Online News Articles Research Articles

Cabecitas Blancas: settler colonialism, racial capitalism and the (im)mobility of borders for Yucatecan migrant families

In this paper, I analyse the intersection of settler colonialism, racial capitalism and border violence by examining Cabecitas Blancas a project run by the Yucatecan government to reunite families divided by the US-Mexican border. A unique program in Mexico, Cabecitas Blancas helps elders who have not seen their children living in the United States for at least 10 years, due to their children’s precarious immigration status, reunite for a short period of time. I have developed the term tramitología to show the way the settler colonial state monitors and restrict Indigenous mobility by designating who is “worthy” of government support. I demonstrate how the flow of mostly Maya elders via Cabecitas Blancas between borders is facilitated only because they become state commodities that sustain racial capitalism via tourism and multicultural policies. Ultimately, I argue that reform programs such as Cabecitas Blancas enable and (re)produce exploitation, settler colonialism and border violence. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with government officials as well as YouTube videos and online news articles depicting different stages of the program.

Media representation of recovery colleges in Australia: a content analysis

ABSTRACT Background: Recovery Colleges (RCs) are educational hubs that offer a distinct approach to mental health and wellbeing, fostering inclusive learning opportunities. This study aimed to investigate Australian media representations of RCs and discusses how these representations may influence overall community awareness and acceptance of RCs. Methods: Australian online and print news articles on RCs were identified using key words and extracted from two databases: (i) Google News and (ii) Factiva. Content analysis was used to summarise key characteristics of media articles and framing theory informed the identification of news frames. Results: Twenty–three news articles were included. Most were published in local or regional news outlets. Mental health was mentioned in most articles (n = 22), with the majority contextualising RCs as an alternative approach to mental health and recovery through education and participation. The sentiment in the articles was positive, however deficit language was still evident. Human interest and responsibility framing was common. Conclusion: Media coverage highlighted a role for RCs in promoting mental wellbeing through education and participation. However, key elements of their functioning, such as co–production or the role of people with lived experience were less visible. Greater engagement with media outlets to increase awareness and understanding of the individual and community benefits of RCs are needed.

Exploring the effects of location information on perceptions of news credibility and sharing intention

In recent years, the integration of location-based services into social media platforms has seen a significant surge, coinciding with the growing challenges posed by the proliferation of fake news online. However, the influence of location data on readers’ perceptions of online news credibility, particularly in relation to the reporters’ whereabouts, remains unclear. To investigate this relationship, we conducted a 3 (Topics: crime, science, health) × 2 (Location anchor: event-anchored or participant-anchored) × 4 (Proximity to location anchor - no, same, close-by or faraway location) mixed-method online study (N = 288) on Prolific. Our data collection involved presenting participants with news articles and assessing their credibility assessments and sharing intentions based on the proximity of those disseminating the news to both the subject matter of the news and the audience consuming it. Our findings reveal that the proximity of the reporter’s location to the readers’ location had a noticeable adverse impact on perceptions of news credibility and the likelihood of sharing it. Furthermore, we also identified a weak positive correlation between sharing intentions and trust in social media platforms. In addition, we observed that crime news were generally perceived as less credible compared to health and science news. Our research contributes significantly to a nuanced understanding of how location-based cues impact user behaviour when interacting with online news articles. Furthermore, it provides design insights for social media platforms aiming to enhance user trust and promote pro-social behaviours.

Negative online news articles are shared more to social media

Prior research demonstrates that news-related social media posts using negative language are re-posted more, rewarding users who produce negative content. We investigate whether negative material from external news sites is also introduced to social media through more user posts, offering comparable incentives for journalists to adopt a negative tone. Data from four US and UK news sites (95,282 articles) and two social media platforms (579,182,075 posts on Facebook and Twitter, now X) show social media users are 1.91 times more likely to share links to negative news articles. The impact of negativity varies by news site and social media platform and, for political articles, is moderated by topic focus, with users showing a greater inclination to share negative articles referring to opposing political groups. Additionally, negativity amplifies news dissemination on social media to a greater extent when accounting for the re-sharing of user posts containing article links. These findings suggest a higher prevalence of negatively toned articles on Facebook and Twitter compared to online news sites. Further, should journalists respond to the incentives created by the heightened sharing of negative articles to social media platforms, this could even increase negative news exposure for those who do not use social media.

