News Companies Research Articles

New Funding Models in Journalism Are Emerging, but Major Leap Forward Is Lacking

This editorial introduces our thematic issue, titled <em>Examining New Models in Journalism Funding</em>, at a pivotal time. While news companies have attempted to build sustainable business models, we have not yet seen a major leap forward. As observed by the authors of this issue, digital reader revenue has become a prominent source of income for many publishers, but the bulk of them continue to rely on advertising and print subscriptions for money. Recently, Google and Facebook have become major funders of news and innovation in journalism. Some governments have also launched specific support programs. After providing some background context, we introduce the articles featured in the issue. We go on to argue that these articles signal a renewed interest in the business of journalism, which will help us better understand the ongoing financial crisis in the commercial news sector at a more granular level.

Do deepfake videos undermine our epistemic trust? A thematic analysis of tweets that discuss deepfakes in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Deepfakes are a form of multi-modal media generated using deep-learning technology. Many academics have expressed fears that deepfakes present a severe threat to the veracity of news and political communication, and an epistemic crisis for video evidence. These commentaries have often been hypothetical, with few real-world cases of deepfake's political and epistemological harm. The Russo-Ukrainian war presents the first real-life example of deepfakes being used in warfare, with a number of incidents involving deepfakes of Russian and Ukrainian government officials being used for misinformation and entertainment. This study uses a thematic analysis on tweets relating to deepfakes and the Russo-Ukrainian war to explore how people react to deepfake content online, and to uncover evidence of previously theorised harms of deepfakes on trust. We extracted 4869 relevant tweets using the Twitter API over the first seven months of 2022. We found that much of the misinformation in our dataset came from labelling real media as deepfakes. Novel findings about deepfake scepticism emerged, including a connection between deepfakes and conspiratorial beliefs that world leaders were dead and/or replaced by deepfakes. This research has numerous implications for future research, societal media platforms, news media and governments. The lack of deepfake literacy in our dataset led to significant misunderstandings of what constitutes a deepfake, showing the need to encourage literacy in these new forms of media. However, our evidence demonstrates that efforts to raise awareness around deepfakes may undermine trust in legitimate videos. Consequentially, news media and governmental agencies need to weigh the benefits of educational deepfakes and pre-bunking against the risks of undermining truth. Similarly, news companies and media should be careful in how they label suspected deepfakes in case they cause suspicion for real media.

“It was all about being ‘young,’ ‘cute,’ and ‘funny’”: how women journalists assess harassment and gender inequalities in Brazilian newsrooms

ABSTRACT The article aims to investigate how Brazilian women journalists assess harassment and gender inequalities in newsrooms. By considering an array of female professionals’ testimonials, we also examine to what extent such burdens in the workplace harm journalists’ private life and professional routines. Based on 31 semi-structured interviews, we found that the main grievances include unfair treatment regarding career opportunities, moral and sexual harassment, and the recurrent discrediting of complaints addressed to newsroom managers. According to the interviewees, the lack of support from coworkers and media organizations contributes to a culture of impunity characterizing the industry. In addition, although women comprise the majority of workers in Brazilian newsrooms, they often do not receive the same acknowledgment as male journalists for their performance. Our research provides two contributions to the scholarship by systematizing the complaints reported by female journalists. First, we discuss how to improve professional support mechanisms at the level of news companies. Second, we reflect on how harassment and gender inequalities in newsrooms jeopardize professionals’ democratic roles in hostile political environments.

Now Hiring Social Media Editors

ABSTRACT Social Media Editors (SME) are involved in digital news circulation, engagement with online audiences, and the analysis and circulation of audience data. This article extends research on SMEs to investigate how employers make sense of these positions and the roles they are required to perform within news organizations. To do so, we analyze job listings for SMEs posted by US news companies in combination with interviews with SMEs. Employers play a significant role in defining journalism as a profession, and job announcements are indicative of how managers envisage journalism roles. Our findings suggest that, although employers explicitly seek candidates with journalism backgrounds, the most common job requirements for SMEs are more closely aligned with marketing skills and tasks than traditional news work. Further, our interviews indicate ways in which SMEs are maneuvering to redefine their positions in ways that better meet their professional goals. SMEs are pushing to assume higher-level and more strategic roles by moving away from comment moderation and direct social media audience engagement. The boundaries of the SME position are thus under constant negotiation within the newsroom and between journalists and their employers.

Gender Stereotyping and News Reporting: A Case Study of China post-2021 Amendment of Female Laws

This paper examines gender stereotypes in Chinese news reporting in 2022, mainly through a sample analysis of rape and intimate partner violence (IPV) coverage by different news companies. It tries to find out the relationship between the legal changes of women's rights and the awareness of gender equality, since in 2021, the government improved women's law. Government news releases are relatively even-handed in crimes, without discrimination and demeaning of perpetrators, but other news companies are more likely to include more words that contribute to gender stereotypes. China still has a long way to go to eliminate gender stereotypes and further eliminate gender inequality.

