News Messages Research Articles

The credibility cocktail on Instagram: Assessing the impact of source, verification label and image manipulation on news message credibility

In the current disinformation era, where both people and generative AI systems can easily create content, concerns about the credibility of online content have come to the fore in public and policy debates. Audiences are faced with the challenge of determining which news messages are credible and which are not. It remains however unclear how audiences evaluate the credibility of social media posts. This study evaluates three key ingredients of the credibility cocktail on Instagram: the source, the presence of a verification label and the use of images. Using two between-subject designs (N = 963), participants were exposed to an Instagram message regarding climate change. The findings demonstrate that audiences primarily assess the credibility of messages based on the source, i.e. the person or organization sharing the information. Messages sent by both a news outlet and non-governmental organization are considered to be more credible than messages shared by dubious sources. Remarkably, a verification label next to this source has no impact. Hence, audiences do not trust so-called ‘blue check accounts’ more than accounts without a verification label. Moreover, AI-generated images are perceived as more credible than photoshopped ones.

The underlying mechanisms of the persuasiveness of different types of satirical news messages

ABSTRACT Research into the persuasiveness of satirical news has found mixed results. Two possible explanations lie in the lack of clarity about mechanisms underlying the influence of consuming different types of satirical content. In six experiments (Ntotal = 3,139), we investigated how (different types of) humorous versus nonhumorous (satirical) messages influenced recipients’ cognitive, emotional, and excitative responses and how these responses in turn influenced their attitudes. Results show that attitudes were influenced through recipients’ cognitive and emotional reactions to the stimuli but in opposite directions. This suppressed an overall effect on attitudes: Consuming humorous satirical messages led to more message-agreement because the messages were more humorous, and recipients felt less angry, while this consumption led to less message-agreement because the messages were discounted more, and recipients felt less worried. Our results highlight the importance of distinguishing between different types of satirical news content (humorous vs. nonhumorous) when studying satire’s persuasiveness.

News Literacy and Critical Thinking in the Pacific: Evidence from Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands

ABSTRACT This study analyzes data from surveys conducted in two Pacific Island communities—Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands—to assess relationships among news literacy, news literacy efficacy, critical thinking about content, and news credibility. Results, on the one hand, show that news literacy is positively associated with both critical thinking about content and news literacy efficacy. On the other hand, news literacy is negatively related to news credibility. Also, the positive association between news literacy and critical thinking about content is mediated by news literacy efficacy. Results support the role of news literacy in facilitating critical thinking about news messages across the two sociocultural settings. We discuss theoretical implications of findings.

Understanding the antecedents of Chinese people’s pro-environmental behavior: the role of self-construal and news attention

This study aims to extend the attitude-intention-behavior model by adding news attention and interdependent self-construal as antecedents to understand the pro-environmental behavior of Chinese people. Results of the structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis based on web survey data of 715 Chinese individuals show that interdependent self-construal significantly and positively affected individuals’ attention to environmental news messages on new media platforms. Such news attention then positively affected their attitude toward pro-environmental behavior. In turn, pro-environmental behavioral attitude positively affected their pro-environmental behavioral intention. Finally, individuals’ pro-environmental behavioral intention positively led to their actual pro-environmental behavior. Besides, the results demonstrated that interdependent self-construal also significantly and positively affects individuals’ intention of engaging in pro-environmental behavior, but little evidence was found to support the significant association between interdependent self-construal and pro-environmental attitude. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

AI GENERATIVE CHATBOT IN THE MEDIA: JOURNALISTIC COVERAGE OF CHATGPT IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

In diffusion research, journalistic coverage is acknowledged as a significant factor in spreading awareness and fostering knowledge about innovation, potentially accelerating or impeding the adoption process. With regards to AI-related innovations, this dynamic has largely been studied within the context of Western developed countries. There is far less understanding of how this process unfolds in the news ecosystem of post-communist countries, particularly those with lower democratic standards and weaker economic development, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the intention of gaining preliminary insights, this study investigated how the journalistic organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina covered the emergence and societal adoption of ChatGPT, a novel form of generative AI, during the initial six-month period following its widespread availability. The content analysis of relevant news messages (N=542) published by 40 legacy and digital- only news outlets was used to explore the key characteristics of journalistic coverage, the attention given to the issue over time and the media depictions of this innovative AI technology. Results indicate that a small group of news outlets, predominantly legacy news organizations, provided significantly more content on ChatGPT than others, particularly public broadcasting services. Findings highlight a tendency among news outlets to focus on either the risks or benefits of ChatGPT and similar AI-based products and amplify sources associated with the business sector and high-tech industry, overrepresented by male voices.

