News Audiences Research Articles

Reporting to audiences in crisis: Disruption, criticism and absent hope in TV journalisms’ rendering of the impactful UK energy price rises

How does journalism communicate to audiences who are experiencing crisis? Existing literature suggests that journalists use reporting templates and related practices to report crises with elite narratives and myths (and some ‘disruptive factors’, on occasion). Their news audiences, it follows, are understood as observers of abstracted crisis rather than as those who are experiencing crisis impacts as immediate and affecting. Such thinking becomes challenged by the emerging UK energy crisis. Analysing the corresponding TV journalism shows its reporting responds to several unique disruptive aspects of the crisis (i.e. its ‘seriality’, ‘unpredictability’ and ‘impacts’) rather than reproduce expected myths and authority skew. Additionally, it forms potentially transformative coverage with an included critical commentary on elite inaction and profiteering. Still, omitted at the same time is any relevant explanation and assistance for those audiences affected by the soaring energy costs. The paper argues, subsequently, that this journalism is producing a crisis subjectivity that serves only to reflect back accounts of ‘close suffering’ and uncertainty to audiences, without any sense of hope, support or meaningful action.

Framing Climate Solutions: An Exploratory Quantitative Content Analysis

ABSTRACT News warning about climate risks has not typically included information about how society can respond, but journalism about credible efforts to address climate change is becoming more prevalent. To understand how news employing this emerging approach is framed we undertook an inductive quantitative content analysis of climate solutions journalism. Cluster analysis of 244 text-based climate solutions news stories published in U.S.-based outlets resulted in three previously undescribed news frames. The most prevalent frame (88%) focuses on adaptation over mitigation with little mention of causes, while stories emblematic of the second-most prevalent frame featured responses led by people typically drawing on place-based identity and working cooperatively beyond partisanship. The least prevalent frame emphasizes mitigation and who is morally responsible. Findings contribute to framing theory as well as offer practical implications for journalists seeking to engage news audiences about this critical issue.

Predictors of Mobile News Consumption through News Applications (Apps): The Impacts of Audience Characteristics, Media Usage, and Motivations

This study investigates news audiences’ platform preferences, usage patterns, and factors affecting their mobile news consumption through news apps. Four explanatory factors, news app users’ demographics, news media usage, perceptions, and motivations, are proposed to predict adoption intention. By surveying 698 mobile news app users in the US, this study’s findings indicate that user perceptions of news apps (i.e., perceived ease of use, compatibility, relative content advantage, and observability) and instrumental motivations of news consumption (i.e., information-seeking and opinion needs) best predict news consumers’ willingness to continue using mobile news apps. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed to offer new insights into mobile news audience behavior and inform current digital publishers on cross-media strategies in the highly competitive mobile news market.

Digital News Audiences in Mexico: Age Segment Analysis

This study aims to determine whether news consumption, media trust, interest in news, and political affinity are correlated with the generational segment of the market, measured by the age of the digital audience. Furthermore, this study seeks to verify whether age is associated with digital audiences’ paying attention to journalists or news brands. This research is based on a survey of 2,005 people in Mexico by YouGov in 2022, commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford as part of its annual Digital News Report. The statistical method used was the chi-square test of independence between qualitative variables. The results showed that age correlates with consumption habits, media trust, interest in news, and citizens’ political affinity for digital audiences in Mexico. Moreover, age relates to whether digital audiences focus on journalists or news brands in Latin America. This study delves into the characteristics of digital audiences in Mexico and contributes from a media economics, media management, and media marketing perspective. It also helps media organizations assess their market strategy, market segmentation, and target markets based on the characteristics of digital news audiences in Mexico.

Polarisation, News Consumption, and Beliefs in Misinformation and Conspiracy Theories: Early Signs of the Fragmentation of the Public Sphere in Iceland

A common explanation linked to increased polarisation has focused on changes in citizens’ information diets, with like-minded people apparently becoming increasingly isolated in online echo chambers. This article investigates whether news audience polarisation has increased in Iceland in recent years and if there is polarisation in Icelandic society concerning beliefs in misinformation and conspiracy theories. Iceland is an interesting case study since it is very small and still quite homogenous, but experiencing rapid societal changes and a media landscape in turmoil. We utilise data from representative surveys conducted in 2017 and 2022. Findings show that news consumption patterns in Iceland have shifted towards online platforms, with a significant increase in online news consumption across all age groups, and a decline in the use of traditional legacy outlets. News audience polarisation appears, however, to remain relatively low in Iceland, with most news brands reaching a mixed and centrist audience. We find that gender, education, and political ideology are related to beliefs concerning misinformation and conspiracy theories focused on climate change and refugees. Moreover, our results suggest that trust in the mainstream media, as well as news consumption from partisan outlets, are related to beliefs in misinformation and conspiracy theories.