First field in the Croatian coat of arms: (re)constructing the contested symbol in online news

The sphere of new media, particularly in European post-socialist societies, often reflects controversies around the meanings of symbols related to the past. This paper analysed controversy in online news caused by the photo in which an unofficial Croatian coat of arms with a white upper left square was publicly presented. This symbol is sometimes seen as problematic since it was, besides other historical contexts, used by the Ustashe, a political movement that established the Nazi-collaborator regime during the Second World War. A qualitative analysis of 195 online news articles revealed that two general meanings are presented to the audiences. The first meaning emphasizes its totalitarian nature, while the other presents it as complex because of its multiple historical uses. Subsequent quantitative analysis of 180 articles compared four groups of online news and established differences regarding the dominant meanings of the symbol that are presented to the audiences. Croatian media predominantly present it as complex/historical. Serbian and Bosnian and Herzegovinian media present it as Ustashe, while global/other news almost fully present it as (pro)Nazi. The differences are also established with regard to content diversity and Croatian media exhibit much greater diversity in the presentation of the symbol compared to the other three groups.

The power of stigma: telling the story of the exclusion of Porn Pedallers Cycling Club from British Cycling

ABSTRACT In 2019, Porn Pedallers Cycling Club (PPCC), an organization for adult industry workers who enjoy social and competitive cycling, had its affiliation revoked by UK cycling organization British Cycling due to its links with pornography. The removal of this privilege resulted in considerable media attention in the cycling, mainstream, and adult media. This article explores how British Cycling was able to effectively shut down the debate as to whether the PPCC should be allowed to affiliate through its positioning of both parties. Through critical discourse analysis of online news articles, the article demonstrates how the British media used images and language to stigmatize the PPCC, making constructive debate unfeasible. The authors of this article are public relations scholars and through the analysis of this fast-moving story suggest ways that small or independent organizations in the adult industry might react when in conflict with corporate entities.

Examining the merits of feature-specific similarity functions in the news domain using human judgments

Online news article recommendations are typically of the ‘more like this’ type, generated by similarity functions. Across three studies, we examined the representativeness of different similarity functions for news item retrieval, by comparing them to human judgments of similarity. In Study 1 (N=401\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N=401$$\\end{document}), participants assessed the overall similarity of ten randomly paired news articles on politics and compared their judgments to different feature-specific similarity functions (e.g., based on body text or images). In Study 2, we checked for domain differences in a mixed-methods survey (N=45\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N=45$$\\end{document}), surfacing evidence that the effectiveness of similarity functions differs across different news categories (‘Recent Events’, ‘Sport’). In Study 3 (N=173\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$N=173$$\\end{document}), we improved the design of Study 1, by controlling for how news articles were matched, differentiating between dissimilar news articles and articles that were matched on a shared topic, named entities, and/or date of publication, across ‘Recent Events’ and ‘Sport’ categories. Across all studies, we found that users mostly used text-based features (e.g., body text, title) for their similarity judgments, while BodyText:TF-IDF was found to be the most representative for their judgments. Moreover, the strength of similarity judgments by humans and similarity scores by feature-specific functions was strongly affected by how news article pairs were matched. We show that humans and similarity functions are better aligned when two news articles are more alike, such as in a news recommendation scenario.

Vascular surgeons widely underrepresented in online news regarding vascular pathologies

BackgroundVascular surgeons have traditionally been under-represented in various media platforms. Our study aims to characterize vascular surgeon involvement in online news coverage as it relates to vascular pathologies. MethodsGoogle news was queried for news articles published between July 31, 2022, and August 1, 2023, using 11 keywords (“carotid stenosis,” “carotid artery disease,” “dialysis fistula,” “abdominal aortic aneurysm,” “aortic dissection,” “varicose vein,” “deep vein thrombosis,” “peripheral vascular disease,” “peripheral arterial disease,” “limb ischemia,” and “claudication). Unrelated articles and medical press under a paywall were excluded. Article and represented physician demographic information were collected. Representation was defined as being the author, interviewed, or involved in the review process of the news article. ResultsOne thousand six hundred forty-eight news articles were screened yielding 1257 articles (76%) for analysis. Seven hundred eighty-four (62%) were classified as medical press and 473 (38%) as lay press. Four hundred fifty-seven (36%) news articles had medical professional representation. Vascular surgeons were represented in 186 news articles (14.8%) and medicine doctors in 346 news articles (27.5%). Articles regarding abdominal aortic aneurysm had the highest vascular surgeon representation (28.9%). The most common vascular surgeon involvement type was as an interviewee (67.2%). Most articles represented vascular surgeons from academic centers (80.6%), with varicose vein having the highest private practice representation (37%). Female vascular surgeons were represented in 18.3% of articles, which was proportionate to their workforce representation. ConclusionsVascular surgeons are widely under-represented in online news articles regarding common vascular pathologies. Vascular surgeons should focus more efforts on promoting their expertise in news regarding peripheral disease and dialysis.