Прагматический потенциал рекуррентной лексики в текстах СМИ (на материале новостных сообщений немецкоязычных СМИ о России)

The aim of the research is to describe the pragmatic functions of recurrent vocabulary in media texts of a certain thematic orientation, assessing the possibility of its use as a means of influencing the mass consciousness. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the use of recurrent lexical units in media discourse is considered for the first time from the standpoint of pragmalinguistics as an effective means of manipulating the consciousness of information recipients and forming the linguocognitive space in accordance with the pragmatic interests of the senders of messages. Through the lexical units regularly used and circulated in news messages, there is both an actualization of the social significance of the events, phenomena or concepts designated by them and an imposition of the attitudes and judgments needed by the senders of the texts on the recipients of the messages. As a result of the research, it has been found that the vocabulary of a connotative type recurrently used by German-language media in the news texts about Russia in recent years has a predominantly negative connotation and can act as a linguistic means of influencing the consciousness of German-speaking recipients of the news messages and modeling the linguocognitive space of the news discourse on this topic.

Job titles as a means of constructing personal authority

The article deals with the nominative component of constructing personal authority. The nominative component consists of three parts: the name itself, the job title, and its characteristic. As a result of the analysis of news texts published in popular Russian-language media’s Telegram channels, it has been proven that the most common subjects’ nominations in news discourse are those that contain a job title or its equivalent. The main types of nominations with a job title are described: a job title + a name, a job title without a name, a job title + a name + its characteristic, and cases of anonymous subjects’ nominations with a job title. Nominations containing a name and a job title without its characteristic account for over 90 % of the identified cases of use; they are also the most variable. Types of nominations are analysed with attention to possible configurations of its components and a news message authors’ pragmatic goal. The discussion segment outlines promising directions for further study of the scientific problem.

Exemplification in news narratives: stigmatizing and securitizing effects

Exemplification, the use of emotionally evocative messages to elicit a response based on impression formation, are frequently present in news messages. The present study examined the use of positive vs. negative exemplars in news stories to determine the role of stigmatization and securitization in these messages and whether this impacts perceptions of the importance and quality of news. This study tested exemplification's effects using three conditions: positive, negative, and non-exemplar news stories—two valences of exemplification and a control condition. Results indicate that as stigmatized impressions increase, securitization decreases, valence of exemplification predicts perceptions on the quality of news, and valence of exemplification predicts perceptions on the general interest of the issues. Implications suggest news message creators should consider positive exemplars in place of negative exemplars to minimize unintended negative effects.

To vote or not to vote? Fake news, voter fraud, and support for postponing the 2020 U.S. presidential election

AbstractPrior to the 2020 election President Trump suggested the election should be postponed “until the country can make sure that only eligible American citizens can vote.” With the COVID‐19 pandemic leading many states to take steps that made it easier for citizens to vote safely, the president and his allies made numerous false claims about voter fraud; others argued that voter fraud is not common and is unlikely to appreciably increase with greater reliance on mail balloting. We rely on a national Internet‐based survey experiment conducted prior to the 2020 election to assess the effectiveness of both messages on citizens' support for a hypothetical proposal to postpone the presidential election. The results suggest that respondents were more likely to support postponement if they received a fake news message that fraud is common. The results also suggest that these effects are conditional; both political party and knowledge moderate the relationship.Related ArticlesAguado, N. Alexander. 2022. “When Charismatic Leadership Trumps Social Networking: Searching for the Effects of Social Media on Beliefs of Electoral Legitimacy.” Politics & Policy 50(5): 942–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12494.Fisher, Patrick. 2020. “Generational Replacement and the Impending Transformation of the American Electorate.” Politics & Policy 48(1): 38–68. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12340.Stockemer, Daniel. 2013. “Corruption and Turnout in Presidential Elections: A Macro‐Level Quantitative Analysis.” Politics & Policy 41(2): 189–212. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12012.

Formation of a Network of Events From News Messages Based on Generative Artificial Intelligence

Formation of a Network of Events From News Messages Based on Generative Artificial Intelligence

Semiotic approach of strategic narrative: the news discourse of Russia’s coronavirus aid to Italy

Abstract Crucial components of strategic communication include the audience, which plays a decisive role in how any conflict plays out. Strategic narratives are seen as means by which political actors attempt to construct a shared meaning of international politics to shape the behaviour of domestic and international actors. The article analyzes the news discourse of the Russian media sources RT, Pervyj Kanal, and NTV on Russia’s coronavirus aid to Italy in spring 2020. In the context of media coverage, some methodological questions arise: How should the intentional structuring of narratives, targeting of audiences, and the manipulative intentions of the strategic actor be studied? For this purpose, the article combines strategic narrative theory with Umberto Eco’s concepts of the Model Reader and the Model Author. Analysing the aims and intentionality of the strategic narratives, we postulate the Model Reader as an analytical category that organizes the study of the audience’s interpretation process. The function of the Model Reader is to actualize the codes and intertextual references that the author has strategically planned in the news message, in order to achieve the geopolitical aims of the strategic narratives in question. The analysis of constructing the Model Reader and the Model Author of strategic narratives is complemented by Greimas’ semiotic theory of the narrative and the composition principles of Lotman’s discrete/non-discrete texts.

