Assessing “The Regulars”—and Beyond

Commenting on online news articles must be considered an online staple—an established practice among news consumers that is currently being funnelled from the Web pages of news organizations to third-party platforms such as Facebook. The paper at hand adopts an exploratory approach and provides insights into the fervency and popularity of commentators and comments on the Facebook pages of two Swedish and two Norwegian newspapers. The results indicate that while immigration issues are a common topic in both countries, the Swedish context stands out by also featuring high degrees of commenting activity in relation to issues of gender equality. Identifying a series of differences in how these opportunities to comment on news are used in each country, the Swedish context appears to offer a wider range of opinions among the most fervent commentators in comparison with Norway. A similar tendency is found among the most “liked” comments.     

In it for the Long Run?

While previous research has focused on the uses of a variety of online services—such as Web pages and, more recently, Twitter—by media organizations and their audiences, a rather limited amount of empirical inquiry has been directed towards the often more and broadly used Facebook platform. The current paper contributes to the research field by providing a longitudinal study of journalist and audience engagement on the Facebook pages of Sweden's four major newspapers—Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Svenska Dagbladet. Employing state-of-the-art methods for data collection, the results indicate that while audiences appear to be increasing their engagement with news organizations on Facebook—albeit mostly through so-called “likes”—the media organizations themselves are decreasing their engagement with audiences.     

WHO'S GOT THE POWER?

Over the last decades, media environments have become radically transformed. Among the most significant changes is the rise of interactive media technologies, which raise new questions about how influence over media content has changed. At the same time, changes in media technologies and how they may change the influence over the news should not be understood in isolation from other changes in media environments. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how much influence journalists ascribe to different sets of actors; how they perceive changes over time; and whether journalists working with online publishing differ in these respects from other journalists. Among other things, the study shows that the most influential group is perceived to be journalists, followed by the audience and media owners. The group that is perceived to have increased their influence the most is media owners. All investigated groups—except journalists—are perceived to have increased their influence at least somewhat. The results are discussed in the light of research on how interactive media technologies may reshape the influence over the news.     

PERSUASION FROM BELOW?

Guided by the belief that anonymity inevitably breeds the kind of uncivil discourse that hurts their readers, many news organizations have chosen to ban anonymous comments sections on their websites in recent years. Unfortunately, little empirical research has been conducted to assess whether exposure to anonymous comments actually does influence people's attitudes. In this paper, we address this oversight by asking: do anonymous comments posted on a newspaper website shape how internet users feel about the media? Using an online experiment to systematically manipulate exposure to anonymous comments attached to a “hard news” report, we find strong evidence that exposure to non-attributed posts—regardless of their tone—leads internet users to feel more negatively towards specific news organizations and the media in general.     

试论新闻控制

进行新闻控制的中介是新闻媒体结构,而新闻媒体所有制由单一结构向着混合结构的发展,表明新闻媒体结构所发生的这一变化,将保障新闻控制合法性与有效性的一致实现。     

Online Threat,But Television is Still Dominant

As news media change, so media news consumption changes with them. This paper, part of a larger international research project involving 11 countries in four continents (Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia), is focused on news consumption. As the range of media outlets has increased dramatically in recent years, this paper asks which news sources are people regularly watching, listening to or reading to understand what is happening in the world. Moreover, the paper tries to detect whether television news remains at the top of the news hierarchy, seeking to identify differences in news consumption in different countries with different media cultures and, consequently, different media behaviour, as well as to reveal differences in news media uses between older and younger generations.     

Still the Same?

This article analyses whether a specific news event is reported differently online compared to print newspapers. The question is hardly new but has increased in importance as more readers pass from print newspapers to online news. The conditions of news selection and production are discussed departing from the theories of market-driven journalism and media logic, and are related to aspects of audience needs and gratifications, as well as professional norms and standards. A content analysis of news reporting during the 2010 Swedish election campaign reveals no significant differences between how major newspapers reported the aspects, issues and actors online compared to in print. Individuals using online news received the same information about the election campaign as those reading the print paper, which indicates a displacing rather than complementary effect of online journalism on print journalism.     

Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure: The Role of Media Preference,Use and Trust

ABSTRACT

The online environment has radically changed the way in which users consume, discover and manipulate news. The growing relevance of social media platforms and digital intermediaries for news sharing and consumption increase the likelihood of citizens to be exposed to online news even when they are not seeking it. This digital transformation fundamentally challenges the way online news use and exposure have been conceptualized and measured, affecting also to citizens’ knowledge about public affairs and politics. This article examines the factors that predict the probability to be an “incidentally exposed news user” online. Specifically, based on a representative US sample from the Pew Research Centre, this study analyses the role of media preference, use and trust. Findings indicate that beyond users’ demographics and loyalty, readers’ news preferences, uses and trust, specially of social media platforms, affect their probability to be incidentally exposed to news online. These results have important empirical and theoretical implications for understanding the connection between readers’ news consumption patterns and online exposure, intentional or incidental.     

Cosmetic surgery as a commodity for ‘sale’ in online news

A controversial but increasingly prevalent aspect of media research suggests that the media contributes to the demand for plastic surgery procedures in modern society. This study analyzes the online news content on cosmetic surgery procedures in Korea. Data were collected from ‘Naver,’ the largest Korean portal news archive, from 2007 to 2013. Based on the findings from a quantitative content analysis, the number of articles that pertain to plastic surgery has dramatically increased each year, and since 2007, more than 60% of the news articles portrayed plastic surgery in a positive light. News articles also used strategic patterns to include promotional content. The findings suggest that amid journalism in a highly market-driven environment that struggles to reconcile its role and commercial challenges, plastic surgery, which is a part of the largest advertising sector of online news, has become a commodity.     

News framing of adolescents’ use of Facebook in Taiwanese newspapers

ABSTRACT

While media frames reflect the dominant discourse about an issue, frame analysis can elucidate how they affect public perception. ¹ 1 William A Gamson and Andre Modigliani, “Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach,” American Journal of Sociology 95, no. 1 (1989): 1–37. Employing content analysis of news coverage of adolescents’ use of social media in mainstream newspapers (n?=?323) from 2014 to 2017, supplemented with secondary data from two national surveys of adolescents, this study investigates how news media construct the reality of adolescents’ use of social media; how the constructed reality differs from the subjective reality reported by adolescents’ themselves; and how news media reflect the elite discourse in terms of adolescence’s nature, agency, and needs in the context of using social media.     

媒介即讯息?——论技术的使用之于媒介内容的影响

本文论述了技术的使用在美国媒体的发展历程中对媒体内容的重要影响,并将这种影响归结为媒介的四次革命。     

上线新闻客户端,传统媒体如何羽化成蝶

本文聚焦传统媒体上线新闻客户端的大趋势,认为这是媒介融合和市场化环境压力所迫,也是由于阅读习惯改变所致。传统媒体客户端,专业队伍、资源、内容深度、广度和整体质量是其优势,富有市场潜力。但目前,新闻客户端遭遇困境,面临流量、用户黏性、影响力、商业变现等问题。论文提出并分析了当前传统媒体新闻客户端五种模式及其难起效的原因,认为,羽化成蝶还需从理念、内容、形式、运营等方面攻坚克难,做到有意义、有作用、有创意。