A taxonomy for business news audiences in MENA: a step in reducing information asymmetries

This study looks at how a possible categorization or taxonomy of the audiences that consume business and financial news could be a first step to setting policies and approaches to reduce information asymmetries in a region characterized by deep inequalities. This study looks at how changes in the way people access and use news, which now is predominantly via social media, opens the opportunity to address some of these gaps. The study is based on eight focus groups that took place in Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, and Lebanon using Zoom. The overall data suggests that MENA audiences have shifted to social media as the main source from where they get their news, and this is significantly important for the future of the mainstream media, particularly in relation to our news beat. It also confirms that there is now an opportunity to categorize MENA business and financial news consumers, although it would be one that is extremely skewed in two tiers.

A crisis without a context? The framing of economic inequality through the pandemic

This article analyses how economic inequality was framed by UK news media during the pandemic and, drawing from framing theory, considers the implications of the coverage for news audiences. To do so, it uses a data set of 167 articles from the following UK news publications: The Guardian, The Telegraph, the Financial Times and The Sun. There are differences between the publications in terms of salience, tone and there is a wide range of causes and solutions attributed to inequality with no consensus emerging. The coverage is framed mainly by state sources, and there is very little discussion of the finance sector and corporations as causes and solutions to tackle inequality. There are some positive trends emerging, as sustainable finance, climate change and gender equality are highlighted alongside some alternative solutions, indicating a move away from historical trends in news coverage that demonize poverty and focus simply on the individual.

The speed of news in Twitter (X) versus radio

The rapid evolution of the Internet is reshaping the media landscape, with frequent claims of an accelerated and increasingly outraged news cycle. We test these claims empirically, investigating the dynamics of news spread, decay, and sentiment on Twitter (now known as X) compared to talk radio. Analyzing 2019–2021 data including 517,000 hour of radio content and 26.6 million tweets by elite journalists, politicians, and general users, we identified 1694 news events. We find that news on Twitter circulates faster, fades faster, and is more negative and outraged compared to radio, with Twitter outrage also more short-lived. These patterns are consistent across various user types and robustness checks. Our results illustrate an important way social media may influence traditional media: framing and agenda-setting simply by speaking first. As journalism evolves with these media, news audiences may encounter faster shifts in focus, less attention to each news event, and much more negativity and outrage.

French Fox News? Audience-level metrics for the comparative study of news audience hyperpartisanship

ABSTRACT French news channel CNEWS is regularly compared to Fox News due to presumed ties with the far right, and for promoting conspiracy theories and partisan propaganda. Using data from the ReCitCom project, I propose simple metrics for quantifying the partisanship of news audiences cross-nationally and identifying channels like Fox News in other media systems. I apply them to France and find that CNEWS has the most ideologically radical news audience within the French media ecosystem, and that the pattern is more pronounced with higher frequency of use. Comparatively, I show that the Fox News and CNEWS audiences have an equivalent ideological lean that justifies the comparison between the two outlets at the audience level. The two audiences are also disproportionately receptive to far-right candidates compared to other news audiences and their respective national samples.

Easy to read, easy to judge: Assessing readability as a heuristic for credibility in news

Despite calls for journalists and media agencies to address a disconnect between news audiences and news prose, content continues to increase in its difficulty to read and comprehend for the masses. While readability is often associated with audience comprehension and engagement, studies have neglected to assess whether readability is a factor in audience assessments of the credibility of content. Using an online experimental design, this study examines whether readability acts as a heuristic that helps news consumers make credibility judgments of news. Results show that readability tends not to be a predictor of credibility perception, regardless of partisanship strength or media use preferences. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Impact of Machine Authorship on News Audience Perceptions: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies

The growing adoption of artificial intelligence in journalism has dramatically changed the way news is produced. Despite the recent proliferation of research on automated journalism, debate continues about how audiences perceive and evaluate news purportedly written by machines compared to the work of human authors. Based on a review of 30 experimental studies, this meta-analysis shows that machine authorship had a negative, albeit small, effect on credibility perceptions. Furthermore, machine authorship had a null effect on news evaluations, although this effect was significant and stronger (more negative) when (a) the news covered socio-political topics (vs. environmental topics) and (b) the actual source of the news articles was a machine (vs. a human). These findings are discussed in light of theoretical accounts of human–machine communication and practical implications for news media.