A Study of Communication Miscarriage in News Translations

Translation of messages from one language to another has been a daunting task to translators. There has been observed problems in communicating messages through translation especially from English to Hausa on the broadcast media in Sokoto, Nigeria where the electronic media (radio and television) mostly use the two languages to transmit messages to diverse audiences. Such audiences rely heavily on the translated news messages to respond to certain issues contained in the messages. The aim of this paper is to study some English-Hausa news translations on the Rima Radio Sokoto medium. The objectives are to: determine whether or not there is communication miscarriage in news translation in the radio medium, examine the nature of the translation in the medium, and determine how translation errors if any, can be addressed. Qualitative research method was employed via identification, description and interpretation of ten (10) extracts of news translation from English into Hausa, which form the data for the study. Among the findings of the study were that: there were numerous errors in the translation as identified in the data analysed and that, the errors identified were those of misrepresentation of forms, poor vocabulary and use of direct translation method where it was inappropriate. From the findings, it was recommended that the errors of communication miscarriage can be addressed through training and retraining of translators. It can therefore, be concluded that application of various theoretical concepts to the study of translation appears relevant in assessing translation as well as in carrying out better translation of messages to avoid communication miscarriage.

Disentangling the effects of message content and message sharer on students' views of political misinformation.

A consistent finding in fake news research is that people are more likely to believe content in favor of their political views. Unclear, however, is whether this political bias is moderated by contextual effects, such as politicians sharing content on their social media accounts. The present study investigated how both message content and sharer affect views of political misinformation. Participants (N = 164) evaluated eight news messages. Message content (pro-left/pro-right misinformation) and sharer (left-wing/right-wing/unknown politician) were manipulated within subjects. As expected, participants agreed more with concordant misinformation (aligned with their political orientation) and perceived it as more accurate than discordant misinformation. There was an additional, smaller effect of politician: Participants agreed more with discordant misinformation when shared by a politician representing their political viewpoint than when shared by others. Furthermore, left-oriented participants' agreement with concordant misinformation was hardly affected by message sharer, whereas right-oriented participants' agreement with concordant misinformation was-unexpectedly-positively affected by the left-wing politician. Irrespective of their political orientation, participants perceived misinformation from the left-wing politician as more accurate than misinformation from other politicians. Our findings suggest that both message content and sharer affect views of misinformation and interact in doing so, which is important for designing interventions on recognizing misinformation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Analisis Konten Aktivitas Corporate Social Responsibility Kampanye Goals pada Website MNC Peduli

This research was conducted to find out the message of the Goal Campaign's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities in the form of news published by the MNC Group through the MNC Peduli website. In this study, we analyze news message categories, news message content approaches, and CSR news message values. This research was carried out using qualitative methods and content analysis. The findings from this research are that the message categories used by companies in making CSR news messages are hard news and features. The content approach used in creating MNC Peduli's CSR news messages is a social and spiritual approach. MNC Peduli's CSR news message values have fulfilled the five elements of message values. The conclusion of this study is that MNC Group, through MNC Peduli, publishes messages on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) campaign goals in the form of published news quite optimally by using categories, content approaches, and values that are in line with stakeholder.

“Diplomacy of Heads of State”: Chinese Media about Xi Jinping’s Visit to Russia in March 2023

The visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China to the Russian Federation attracted a lot of attention from the Chinese media, which was manifested in a large number of publications on this topic in the media and social networks. The purpose of the study was to analyze news reports and messages on the Weibo social network about the state visit of the President of the People’s Republic of China to the Russian Federation and determine its role in strengthening bilateral relations between China and Russia. For the first time, the main principles of China’s foreign diplomacy, implemented in a particular state visit, were considered by the example of how they were perceived by public opinion. A content analysis of news reports from mainstream Chinese media showed that this diplomatic move is highly appreciated. The authors of the publications noted the high significance and effectiveness of this visit. A statistical analysis of publications on the Weibo social network showed that public opinion also generally assesses Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia positively, paying attention to the content side of Russian-Chinese relations. In general, strengthening and deepening the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Russia in the new era is a strategic choice made by countries based on the domestic political and domestic economic situation, which is in line with the fundamental interests of the peoples of the two countries and the development trend of international relations. The results of the study showed that China has always pursued an independent foreign policy, and promoting the development of Russian-Chinese relations at a high level is a strategic choice made by China, taking into account its internal development and overall diplomatic strategy.

