Access To News Research Articles

Beyond social media news use algorithms: how political discussion and network heterogeneity clarify incidental news exposure

PurposeTraditionally, most readers' news access and consumption were based on direct intentional news seeking behavior. However, in recent years the emergence and popularization of social media platforms have enabled new opportunities for citizens to be incidentally informed about public affairs and politics as by-product of using these platforms. This article seeks to shed light on how socio-political conversation attributes may explain incidental exposure to information.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on US and UK survey data, the authors explore the role of political discussion and discussion network heterogeneity in predicting individuals' levels of incidental exposure to news. Furthermore, the authors also test the role of social media news use as a moderator. A hierarchical OLS regression analysis with incidental news exposure as dependent variable was conducted as well as analyses of moderation effects (heterogeneity*social media and political discussion*social media) using the PROCESS macro in SPSS.FindingsFindings reveal that heterogeneous networks are positively related to incidental news exposure in the UK, while sheer level of political discussion is a positive influence over incidental news exposure in the US. Social media news use moderates the relationship between political discussion and incidental news exposure in the UK. That is, those who are highly exposed to news on social media and discuss less often about politics and public affairs, they tend to be incidentally exposed to news online the most. Meanwhile, the interaction of social media news and discussion heterogeneity showed significant results in the US with those exhibiting high levels of both also receiving the biggest share of INE.Originality/valueThis study contributes to closing research gaps regarding how and when people are inadvertently exposed to news in two Western societies. By highlighting that beyond the fate of algorithmic information treatment by social media platforms, discussion antecedents as well as social media news use play an integral part in predicting incidental news exposure, the study unravels fundamental conditions underlying the incidental news exposure phenomenon.

‘Just the way my generation reads the news’: News consumption habits of youth in Turkey and the UK

Audiences’ media use and news consumption behaviour are constantly shifting. Some scholars note that the growing decline in youth’s news consumption raises concerns about the future of democracy in various media systems. This research explores the factors that influence college students’ news consumption behaviour in the United Kingdom and Turkey through an interpretative approach. The data are based on qualitative in-depth interviews with around 50 students studying in major universities in London and Istanbul. The findings show overarching common trends such as increased mobile news access, incidental exposure to news on social media, irregular snacking and verifying of news that drive youth’s news consumption behaviour. Findings also show that traditional media use for news has almost been replaced by online media and the modality of traditional media do not easily fit in with youth’s daily routine of studies, work and commute.

Impartiality on Platforms: The Politics of BBC Journalists’ Twitter Networks

ABSTRACT Research shows the prominence afforded to political actors in BBC journalism strongly reflects the balance of power in Westminster, with major political parties, and the ruling party in particular, tending to predominate. This article examines the extent to which these patterns of news access and exposure are also evident in BBC journalists’ following of and interactions with MPs on Twitter, using data from 90 BBC journalists’ Twitter accounts (extracted in February 2019). We find that MPs from centrist parties have the highest average number of BBC journalist followers, and are interacted with and mentioned more by BBC journalists than other MPs. MPs in parties exclusively representing constituencies outside of England are the least followed, mentioned or interacted with. Of the two main political parties, Conservative MPs have the highest average BBC following, and are mentioned more often. Current and former Cabinet members have a higher BBC following and more interactions and mentions than their Shadow Cabinet counterparts. Our findings confirm that elite patterns of news access and exposure have been reproduced on new platforms. Though lending support to claims that the BBC is orientated towards the political centre, they suggest more of an orientation towards the Right than the Left.

NEWS JUNKIE OR ONLY ACCIDENTALLY INFORMED? AN IN-SITU STUDY ON SITUATIONAL TYPES AND INDIVIDUAL REPERTOIRES OF MOBILE NEWS ACCESS AMONG GERMAN YOUNG ADULTS.

Over the past three decades our media ecologies have changed substantially, not at least changing the ways in which we get in touch with the news. These changes have led both to high hopes for more equality in news access and a better-informed electorate, as well as fears of news avoidance, filter bubbles, and increasing knowledge gaps, with recent empirical evidence leaning towards rather pessimistic perspectives. However, most of the research to date focusses on one specific kind of news access, e.g., news consumption via social media, and its effects, neglecting the fact that users combine several ways to access the news throughout their daily lives, creating their individual media use repertoires. In order to disentangle these variances within our daily lives from differences between users, we need to analyze access to news on a situational level. Being meta-media, mobile media constitute an excellent microcosmos to study situational variability in news access. Hence, we investigated the situational types of mobile news access in young adults’ daily lives as well as their mobile news repertoires based on the previously identified situational access types. To do so, we conducted an experience sampling study among young adults in Germany. Our results highlight that differences within (mobile) news use should not only be studied as differences between people, but also as variances within users’ daily lives. For example, we see that no mobile news repertoire in our study solely relies on news access via intermediaries such as social media.

