The Form of Content Personalisation at Mainstream,Transatlantic News Outlets: 2010–2016

ABSTRACT

In October 2016 the New York Times announced new content personalisation features for its websites and mobile apps, with the promise of “much more to come”. This article examines such developments via a quantitative content analysis of personalisation features at 15 major news outlets in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany and via interviews with senior editorial staff at some of those outlets. Both websites and mobile apps were studied, allowing comparisons to be made across platforms as well as geographically. Longitudinal comparisons were also made against an equivalent survey conducted in 2010. The results reveal significant changes over the last six years with, for example, rises in personalisation on mobile platforms, falls in the use of recommendations by friends, and convergence and commodification in content recommendation platforms. This study provides evidence to support continued debates on classical concerns such as selective exposure, but also raises new concerns about the effects of personalisation, including data protection and security issues.     

Forty-Five Years of LIS Research Evolution, 1971–2015: An Informetrics Study of the Author-Supplied Keywords

This article sought to investigate the evolution of library and information science by tracking the author-supplied keywords in the research articles published in the domain between 1971 and 2015. Data was extracted from Thomson Reuters’ citation mainstream indexes and analysed using the VosViewer computer-aided software to obtain author-supplied keyword frequencies in each decade since 1971. We identified the most salient and common research themes in LIS and how the themes have evolved, by delving into the author-supplied keywords to proxy research themes in the field domain. Results indicate that the field of LIS has evolved in terms of its subject focus from information systems design and management in the 1970s to scientific communication, information storage and retrieval, information access, information and knowledge management, and user education in 2015. The application of ICTs in LIS practice and education, too, has emerged as a prominent topic in the field. These issues have the potential of shaping or have shaped the LIS curriculum in some LIS schools in the continent.     

The evolution of television: 1927–1943

The fact that not everyone may like a given television program isn't news; but the fact that the demographic characteristic of race is associated with selective liking and disliking of network television programs that were designed to appeal to a “mass” audience may be surprising. The following article aroused a great deal of heated discussion when an early version was presented at the 1965 meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism, and should do so again after publication in these pages. James W. Carey is Research Assistant Professor in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Illinois.     

The evolution of television: 1944–1948

In the Summer of 1960 issue of the Journal of Broadcasting (Volume IV, Number 3) appeared the first in a series of excerpts from the official records of the Federal Commications Commission relating to broadcasting. It outlined the evolution of television from 1927 through 1943. Below, this history is carried through fiscal 1948, the year that television broadcasting took its first giant jump in number of stations, number of receivers, and number of problems. At the end of this period, television was poised at the edge of the “freeze” Following 1948, Annual Reports of the Commission become more readily available (as contrasted to the bare handful of copies of the 1944 Report in dog‐eared existence), as do broadcasters and others who lived through and are familiar with subsequent events.

The Journal is hopeful that these verbatim excerpts from official Annual Reports of the FCC will be of use to researchers, and of interest and value to the Journal's entire readership. As the introduction to the first installment said, “From them we may, with some confidence in factual accuracy, examine the fascinating panorama of the growth of a great American industry . . . .”     

‘The Age of Discontent’: Greek Publishing Through Six Years of Austerity

The effects of the 2010–2015 economic recession on the Greek publishing market have been dramatic, by all means, affecting its structure, operation, quantity and quality features. What is interesting to investigate, thereof, is the response of the publishing environment to the economic downturn in the form of resilience, adaptation, innovation and change within the industry. While the ‘crisis’ has had more severe consequences for the firms at the top, connected often (but not always) to media groups, the experienced, specialized small to medium publishers and booksellers proved to be more resilient, sustaining a vibrant and diversified production within a fewer number of books published. New book titles were reduced by 35% between 2008 and 2012, with signs of further containment following to that. At the same time, a number of small, independent booksellers have sprung up, out of the need to support the distinct quality features of literary production, based on the ‘personal quality’ service model. An approximate 8% of the Greeks can be ranked among the ‘medium to systematic’ readers (i.e. reading over 10 books a year); they are the ones to support the volume and diversity of book title production, including some of the bestsellers, while the outbreak of the crisis concurred with a positive development towards the weaker strand of the readership. The international interest in the economic circumstances met in Greece has helped, to some extent, the export of rights of literary works either dealing with the individuals affected, or analyzing the reasons of the default. At the same time, digital innovation may prove to be a sign of a changing book publishing industry, striving to become international.     