Risks and Resilience in the Case of Brazilian Female Journalists: How Women Perceive Violence Against Media Professionals and Cope with its Effects

ABSTRACT The article examines how Brazilian women journalists claim gender-related issues influence the risks they experience in their professional routines and private life. Data was collected through 31 semi-structured interviews with female professionals who experienced episodes of violence during the course of their work between 2019 and 2020. Our investigation emphasizes (a) the connections between the political context and increasing hostility toward women journalists; (b) the impact of aggressions on production routines, family lifestyles, and emotional setbacks; and (c) how the lack of organizational support from news companies is associated with resilience and protection strategies. The results reveal that harassment and violence include physical threats and remarks about appearance, age, and sex life. Avoiding specific assignments or sources is among the journalists’ resistance strategies. Women journalists also describe implications on family routines and even dating practices to escape work-related abuse. Some interviewees claimed that news organizations are not prepared to support victims and that there is a government-sponsored “hate machine.” To extend beyond a descriptive account, the article discusses a set of factors characterizing the Brazilian media system that promote a thriving hostile environment, such as the male-led structure of news organizations and dependence on government funding.

온라인 젠더 혐오표현에 대한 빅데이터 분석

Current studies on online gender-based hate speech have focused on legal regulations and countermeasures. In this study, we analyzed, using a data mining technique, comments on news articles about gender issues published on web portals. Our analysis of articles published by various newspaper companies on Naver and Daum revealed that hate speech in comments was significantly higher for articles reporting on specific events related to gender issues than for general articles on gender issues. This trend is consistent for articles across all news companies, regardless of political orientation. However, web portals have the power to regulate gender-based hate speech on their sites. Daum operates a reporting system for discrimination and hate speech and has significantly fewer hate speech postings compared to Naver, which lacks such a system. This study empirically analyzed the changes in the quantity of gender-based hate speech and found that web portals, commonly classified as bystanders or gatekeepers, can play a functional role in reducing online gender-based hate speech.

Digital Platforms and Journalism in Australia: Analysing the Role of Competition Law

News media businesses compete with search engines and social media networks for advertising revenue but at the same time depend on the latter to reach and interact with audiences. The Digital Platforms Inquiry (DPI) completed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found that media businesses’ dependency on digital platforms gives companies like Google and Facebook substantial bargaining power over Australian news media businesses. This development over the past decade has caused negative repercussions for the choice and quality of news available to Australians. In response to thegse findings, Australia’s News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code 2021 extends the application of competition law into digital news and advertising markets. The reform is intended to address the impact of digital platforms on the commercial viability of Australian news companies. In this article, we assess the application of competition law to the relationship between news media and digital platforms, including the strength of the DPI findings and the appropriateness of the resulting reforms. We argue that after decades of deregulation of the media sector in Australia the News Media Bargaining Code is a hybrid legislation, which introduces news media industry regulations under the guise of competition law. While we see a continued role for competition law in digital platform markets, this article indicates the challenges posed by digital platforms on media pluralism and the limitations of a market-driven approach to news media policy. news media businesses, digital platforms, advertising, regulation, media policy, Australian competition law, market power, media pluralism, Digital Platforms Inquiry, News Media Bargaining Code

Two nations in three worlds? Images of the US and China in ethnic, homeland, and host media

This study investigates disparities in the portrayals of US and China images across ethnic media, homeland media, and host media that are serving the Chinese migrants in the United States. A quantitative content analysis of 156 news articles was conducted. Results reveal that ethnic media share more similarities with homeland media than with host media, which adds empirical explanations to ethnic and homeland media’s commonalities in retaining migrants’ ethnic identity. This also signals a pervasive impact of homeland news organizations on overseas ethnic media – although ethnic media are registered by US citizens or permanent citizens in America, they are actually owned or operated by Chinese news companies. As a result, ethnic media may have followed the same journalistic practices as their counterpart agencies from China. Implications of these findings for public opinion are also discussed.

The Rise of Social Journalism: An Explorative Case Study of a Youth-oriented Instagram News Account

ABSTRACT Social media have become indispensable tools for (legacy) news companies and brands to increase online traffic for their own platforms. A recent trend is the production and dissemination of native news content specifically for and through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. This paper uses a mixed methods research design to study the news production and content of @nws.nws.nws, a hugely popular Instagram channel targeting 13–17-year olds in Flanders (Belgium) which is maintained by the newsroom of VRT, the Flemish PSM. The explorative study highlights the differences in journalistic practice when producing news content for online platforms only and the changes it entails for traditional news values, dependency on social media platforms and media regulation.

No Such Thing as a TV News Company?

No Such Thing as a TV News Company?

How Twitter drives the global news agenda: Tweets from Brazil, Russia, India, China, the UK and US and online discourse about the 2016 US presidential election

A manual content analysis compares 6019 Twitter comments from six countries during the 2016 US presidential election. Twitter comments were positive about Trump and negative about Clinton in Russia, the US and also in India and China. In the UK and Brazil, Twitter comments were largely negative about both candidates. Twitter sources for Clinton comments were more frequently from journalists and news companies, and still more negative than positive in tone. Topics on Twitter varied from those in mainstream news media. This foundational study expands communications research on social media, as well as political communications and international distinctions.