Catch, Engage, Retain: Audience-Oriented Journalistic Role Performance in Canada

ABSTRACT To understand audience-oriented journalistic role performance, one must understand how journalists conceptualize and cater to their audience. Giving the audience what it wants is a complex endeavor, with varying goals and hybridized end results, in newsrooms with fewer resources serving increasingly polarized audiences. Through a triangulation of data—content analysis at the subdimension level to examine the range and hybridity of audience-oriented journalistic product presenting the civic, service and infotainment roles; a survey to identify journalists’ attitudes toward the use of audience data and social media in their work; and interviews with journalists that revealed how their journalistic practice and audience perceptions were impacted by quantitative (metrics and analytics) and qualitative data (comments/social media interactions)—this research fills a gap in understanding about the connection between journalists, their audiences, and audience data when it comes to journalistic role performance. Findings show that in Canada the infotainment role is a significant part of reporting, but entertaining often comes with a goal of educating, as does service journalism. There are no “bad” journalistic roles, but there are a lot of journalists trying to figure out which ones might best catch, engage, and retain an ever-shrinking news audience.

The Scary World Syndrome: News Orientations, Negativity Bias, and the Cultivation of Anxiety

ABSTRACT Negativity bias is one of the most salient features of news reporting. According to cultivation theory, this bias can foster anxiety about societal issues among news audiences. The relationship is, however, likely to depend on the audience’s news orientations and the issue under consideration. Drawing on a content analysis of mainstream and alternative news media and a three-wave panel survey, both conducted in Sweden, we examine how general and alternative news orientations relate to egotropic anxiety (worry about being personally affected or harmed) about violent crimes and climate change. The results show that while alternative news media portray violent crimes more negatively than mainstream news media, the opposite is true for climate change, which mainstream news media portray more negatively than alternative news media. Consistent with this finding, alternative news orientation is related to higher levels of anxiety about violent crimes, while general news orientation is related to higher levels of anxiety about climate change, illustrating how people seek information that concur with and thereby maintain or reinforce their beliefs. These results have consequences both for cultivation theory and for our understanding of the role played by mainstream and alternative news media in society.

Picturing Tragedy: A Content Analysis of the Publication of Graphic Images in Newspapers

ABSTRACT For decades, the inclusion of graphic photographs in the news has been a matter of controversy. One important criticism made by news audiences is that the publication of graphic imagery could be guided by racial and cultural biases. However, there is little empirical research to either support or disprove this notion. Therefore, this study investigated several factors that could be related to the publication of graphic imagery. Images included in news about tragic events published by Mexican, U.S. and German print newspapers (N = 1,746) were analyzed in a quantitative content analysis. We particularly studied whether the inclusion of graphic images is more likely for certain events or for certain victims. Results showed that news about geographically and culturally distant events is more likely to include graphic imagery than news about proximate events. In addition, we discovered that non-White victims and non-citizen are more likely to be shown in graphic imagery. Finally, we found that Mexican and U.S. newspapers are more likely to publish graphic images than German newspapers.

Med nyhetsmediekritik som utgångspunkt för kommunikation: diskutanters kommentarer till ett Facebook-inlägg från SVT Nyheter om elhushållning

On digital platforms, users can express public opinions in relation to the content of major organizations, e.g. public service broadcasters. Although media criticism has been a subject of scholarly interest, research has not primarily regarded communicative aspects of media criticism, despite such criticism potentially changing the premises for e.g. social media news reporting as a discursive practice. Building on a concept of communicative acts, this study investigates news media criticism in comments on a Facebook news post by Swedish public service broadcaster SVT on electricity housekeeping. Eleven news media critical arguments were identified according to two research questions – 1) what is the object of the criticism; 2) what is the communicative purpose of it? – resulting in seven groups of arguments. Focusing on both single instances of argument groups and combinations of groups within individual comments, the study emphasizes the communicative dynamics of news media criticism in altering between objects and purposes. Even though the result is heterogenous, some tendencies arise. Unlike constructive criticism, meant to change news reporting by media’s own standards, a majority of the most common argument groups consist of those who express strategic criticism, seemingly aiming to change media perceptions among a general news audience. Since this criticism regularly also addresses politics, the study further stresses the possibility of viewing media criticism as extended into e.g. political criticism.