Rhetoric at the university of Paris, 1550–1789

This study investigated the factor structure of source credibility within the context of three situations in which communication typically occurs. The study tested the hypothesis that the situation in which the speaker communicates will influence the receiver's perception of the dimensions underlying the credibility of that speaker. The results indicated that the factor structure of source credibility across situations was variant. The scales used to measure the factors of trustworthiness and expertness may reflect more than one perceptual element for the receiver. The study indicated further that different types of communication in the same situation yield different source credibility factor structures.     

The radio diary of Mary Dyck, 1936–1955: The listening habits of a Kansas farm woman

From the earliest days of the radio era, the United States Department of Agriculture recognized radio's potential importance to rural families. What the USDA did not realize until later was radio's enormous significance to rural women. This article uses the diary of Kansas farm woman Mary Knackstedt Dyck (1884–1955) to trace the vital importance of radio to isolated farm women. Radio provided these women with information, entertainment, and religious programming. For individuals living literally at the margins of society, it provided a crucial link to the world beyond the farm and was a source of human contact that was otherwise unavailable.     

The development of discourse presentation in The Times, 1833–1988

Newspaper preferences for particular formats of speech presentation differ and they change in the course of time. In this contribution we focus on The Times and trace such developments in the formative years of the modern Anglo-American newspapers, from 1833 to 1988. We extracted data from The Times Digital Archive in six samples of roughly 5000 words at intervals of 31 years and analysed the texts manually for instances of reported speech. Our analysis shows that the focus has shifted from the presentation of speech events as coherent wholes in earlier newspapers towards a more selective use of individual statements that summarise an event or characterise it from different angles. And it also shows that the frequency of indirect forms of discourse presentation decreases over the years in favour of direct forms. This gives further support to the claim that in terms of discourse presentation broadsheets slowly develop into the direction spearheaded by tabloids.     

The evolution of FM radio: 1941–1946

The following verbatim extracts from FCC Annual, Reports are part of a continuing series published in the Journal of Broadcasting that includes: “The Evolution of Television: 1927–1943” (Summer, 1960); “The Evolution of Television: 1944–1948” (Winter, 1960–61); and “The Evolution of FM Radio: 1935–1940” (Spring, 1961).     

The birth of the tenth presidential library: The Bush presidential materials project, 1993–1994

The Bush Presidential Library and Museum, the tenth Presidential library, will be built on the campus of Texas A&M University between 1995 and 1997 and administered by the National Archives. It will be the archival depository for all of George Bush's Vice-Presidential and Presidential records and memorabilia as well as voluminous personal papers dealing with his life before and after his service in the White House. Every Presidential library undergoes an evolution from a Presidential materials project to a fully functioning facility, and the Bush Library currently is in its earliest period of development. The Bush Presidential Materials Project is systematically processing President Bush's records and museum objects for exhibit when the library opens to the public in 1997. The Bush Library will be the most highly computerized Presidential library to date, with automated systems, including an optical scanner for documents, facilitating archival processing and reference services.     

The Google Art Project: A New Generation of Museums on the Web?

Abstract On February 1, 2011, Google launched its much‐heralded Art Project in partnership with 17 museums from Europe and the U.S. Despite the limited content and a long wish‐list of enhancements, the Google Art Project offers a glimpse of innovative new ways for museums to use and be used on the Web, collaboratively.     

The State of Cataloging Research: An Analysis of Peer-Reviewed Journal Literature, 2010–2014

The importance of cataloging research was highlighted by a resolution declaring 2010 as “The Year of Cataloging Research.” This study of the peer-reviewed journal literature from 2010 to 2014 examined the state of cataloging literature since this proclamation. The goals were to determine the percentage of cataloging literature that can be classified as research, what research methods were used, and whether the articles contributed to the library assessment conversation. Nearly a quarter of the cataloging literature qualifies as research; however, a majority of researchers fail to make explicit connections between their work and the missions of their libraries.