Going Dark

Going Dark

Digital Intermediaries: More than New Actors on a Crowded Media Stage

Digitization, digital convergence and digitalization are well-known terms that have caused a huge impact on the media landscape in the last two decades. The embedded consequences of the increase of free information online or the lack of stable profits for media companies are present in the day-to-day practices of news companies. However, there is a lack of understanding of how the emergence of new players has modified the logic and rhythm of the media production chain. In this article, we try to identify a theoretical approach to analyze and classify the different roles and actors considered to be disrupting the media stage. Through a systematic literature review of more than 200 articles published in the last twenty years, we identify and define a term to better understand the nature of these new media players: digital intermediaries. Furthermore, we argue that there is a need for a clear taxonomy regarding digital intermediaries, paying special attention to the shifts in the news companies’ definition and delivery of value.

Meet Today’s Young News Users: An Exploration of How Young News Users Assess Which News Providers Are Worth Their While in Today’s High-Choice News Landscape

If news companies are to survive in today’s highly competitive media landscape, they need to stay worthwhile to news users. However, news companies’ quantitative audience analytics have difficulties grasping news users’ increasingly complex ways of finding and consuming news. This is especially the case for younger news users familiar with high-choice, digitized media formats. To better understand how these news users negotiate and assess news providers' worthwhileness, we conducted 20 qualitative in-depth interviews with young Danes. Our findings show that the participants distinguished between seven desired news services, and that they perceived news providers to be worthwhile if they could deliver the news services they desired for an appropriate level of personal effort. In this way, our findings suggest that an increased focus on specific desired news services can help news companies as well as scholars to more comprehensively understand the uses and preferences of younger news users. This study aims to go beyond the quantitative nature of many uses and gratifications studies, allowing for new categories to emerge – categories which, this study finds, play a very central role in how young news users navigate and assess news providers’ worthwhileness in today’s complex media landscape.

A trusted recommendation scheme for privacy protection based on federated learning

With the convergence of the era of global news and the era of big data, the daily amount of news sent to the world is exploding. Users also face the problem of information overloads when they get massive information, which leads to how cloud servers push personalized data to users among massive data have become the focus of news companies. In order to obtain the push accuracy, the traditional recommendation system often makes deep mining of users’ privacy data, which makes users’ privacy cannot be guaranteed. In order to solve the above problems, this paper proposes a collaborative filtering algorithm recommendation system based on federated learning on end-edge-cloud. The exposure of data privacy was further prevented by adding Laplace noise to the training model through differential privacy technology. Finally, the training model and recommendation information is stored to the blockchain network to provide permanent storage, evidence chain and real-time traceability services.On the premise of protecting data privacy, this system provides cloud server with solutions to alleviate computing pressure, bandwidth pressure and improve news push accuracy through end-edge-cloud distributed learning.

Companies adapting giving strategies due to COVID‐19

Nonprofit Business AdvisorVolume 2020, Issue 370 p. 12-12 News Companies adapting giving strategies due to COVID-19 First published: 15 June 2020 https://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30809Citations: 1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article.Citing Literature Volume2020, Issue370July 2020Pages 12-12 RelatedInformation

Are CEOs judged on their companies' social reputation?

How consequential is social reputation for a CEO's career? We find that the CEOs of those firms with greater strengths (controversies) on corporate social responsibilities (CSR) are more (less) likely to serve on external boards, and they hold more (fewer) outside directorships. CEOs lose board seats after the media expose their companies in negative environmental and social news. More nuanced analyses show that workplace diversity and supply-chain human rights are most consequential among the social and environmental dimensions of CSR. Our study demonstrates that CEOs are judged on their companies' social reputation in the director labor market. Our results also suggest that social reputation plays an important role in promoting CSR.

Protecting News Companies and Their Readers: Exploring Social Media Policies in Latin American Newsrooms

This study uses a survey of journalists from throughout Latin America (n = 1,094) to understand the relationship between policies (or lack thereof) and journalists’ work environments and editorial decisions. Results show most journalists work in newsrooms with no policy in place. Country, newsroom size, geographic scope, and revenue source all are significantly related to presence of a policy. Despite differences in organizational factors and country contexts, this study suggests newsrooms in Latin America mostly approach the use and regulation of social media in the same ways. Journalists’ descriptions of policies suggest they extend traditional practices and ethics to the social media realm, representing a missed opportunity as journalists lack the guidance they need to deal with the latest technological advancements. Journalists described outward-facing policies focused on protecting the news companies’ brands, readers, and sources, rather than protecting journalists.

Productify News Article Classification Model with Sagemaker

News companies have a need to automate and make the process of writing about popular and new events more effective. Current technologies involve robotic programs that fill in values in templates a ...