A feel for the frame: towards a Bourdieusian frame analysis

This paper proposes a theoretical bridge between frame analysis and the Bourdieusian tradition of field analysis via the concept of linguistic habitus. Framing practices have tended to be explained, microcosmically, in terms of individual psychology or interaction, or macrocosmically, in terms of geopolitics, ideology and hegemony. This paper locates the genesis of framing practice at the mezzo level of the field. In this paper, I develop a Bourdieusian frame analysis through an integration of field and framing theories. Reflecting on my own research regarding news access in solutions journalism, I argue that framing practices are generated by habituation in specific linguistic markets. I argue that a linguistic habitus generates four interrelated framing practices: censorship, euphemism, style and schema. Lastly, I propose a taxonomy of framing practices by mapping the relative tension and ease of linguistic markets against the autonomy or heteronomy of the field.

The fake news infodemic vs information literacy

PurposeWith growing dependency on social media for reportage, coupled with rising media errors with potential to threatening the boundaries of knowledge and reliable information, attention is now being drawn to credibility of using social media and other media outlet. This increasing attention is because of the apparent disorderliness in the information milieu as a result of powerlessness to regulate activities on social media coupled with the dilemma of tampering with fundamental right of individual to free speech. Unlike the traditional media houses with specific address and location, identifying the whereabouts of promoters of fake news is challenging as information can be manufactured at the remote locality and the consequence will be felt in all the four compass points of the world. Tracking down individuals peddling fake news for charges of slander, defamation or libel is difficult, as a result of the intercontinental nature of the social network.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a qualitative research design, which is guided by the interpretive paradigm because it relies comprehensively on practical methods of content analysis in which concepts are discussed to convey an in-depth understanding of the topic being investigated and bringing new knowledge.FindingsEnsuring that the citizenry is adequately information literate is sine qua non for reducing the threats posed by fake news access and use to the barest minimum. Ibenne (2016) notes that becoming information literate is a process that leads to empowerment of the individual to take rationally elevated decisions in information use and knowledge application. The authors may therefore conclude that falling prey to fake news plays majorly on ignorance among the citizenry, and on the other hand, irrational use of information. When citizens possess functional information literacy, they are able to subject the information they receive to critical evaluation to eliminate the undesirable, which fake news squarely fall under.Originality/valueThis paper sheds light on assessing the fake news infodemic as information disorder and a threat to reliable information access and use; therefore, information acquired from this study is imaginative and valuable to better understand how information professionals react to official and personal engagement.

Political news and happiness: the difference between traditional media and new media use

Traditional media (e.g., newspapers, radio, and television) and new media (e.g., the Internet, SNS, and mobile devices) are equally important in individuals’ access to political news about governmental performance and social problems. This study is aimed at examining the effects of political news media use on civil happiness. The mediation effects of public trust in government (GT) and their perceived social risks (PSR) are considered. Specifically, GT concerns people’s trust that government functions in the public interest and fulfills its promises, while PSR is individuals’ perception of the risks of social problems. A total of 3,561 samples were used in the final data analysis. In line with theoretical arguments, the empirical evidence showed that the influence of political news exposure through traditional media (PTMU) and new media use (PNMU) on happiness differed. For example, PTMU increased happiness by enhancing GT, but it was not the case in PNMU. PNMU decreased happiness by enhancing PSR; however, its effect on PTMU was insignificant. The results suggest that the accessibility of political news should be enhanced, and the level of public trust in the government should be increased to promote civil happiness.