Sentiment and attitudes toward offsetting and the biodiversity market in online media articles.

Biodiversity offsetting, a conservation approach to offset loss of habitat and ecosystem services, has been widely accepted and implemented in different legislative frameworks around the globe. I assigned sentiment scores (from -3 [very negative] to +3 [very positive]) to online news articles to examine public sentiment toward offsetting. I identified 86 pertinent articles published from 2013 to 2023 by web scraping online media outlets through keywords. I examined article content based on topics commonly associated in scientific literature with offsetting, such as risks or financial aspects. Most articles were from Australia (44%), 16% were from the United Kingdom, and 5% were from Colombia and Madagascar. Three distinct groups covered finances (n=47), species, and social impacts of offsetting (n = 23) and offsetting frameworks (n=16). Articles covering monetary and finance aspects had a lower predicted sentiment score (-0.72, 95% CI -0.98 to -0.47) than articles that covered new, alternative offsetting forms (-0.15, 95% CI -0.46 to 0.17), such as mitigation banking and credits. In articles focused on charismatic species and loss of livelihood, offsetting risk and social issues were associated with low sentiment scores (<-0.85). Sentiment scores were high for articles on offsetting at a multicountry or global scale (0.47, 95% CI -0.06 to 0.99), and scores were the lowest in Australia (-1.03, 95% CI -1.36 to -0.70). Public sentiment based on media articles was generally negative toward offsetting, and many of the ecological and methodological issues and risks were reflected in the articles, but mitigation measures as a prerequisite to offsetting were mentioned in only 18% of all articles. With the seemingly high public interest in conservation and hence offsetting, it will be imperative to expand the current breadth of information about offsetting that is being communicated or made available to the public.

Understanding news-related user comments and their effects: a systematic review

There has been growing interest in research on news-related user comments. Here we conduct the first systematic review of this literature—quantitatively and qualitatively (248 studies)—that covers the entire communication process (content analyses, surveys, experiments). Results indicate a focus on online news articles (vs videos) and little consideration for major social media platforms (Instagram, TikTok). Research often assesses incivility in comments but offers conflicting conclusions on the actual level of incivility in comment threads—and seldom considers how to effectively combat any incivility. We propose four priorities for future work: more comparative and longitudinal approaches; exploring social media and video content; examining platform design, content moderation and artificial intelligence; and implementing measures to reduce incivility and protect the integrity of journalism.

Media representations of nuclear threats during the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Research objective: This article continues the scholarly tradition of uncovering the rhetorical practices that influence audiences’ perceptions, beliefs, and behaviours towards nuclear actors and issues and examines how the Romanian mass media reports on nuclear threats against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: This article conducts a detailed examination of how media coverage of nuclear-related topics influences public perceptions, generating a feeling of urgency and potentially leading to mass panic and hysteria. The study employed a quantitative methodology, conducting content analysis on a selection of 190 online news articles from the primary Romanian press agencies (Mediafax and Agerpress) published between February 24, 2022, and February 24, 2023. Employing an inductive approach, our analysis was guided by frames identified during the examination of the sample material. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: Nuclear threats and other related issues were frequently reported in the media in the post-World War 2 period. Given the history of media coverage of this topic, it is perhaps not surprising that a return to reporting nuclear threats has dominated the media discourse since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. RESEARCH RESULTS: The results of our study reveal two main frames used to report issues related to nuclear threats during the war in Ukraine: a historical reference frame and a forward-looking frame. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: This study introduces a fresh research direction for potential investigations into the origins and progression of nuclear threats as a unique area of focus in the analysis of Eastern European media reporting during times of conflict.