Distrust Profiles: Identifying the Factors That Shape Journalism’s Credibility Crisis

<span id="docs-internal-guid-c76c70fc-7fff-57e7-76ea-4562d4897bc3">Trust in news is declining globally and has been for some time a phenomenon that has been amplified in the context of a global pandemic, the rise in anti-media populism, and social and political unrest. Overall, public trust in journalism remains low (44% globally), according to the <em>Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021</em>. Building on a growing body of research on predictors of (dis)trust among news audiences, this study examines survey data from the <em>Reuters Institute Digital News Report</em> <em>2021 </em>to explore distrust profiles—comparative profiles of users based on their relative distrust in news in general, news they consume, and news accessed through digital intermediaries like social and search—across distinct news environments: India, South Korea, and the US. We conclude that, across all three countries, there are large segments who either trust everything or distrust everything, suggesting a trust polarization phenomenon. Moreover, the results identify segments of swing trusters, users who trust some news and distrust other types but do not indicate a blanket tendency to trust or distrust everything. Normative expectations about the institution of journalism (i.e., folk theories) seem to be the most powerful factors in explaining the relative likelihood of membership in all profiles, where expectations regarding impartiality, concern about fake news, and fair coverage were important indicators of (dis)trust, with varying degrees depending on the media, political, and technological contexts in which they are situated. These findings suggest that to regain trust, journalists should consider how they can change people’s folk theories when it comes to news by comprehensively taking into account the unique trajectory of a given country’s media system.</span>

The journalist in the story. Conceptualizing ethos as integral framework to study news production, news texts and news audiences

Abstract This theoretical article presents ethos as a conceptual framework to understand journalism’s authority and shifting epistemologies. We argue that ethos, the strategic self-image of the journalist in the text, is an essential part of the performative potential of journalism, even in detached “objective” journalism where journalists are seemingly absent in their articles. Analyzing journalism from an ethos perspective, elucidates how journalists build on and rework epistemological frameworks while ensuring the performativity of their text. Drawing on narratological theory, we show that ethos is ambiguous and that the possible disparate evaluations of the journalist’s reliability by audiences impact the possibility of news stories to enact their performative potential. Ethos offers an integrated framework for studying relationships between news texts and news production, contexts and audiences, highlighting how values such as reliability, authenticity or objectivity are projected, circulated and attributed in the journalistic field and the information ecology at large.

Public thoughts on incentivizing COVID-19 vaccine uptake in the United States: testing hostile media bias with user-generated comments.

Facebook is the most popular social media platform and often used by news organizations to distribute content to broad audiences. Features of this online news environment, especially user-generated comments shown to news consumers, have the potential to induce audience perceptions of hostile media bias. This study furthers investigation into the influence of exposure to Facebook comments and news topics on consumers. Using a sample of U.S. adult Facebook users (N = 1,274), this work utilized a 2 (likeminded comments or disagreeable comments) × 2 (story topic of requiring COVID-19 vaccines to receive a monetary bonus or maintain employment) between-subjects experimental design. While controlling for the influence of partisanship, this work further proves that features of the Facebook environment uniquely influence news audience perceptions of neutral news content. Specifically, findings indicate that news story topic can influence perceptions of bias. Further, topic and comment exposure interacted, demonstrating the intensity of story topic and likeminded comments enhance hostile media perceptions.

How Pandemic-related Misinformation Affect China after Zero-Covid

Since China abandoned its long-held zero-Covid policy and eased its Covid-19 restrictions in December 2022, much misinformation about Covid-19 treatment methods and precautions has been widely spread and fermented on various social media, seriously misleading the public and causing specific effects on society. Based on this, this study interviewed several people of different ages and occupations who experienced this period, learning about their personal experiences and feelings about pandemic-related misinformation. To explore how news audiences perceive and respond to misinformation in the specific context of the pandemic outbreak, some potential economic and social impacts brought by it, as well as attempt to provide some insights into the fight against misinformation in China and the world.

Tracking the Relationship Between Media Literacy and Political Participation Across Different Generations

Many scholars argue that media literacy is crucial for the development of citizenship and political engagement, especially in the digital environment. While a positive relationship between news consumption and political participation has long been established, we still lack sufficient knowledge on how media literacy influences political participation. Studies about the connection between media literacy and political engagement do not point to a clear relationship between the two. Most studies on media literacy and participation focus on young media users, overlooking generational differences in news consumption. Moreover, studies should also acknowledge the expanding repertoires of political participation in a digitally networked environment. This study uses a news media literacy (NML) scale and an extended political participation scale to analyse the relationship between media literacy and different dimensions of political participation, taking into account generational differences among news audiences. Data from the survey on media literacy is used, and regression analysis is used to assess the relationship between media literacy and political participation. The results are not unequivocally in line with the normative understanding of the relationship between media literacy and civic engagement. Although media literacy education programmes have a positive impact on some forms of political participation, there is no significant relationship between news media literacy and political participation. There is also a generational gap in news media literacy and political participation. The results call for further validation of the NML scale and research of inequalities in news media literacy.