrid context, SMOs will vary widely in their level of embeddedness with state institutions, ranging from anti-system groups to newer organizations that work collaboratively with the state to legacy civil society groups that served as corporatist brokers of mass representation prior to the onset of liberalizing reforms. Unable to control ex ante which groups become active in civil society, elites apply coercive sanctions to protests by less-embedded CSOs in order to channel mass participation towards friendlier groups. I illustrate these arguments with micro-level sub-national analysis of the Morocco Contentious Event Database (MCED), a unique dataset of protest events and coercive responses collected from local Arabic-language news sources over a ten-year period. Three nested analyses exploit different scales of comparison and contextualize these findings with a sociological account of civil society in Morocco.

TipMaster: A Knowledge Base of Authoritative Local News Sources on Social Media

Twitter has become an important online source for real-time news dissemination. Especially, official accounts of local government and media outlets have provided newsworthy and authoritative information, revealing local trends and breaking news. In this paper, we describe TipMaster an automatically constructed knowledge base of Twitter accounts that are likely to report local news, from government agencies to local media outlets. First, we implement classifiers for detecting these accounts by integrating heterogeneous information from the accounts' textual metadata, profile images, and their tweet messages. Next, we demonstrate two use cases for TipMaster: 1) as a platform that monitors real-time social media messages for local breaking news, and 2) as an authoritative source for verifying nascent rumors. Experimental results show that our account classification algorithms achieve both high precision and recall (around 90%). The demonstrated case studies prove that our platform is able to detect local breaking news or debunk emergent rumors faster than mainstream media sources.