Implementation of Community Development and Empowerment Programs in Samarinda City: An Analysis of Online News Articles

This paper seeks to explore how online news media frame the achievement of the implementation of the community development and empowerment program (Pro Bebaya) in Samarinda City. This research investigates the success factors, obstacles, and challenges in implementing Pro Bebaya. This research aims to evaluate the implementation of the Pro Bebaya policy and assist the government, local parliament (DPRD), and the community in planning future policy programs. This research uses an inductive methodology to conduct content and qualitative narrative analysis of news stories published between January 2022 and February 2023. The dataset consists of articles from eleven leading online news sites in Indonesia. Qualitative content analysis shows that the news media Antaranews, Infosatu, Kaltimminutes, and Timeskaltim do much reporting on the achievement of the implementation of Pro Bebaya. Other success factors' findings include involvement and coordination with stakeholders, a control system, socialization by the government to the community, information sharing, tangible changes in infrastructure, and increasingly developed apparatus knowledge. Then, these factors led to the smooth implementation of program activities. Further but insignificant are the barriers and challenges, such as the lack of community involvement and knowledge in program implementation and budget constraints. Our findings support the argument that implementing government decisions or policies is based on actual action practices.

Representation of Victim and Perpetrator in Adelina Lisao’s Abuse Case in Malaysian Online News Articles

This research analyses the representation of victim and perpetrator as social actors and its argumentation strategies from Malaysian online news articles surrounding the tragic case of Adelina Lisao, an Indonesian domestic worker who lost her life in Malaysia due to abuse by her employer. Employing a qualitative research approach, the data is systematically collected with keywords to identify relevant news articles pertinent to the case: "Adelina Lisao” and “Ambika Shan”. This research utilises the Social Actor’s Network (SAN) and the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework, specifically the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA), to examine 39 online news articles about the case from the most popular Malaysian news website in 2023, Malaysiakini. The findings revealed that Adelina Lisao was mostly represented as a passive receiver of the abuse, while Ambika Shan’s role as a perpetrator was mostly backgrounded. The findings contribute to a better understanding of how social actors are portrayed on online websites and the argumentation strategies within the context of domestic worker abuse cases in Malaysia. Thus, it acknowledges the importance of language in online news discourse in shaping public perceptions, particularly regarding domestic workers in Malaysia as evidenced by the representation of victim-perpetrator dynamics in such cases.

Dynamics of COVID-19 blame attribution: A corpus-based analysis of readers’ comments in response to UK online news

This study adopts a longitudinal approach to analyse the attribution of blame in online comments for the emergence, continuation and consequences of COVID-19. It uses an innovative approach to distil a specialised corpus of readers’ comments in response to UK online news articles about COVID-19, before applying corpus linguistic techniques to identify the principal actors attributed as blame agents. The research found that both internal (the government and the prime minister) and external actors (China and the World Health Organization) were identified as blame agents in comments. The analysis also indicates the presence of blame attribution towards people, their own actions and behaviours, which, in part, may be a consequence of government and public health messaging that emphasised individual responsibility to reduce transmission of the virus. This is distinctive, with significance for public understanding of COVID-19 and for future pandemic communication planning.

IMPOLITENESS IN ONLINE DISCOURSE: ANALYSIS OF READER COMMENTS ON SERBIAN NEWS SITE

Online discourse represents an important part of human communication. When ex- pressing their opinions in an online environment, people are empowered to be more direct, often without considering other people’s face. In certain situations, they may even be offensive or impolite. The focus of this study is the manifestation of impoliteness in reader comments on Serbian news sites. The study adopts Bousfield’s (2008) extended framework of Culpeper’s model of impoliteness strategies (1996, 2005) in order to examine and classify different manifestations of impoliteness. It relies on the analysis of a small specialized corpus which consists of the data collected from reader comments on Serbian online news articles related to Novak Đoković being denied entry into Australia in January 2022 due to the men’s number one tennis player not being vaccinated, which was one of the most vigorously debated topics in both mass media and social media in Serbia amid the coronavirus pandemic. The data were analyzed qualitatively. This study reflects how Serbian language users engage in impolite communicative behavior by identifying the most common impoliteness strategies, as well as their functions, and indicating distinctive features of Serbian impolite online discourse.