El conflicto entre el derecho al olvido digital del pasado penal y las libertades informativas: las hemerotecas digitales. (A propósito de la STC de 4 de junio de 2018 y de la STEDH de 28 de junio de 2018, caso M.L. y W.W. contra Alemania)

Con carácter general, la libertad de información es uno de los límites del derecho al olvido digital. La posibilidad de localizar, en la hemeroteca digital de un periódico, una noticia publicada tiempo atrás, utilizando como criterios de búsqueda datos personales, concretamente los nombres y apellidos ha sido el motivo del pronunciamiento del TC. En este supuesto concreto, el derecho al olvido digital lleva aparejada la existencia de un perjuicio para el interesado, tratándose de un aspecto de su vida privada relativo a su pasado penal y por tanto relacionado, con su intimidad. El presente trabajo analiza la STC, de 4 de junio de 2018, que reconoce expresamente el denominado jurisprudencialmente derecho al olvido digital, como una facultad inherente al derecho a la protección de datos personales, y, por lo tanto, como derecho fundamental. Paralelamente examina la STEDH caso M.L. y W.W. contra Alemania de 28 de junio de 2018. En el conflicto entre el derecho al olvido digital del pasado penal y el ejercicio de la libertad de información a través de las hemerotecas digitales, el TC emplea los mismos parámetros que ha venido utilizando en su jurisprudencia tradicional sobre los límites a la libertad de información junto con el paso del tiempo y los efectos de la digitalización de la información. Para concluir que la medida limitadora consistente en desindexar los nombres y apellidos como criterios de búsqueda era proporcionada. No obstante, las hemerotecas digitales, contribuyen de forma sustancial a la preservación y accesibilidad de las noticias y la información. La STC resulta, en este sentido, más garantista para los derechos de la personalidad, y, en especial, para el derecho fundamental a la protección de datos. Sin embargo, el interés de los usuarios de Internet en disponer de la información sobre hechos del pasado queda desvalorizado en la ponderación. Por el contrario, la postura que ha mantenido el TEDH es que la inclusión del nombre de la persona noticiable constituye un aspecto esencial del trabajo de la prensa y de la credibilidad de la noticia, máxime si se trata como en este caso de un procedimiento penal. No resultaría por tanto improbable que el caso español acabara planteándose ante TEDH sobre la base de la importancia del derecho del público a acceder a la información incluso sobre acontecimientos pasados.

Gender Attitudes in Africa: Liberal Egalitarianism Across 34 Countries

AbstractThis study provides a first descriptive mapping of support for women’s equal rights in 34 African countries and assesses diverse theoretical explanations for variability in this support. Contrary to stereotypes of a homogeneously tradition-bound continent, African citizens report high levels of agreement with gender equality that are more easily understood with reference to global processes of ideational diffusion than to country-level differences in economic modernization or women’s public-sphere roles. Multivariate analyses suggest, however, that gender liberalism in Africa may be spreading through mechanisms not typically considered by world-society scholars: Support for equal rights is largely unrelated to countries’ formal ties to the world system, but it is stronger among persons who are more exposed to extra-local culture, including through internet and mobile phone usage, news access, and urban residency. Forces for gender liberalism are conditioned, moreover, by local religious cultures and gender structures.

Multilingual News–An Investigation of Consumption, Querying, and Search Result Selection Behaviors

ABSTRACT With the global expansion of the Internet and the World Wide Web, users are becoming increasingly diverse, particularly in terms of languages. In fact, there are now many users online who are polyglots, i.e. users who are proficient in more than one language. However, even such multilingual users often continue to suffer from unbalanced and fragmented news information, as traditional news access systems seldom allow users to simultaneously search for and/or compare news in different languages, even though prior research results have shown that multilingual users make significant use of each of their languages when generally searching for information online. The research presented in this paper provides the first investigation of multilingual news consumption, as well as a detailed analysis of multilingual querying and search result selection behaviors. In particular, through a set of 2 phases of crowdsourced user studies, this paper presents the first human-centered studies in multilingual news access, aiming to drive the development of personalized multilingual news access systems that better support each individual user.

The ‘emancipation of media’: Latin American advocacy for a New International Information Order in the 1970s

AbstractThroughout the 1970s, journalists and leaders in the Global South organized around the concept of a New International Information Order (NIIO), premised upon the self-determination of news access and production. Though largely forgotten today, the NIIO constituted a key platform of the ‘Third World’ solidarity movement. Latin America was a prominent site for NIIO activism, and this article examines the regional and local meetings that frequently brought together governing officials, reporters, and academics. Focusing on the shifting expectations of exiled Latin Americans living in Mexico City, the article explores the domestic political factors that eventually attenuated enthusiasm for the NIIO. By the late 1970s, Latin American advocates argued that repressive governments could not be trusted to safeguard socially responsible information initiatives, such as regional wire services. Moreover, they underscored that national democratization was necessary before global inequities could be resolved.