Employing face reading technology to study the effects of the fake news' message sidedness on consumers' emotional valence and arousal

PurposeThis study aims to investigate how message sidedness affects the impact of fake news posted on social media on consumers' emotional responses.Design/methodology/approachThe study involves a face-tracking experiment in which 198 participants were exposed to different fake news messages concerning the COVID-19 vaccine. Specifically, participants were exposed to fake news using (1) a one-sided negative fake news message in which the message was entirely unfavorable and (2) a two-sided fake news message in which the negative message was mixed with favorable information. Noldus FaceReader 7, an automatic facial expression recognition system, was used to recognize participants' emotions as they read fake news. The authors sampled 17,450 observations of participants' emotional responses.FindingsThe results provide evidence of the significant influence of message sidedness on consumers' emotional valence and arousal. Specifically, two-sided fake news positively influences emotional valence, while one-sided fake news positively influences emotional arousal.Originality/valueThe current study demonstrates that research on fake news posted on social media may particularly benefit from insights regarding the potential but often overlooked importance of strategic design choices in fake news messages and their impact on consumers' emotional responses.

Infodemic in the era of the pandemic

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has not only brought considerable challenges to public health, but also diffusions of fake news on social media platforms, taking on the moniker of “infodemic”. To have a better understanding of the infodemic, this research takes 580 pandemic-related fake news stories from two Taiwanese fact-checking platforms and 180,000 real news articles from four major newspapers in Taiwan spanning from January 2020 to August 2021. The paper presents lexical usages and discourses of fake news from the perspective of corpus-assisted discourse study. Keyword comparison and collocational network analysis are adopted as the major analytic framework to identify keyness keywords and to uncover the discourses embedded in COVID-19 fake news. Results suggest that pandemic-related fake news tend to emphasize the themes of virus, vaccine, and immunity regarding the content keywords. Personal pronouns that differentiate us and them, conjunctions used to construct causal explanations, time-frames that denote a confirmed social fact in false stories are also prominent lexical usages in COVID-19 fake news. Notably, verbs related to promoting action and expressions of polite requests are often fabricated in fake news messages. Collocational network reveals five main themes in pandemic-related fake news: virus, vaccine and vaccination, symptom, food and drink, caution and warning and mask wearing. This paper concludes that more than simply differentiating between true and false, fake news involve miscellaneous discursive constructions of existing political, social, and cultural dimensions within alternative and unverified reality.

Short but Critical?: How “Fake News” and “Anti-Elitist” Media Attacks Undermine Perceived Message Credibility on Social Media

Citizens increasingly turn to social media for information, where they often rely on cues to judge the credibility of news messages. In these environments, populist politicians use “fake news” and “anti-elitist” attacks to undermine the credibility of news messages. This article argues that to truly understand the impact of these criticism cues, one must simultaneously consider additional contextual cues as well as individual-level moderators. In a factorial survey, we exposed 715 respondents to tweets by a politician retweeting and discrediting a news message of which topic and source varied. We find that both the fake news cue and the anti-elitist cue have limited across-the-board effects but decrease credibility if the message is incongruent with voters’ issue positions. Our results thus offer a more optimistic view on the power of populist media criticism cues and suggest that source and confirmation heuristics are (still) stronger influences on citizens’ credibility evaluations.

Local Television News on Instagram: Exploring the Effects of News Values and Post Features on Audience Engagement

ABSTRACT This study investigates the effects of Instagram news values and post features on audience engagement by sampling 2,100 news posts distributed by 12 U.S. local television stations’ Instagram accounts. The content analysis results indicate that various news topics, message vividness and interactivity, post time, captions, and length significantly impact Instagram engagement rate by followers. The research further discusses managerial, practical implications for local broadcasters and digital publishers to optimize their Instagram content and enhance audience engagement.

“Fake News” in Social Networks: Media Practices of Students

With the expansion of the space of online communications and the growth of their social significance, it seems relevant to study the attitude to fake publications, which not only distort the facts, but also generate negative consequences in relation to various aspects of activity. In this regard, theoretical and practical relevance is gained by the study of possibilities to counter fakes, forming, first of all, the ability to identify false information and distinguish it in the flow of news messages among young people as the main consumer of social networking content. The goal of this article is to present the results of an empirical study of the media practices of student audience of Smolensk and their attitude to fake news in social networks. In the course of the study it was determined that the media consumption practices of the regional student audience correspond to national trends: preference of Internet resources, and among them — social networks as sources of news information. At the same time, the goals of using social networks and thematic preferences of students are related not only to the current media agenda, but also to involvement in the educational process and leisure activities, which also reflects the all-Russian characteristics of the media behavior of young people. The study revealed an ambiguous role of online comments in the process of fact-checking a news publication and forming an opinion about the credibility of the news publication. We found that despite a proper understanding of the essential features of fake news and the consequences of its replication in the media, the behavioral impact of fake news was stronger than the impact of real news. The study also revealed that the majority of the regional student audience of social networks demonstrates susceptibility to fake news and has difficulty recognizing it.