The commenters’ reading positions in an online news article’s comment column: A speech act analysis on media discourse

The commenters’ reading positions in an online news article’s comment column: A speech act analysis on media discourse

TEXT CLASSIFICATION USING ADAPTIVE BOOSTING ALGORITHM WITH OPTIMIZATION OF PARAMETERS TUNING ON CABLE NEWS NETWORK (CNN) ARTICLES

The development of the era encourages advances in communication and information technology. This resulted in the exchange of information being faster because it is connected to the internet. One platform that provides online news articles is Cabel News Network (CNN), which has been broadcasting news on its website since 1995. The number of Cabel News Network news articles continues to increase, so news articles are categorized to make it easier for readers to find articles according to the category they want. Classification is a technique for determining the class of an object based on its characteristics, where the class label is known beforehand. One of the algorithms for classification is adaptive boosting (AdaBoost). The AdaBoost algorithm performs classification by building several weighted decision trees (stumps), then the class determination is based on the number of stumps with the highest weight. The AdaBoost algorithm can be combined with parameter tuning to avoid overfitting or underfitting resulting from a weak set of stumps. Therefore, this study implements the AdaBoost algorithm with parameter tuning on CNN news article classification. The data used in this study is CNN news article data from 2011 to 2022 sourced from the Kaggle page. The data is categorized into six classes, namely business, entertainment, health, news, politics, and sports. This study uses two evaluation metrics, namely the accuracy value and the confusion matrix to measure the performance of the AdaBoost algorithm. The accuracy value obtained is 0,78763, the precision value is 0.91, the recall value is 0.85, and the F1 score value is 0.88.

Discursive and photographic representations of migrants in the media: the case of Ceuta and Melilla

ABSTRACT The Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla have long been sites of undocumented migration to Spain. Owing to both anti-immigration attitudes often perpetuated in political discourse and the challenges involved in blocking migration in cities that are geographically separated from Spain’s mainland, this migratory context has been heavily debated in Spain. However, it is critical to examine attitudes towards migrant populations of different legal statuses, and particularly essential to look at widely disseminated discourse such as mass media, which has the power to be impactful in shaping popular opinions. In this study, I analyse such discourse, and examine how migrants are represented in Spanish media. Using critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 2003) and media framing (Littlejohn, Foss, and Oetzel [2021]. “The Medium.” In Theories of Human Communication, 151–154. Waveland Press), this study looks at 100 online news articles published over a 10-year period (2013–2022). Findings indicate that news outlets use both text and photos to dehumanise and criminalise migrant populations.

The polarizing content warning: how the media can reduce affective polarization

Abstract Past research suggests that journalists can (unintentionally) exacerbate affective polarization when reporting on growing levels of polarization in society. However, is there a way for journalists to report on the realities of growing political polarization without dividing people further? In our research with five pre-registered experimental studies (N = 3,414), we develop the polarizing content warning which, based on inoculation theory, warns readers that scientific research suggests reading news content about political polarization may drive further affective polarization. Results indicate that the polarizing content warning can be used both with online news articles and on social media sites, and is able to indirectly reduce affective polarization of readers. Additionally, the polarizing content warning is beneficial both when presented alongside news content and beforehand, and reduces readers’ perceptions of societal polarization, in turn reducing affective polarization. This warning allows journalists to report on societal polarization without further dividing people.

Affecting the future: A multi-method qualitative text and discourse analysis of emotions in Australian news reporting on climate change and climate anxiety

Eco-anxiety and associated emotions are on the rise. International estimates range from 25–68% prevalence. Australians now regard climate change as their top concern for the future, with some young people reconsidering their intentions to become parents. The emotional sequela from climate change is becoming clearer. How it is conceptualised, responded to, and reinforced within public discourse requires further consideration. This paper presents a multi-method qualitative text and discourse analysis of Australian online news articles published in 2022 reporting on emotions and our ecological future. Drawing on sociological theories of emotions and Foucauldian conceptualisations of discourse, we present insights into the potency of emotions and discourses within online news media. We identify four differing conceptualisations of emotions, interpret what these discourses can do, and conclude with ways in which the public can reclaim agency in resisting discourses that engender passivity in the context of future ecological threats.