My Friends, Editors, Algorithms, and I

Prompted by the ongoing development of content personalization by social networks and mainstream news brands, and recent debates about balancing algorithmic and editorial selection, this study explores what audiences think about news selection mechanisms and why. Analysing data from a 26-country survey (N = 53,314), we report the extent to which audiences believe story selection by editors and story selection by algorithms are good ways to get news online and, using multi-level models, explore the relationships that exist between individuals’ characteristics and those beliefs. The results show that, collectively, audiences believe algorithmic selection guided by a user’s past consumption behaviour is a better way to get news than editorial curation. There are, however, significant variations in these beliefs at the individual level. Age, trust in news, concerns about privacy, mobile news access, paying for news, and six other variables had effects. Our results are partly in line with current general theory on algorithmic appreciation, but diverge in our findings on the relative appreciation of algorithms and experts, and in how the appreciation of algorithms can differ according to the data that drive them. We believe this divergence is partly due to our study’s focus on news, showing algorithmic appreciation has context-specific characteristics.

Newsworthy actors, illegitimate voices: Journalistic strategies in dealing with voices deemed anti-democratic and violent

In recent years, violent extremism has been high on the global public agenda, invoking normative questions about the limits of free speech and how liberal democracies should deal with actors who promote views deemed anti-democratic and violent. Based on in-depth interviews with Norwegian newsroom professionals and content analysis of news from major Norwegian news outlets (n = 1819), this article explores how newsrooms deal with an important dilemma in reporting extremism: how to fulfill their democratic roles of informing the public of forces deemed anti-democratic and violent, while refraining from legitimizing and advancing extremist ideas and aims. The analysis shows that newsroom staff perceive these dilemmas as inherently challenging, with few clear-cut solutions as to how to strike a balance between inclusion and exclusion, ‘neutrality’ and condemnation, and these assessments are further complicated in the digital media environment, raising new dilemmas and questions concerning journalistic roles and responsibilities. In practice, editorial dilemmas are dealt with by making a distinction between newsworthy actors and legitimate voices. Reporters foregrounded several reasons why voices deemed extremist should be included in the news. Yet, analysis of news content showed that these voices tended to be included in short and de-contextualized bits that served to fulfill some stated journalistic aims, such as warning national audiences, while largely neglecting others, such as providing understanding of the motives and ideas of actors deemed extremist, with important implications for news construction of extremism. Theoretically, the article contributes to the literature on news access, limits of mediated debate, and construction of deviance in the news.

‘To follow or not to follow?’: How Belgian health journalists use Twitter to monitor potential sources

Abstract Digital technology, the Internet and mobile media are transforming the journalism and media landscape by influencing the news-gathering and sourcing process. The empowering capacities of social media applications may constitute a key element for more balanced news access and ‘inclusive journalism’. We will build on two contrasting views that dominate the social media sourcing debate. On the one hand, the literature shows that journalists of legacy media make use of social media sources to diversify their sourcing network including bottom-up sources such as ordinary citizens. On the other, various authors conclude that journalists stick with their old sourcing routines and continue to privilege top-down elite sources such as experts and government officials. In order to contribute towards this academic debate we want to clarify the Twitter practices of professional Belgian health journalists in terms of how they use the platform to monitor potential sources. Therefore, we examined the 1146 Twitter ‘followings’ of six Belgian health journalists by means of digital methods and social network analysis. Results show that top-down actors are overrepresented in the ‘following’ networks and that Twitter’s ‘following’ function is not used to reach out to bottom-up actors. In the overall network, we found that the health journalists mainly use Twitter as a ‘press club’ to monitor media actors. If we zoom in specifically on the ‘following’ network of the health-related actors, we found that media actors are still important, but experts become the most followed group. Our findings also underwrite the ‘power law’ or the ‘long tail’ distribution of social network sites as very few actors take a central position in the ‘following’ lists while the large majority of actors are not systematically monitored by the journalists.

See No Evil, Print No Evil: The Criminalization of Free Speech in DMZ

This article examines contemporary notions on free speech and the criminalisation of journalistic expression since 9/11, via discussion of Brian Wood’s DMZ comics (DC Vertigo). Free speech and the importance of a free press are widely accepted notions, yet journalistic and artistic freedom is arguably under attack in our post-9/11 world (Ash, 2016; Article 19, 2007). State responses to global terror threats have criminalised free speech, particularly speech seen as ‘glorifying’ or ‘supporting’ terrorism via anti-terror or restrictive media laws. This article examines these issues via DMZ’s discussion of a second American civil war in which freedom of the press has all but disappeared, arguing that DMZ’s ‘War on Terror’ narrative and depiction of controlled news access serve as allegories for contemporary free speech restrictions. DMZ illustrates contemporary concerns about a perceived social problem in its representation of corruption, abuse of power and restrictions on the public’s right to know.

The effects of news consumption via social media and news information overload on perceptions of journalistic norms and practices

Given the widespread adoption of social media for sharing and accessing news, as well as the possibility of news consumers' direct interactions with journalists through social media, this study analyzed the relationships among news access via social media (NASM), perceived news information overload (NIO), news consumption, and perceptions of journalistic norms and practices. The results indicated that NIO moderated the relationships between NASM and selective exposure and between NASM and willingness to pay for quality news. Regarding journalistic norms and practices, participants valued the speed of journalism when they frequently accessed news on social media more so than traditional journalistic norms. Finally, there were statistically significant interactions between NIO and two types of news consumption behaviors (i.e., selective exposure and news avoidance) concerning participants' perceptions of news quality.

SIMPLIFYING FINANCIAL REPORTS FOR THE AVERAGE NEWS CONSUMER: A STUDY OF SOME SOUTH AFRICAN NEWSPAPERS

This article investigates the perceived accessibility of business news in some South African newspapers of which the target reader is the average consumer of news in a predominantly black readership market. A sample of readers and editors/journalists were interviewed as part of an explorative, qualitative research design. The respondents were of the opinion that newspapers, such as City Press, Sowetan and Sunday World, fail to write business articles that are easily understandable because the financial jargon used in stories confounds the average news consumer. However, 95% of the respondents agreed that the business section of Daily Sun uses simple language in its reporting. It is argued that a new set of guidelines to report business or financial news is needed to rectify the status quo. Eight guidelines for reporting business news for the average news consumer are proposed.

Antecedents of News Consumers' Perceived Information Overload and News Consumption Pattern in the USA

This exploratory study examines the critical factors associated with news consumers’ perception of information overload and news consumption patterns. An online survey was conducted with Qualtrics panels (N = 1001). The demographics and three antecedent factors of perceived information overload were considered including the frequency of news access through multiple media platforms, level of attention to news, and interest in news. Three news consumption patterns were investigated as possible consequences of perceived information overload: news avoidance, selective exposure, and willingness to pay for news. The results of hierarchical regression analyses revealed a meaningful distinction between general and news information overload. Overall, news consumers who paid more attention to news through newer media/platforms/devices perceived higher levels of information overload, were more willing to pay for the news, and often avoided news or selectively exposed themselves to certain sources of news to manage news information overload.

Jóvenes y consumo de noticias a través de Internet y los medios sociales

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los hábitos de los jóvenes en relación al consumo de las noticias en Internet en un escenario donde los medios sociales tienen una gran presencia. Una encuesta realizada entre universitarios españoles permite estudiar su comportamiento a partir, por un lado, de la intensidad de acceso y, por otro, del género, tomando en consideración la frecuencia en la consulta de noticias, el medio seleccionado, la motivación para informarse, el contraste de noticias, así como la percepción sobre la imparcialidad y la credibilidad. La investigación permite constatar la creciente relevancia de los medios sociales como fuente para el acceso a la información de actualidad.

Opening the news gates? Humanitarian and human rights NGOs in the US news media, 1990–2010

This study examines whether changes in the media, political, and civic landscapes give leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs) increased news access. Using longitudinal content analysis (1990–2010) of a purposive sample of US news outlets, it compares the prevalence, prominence, and story location of news articles citing leading human rights NGOs to human rights coverage more generally. In all outlets, NGO prevalence rises over time; media-savvy NGOs drive much of the growth. By contrast, prominence decreases, as do the number of NGO-driven stories. In all outlets, NGOs typically appear in stories already in the media spotlight; as sources, they appear after the statements of government officials. Finally, the news outlets most receptive to NGOs are those that commit the fewest resources to international news coverage. Overall, findings suggest that while NGO news access has indeed increased over time, such access continues to be shaped by established patterns of news construction.