scholarly journals Social Media Sourcing Practices: How Dutch Newspapers Use Tweets in Political News Coverage

Author(s):  
Bert Jan Brands ◽  
Todd Graham ◽  
Marcel Broersma
Author(s):  
Magdalena Obermaier ◽  
Thomas Koch ◽  
Christian Baden

Abstract. Opinion polls are a well-established part of political news coverage, especially during election campaigns. At the same time, there has been controversial debate over the possible influences of such polls on voters’ electoral choices. The most prominent influence discussed is the bandwagon effect: It states that voters tend to support the expected winner of an upcoming election, and use polls to determine who the likely winner will be. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying the effect. In addition, we inquired into the role of past electoral performances of a candidate and analyzed how these (as well as polls) are used as heuristic cues for the assessment of a candidate’s personal characteristics. Using an experimental design, we found that both polls and past election results influence participants’ expectations regarding which candidate will succeed. Moreover, higher competence was attributed to a candidate, if recipients believe that the majority of voters favor that candidate. Through this attribution of competence, both information about prior elections and current polls shaped voters’ electoral preferences.


Author(s):  
Peter Van Aelst

This chapter analyzes media malaise theories and their consequences for legitimacy. These theories argue that the increasing availability of information through new and old media and increasingly negative tone of media are to blame for declining legitimacy. The chapter examines these claims by providing a systematic review of empirical research on media and political support. It first investigates whether news coverage has become more negative over time, and then examines the micro process that might explain the link between media coverage and political support. Empirical evidence suggests that where coverage has become more negative, this occurred before the 1990s and has levelled off since, and is concentrated primarily in election news. Negative political news does have a modest impact on political support once controlled for level of education, but that effect can be positive and negative, depending on the medium, the receiver, and the indicator of political support.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 170
Author(s):  
Reinald Besalú ◽  
Carles Pont-Sorribes

In the context of the dissemination of fake news and the traditional media outlets’ loss of centrality, the credibility of digital news emerges as a key factor for today’s democracies. The main goal of this paper was to identify the levels of credibility that Spanish citizens assign to political news in the online environment. A national survey (n = 1669) was designed to assess how the news format affected credibility and likelihood of sharing. Four different news formats were assessed, two of them linked to traditional media (digital newspapers and digital television) and two to social media (Facebook and WhatsApp). Four experimental groups assigned a credibility score and a likelihood of sharing score to four different political news items presented in the aforementioned digital formats. The comparison between the mean credibility scores assigned to the same news item presented in different formats showed significant differences among groups, as did the likelihood of sharing the news. News items shown in a traditional media format, especially digital television, were assigned more credibility than news presented in a social media format, and participants were also more likely to share the former, revealing a more cautious attitude towards social media as a source of news.


Author(s):  
Jennifer Riley

News coverage, social media and protests alike tend to polarise people’s stances on abortion. Moreover, these also often reveal category slippage between ‘pro-life’ and ‘Christian’ or ‘religious,’ perpetuating the impression that to be religious is to reject abortion. Contrary to both tendencies, this article engages with abortion from a lived religion perspective. It listens to evangelical healthcare practitioners as they talk about their attitudes towards abortion. This reveals a complex picture, their ethical engagement variously taking the form of resistance, neutrality, uncertainty, compartmentalisation, change and situational negotiation, while drawing upon multiple sources of ethical authority, including their own ‘experiential knowledge.’ Having presented these complexities, the article concludes by exploring their implications. First, it considers the value of foregrounding emotion when engaging in lived religion research around ethics and controversial topics. Secondly, it suggests that combining social bioethics with emotional narratives might represent a means of communicating this complexity.


Journalism ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 633-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theo Araujo ◽  
Toni GLA van der Meer

Since news circulation increasingly takes place online, the public has gained the capacity to influence the salience of topics on the agenda, especially when it comes to social media. Considering increased scrutiny about organizations, this study aims to understand what causes heightened activity to organization-related topics among Twitter users. We explore the extent to which news value theory, news coverage, and influential actors can explain peaks in Twitter activity about organizations. Based on a dataset of 1.8 million tweets about 18 organizations, the findings show that the news values social impact, geographical closeness, facticity, as well as certain influential actors, can explain the intensity of online activities. Moreover, the results advocate for a more nuanced understanding of the relation between news media and social media users, as indications of reversed agenda-setting patterns were observed.


2020 ◽  
Vol Volume 4 (Issue 2) ◽  
pp. 478-496
Author(s):  
Farrukh Shahzad ◽  
Prof. Dr. Syed Abdul Siraj

Inter-media agenda setting is a commonly used phenomenon to investigate the transfer of contents between news media. The recent digitization era challenges the traditional presuppositions. This study investigates the inter-media agenda setting influence between social media and traditional media. To address this question, the present study investigates first level agenda setting between Twitter and ARY news during Farishta murder case 2019. Content analysis method was used to assess agendas present within Twitter and ARY news. By employing cross-lagged correlation, the study investigates the inter-media agenda setting influence between Twitter agendas and of ARY news agendas. Aggregate findings of cross-lagged correlation reveal a clear agenda setting influence of Twitter on ARY news coverage agenda about Farishta murder case. The results of the study suggest that Twitter has the capability to influence broadcast agendas of television in Pakistan


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 3858-3878 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A Rademacher

How people with ostomies—a surgically created opening in the body that expels bodily wastes—use social media to challenge ostomy stigma represents a growing area of research, especially the creation, posting, and circulation of ostomy selfies within online health communities. This project contributes to this research by examining reactions by a mass audience to news stories about a viral ostomy selfie posted by ostomate Bethany Townsend to a Crohn’s disease Facebook page. By analyzing the user-generated comments associated with this news coverage, this study illuminates how ostomy selfies are interpreted outside the highly sympathetic audiences that populate online health communities. Analysis reveals positive and negative reactions, posted by ostomates and non-ostomates alike, coexist within the comments. Implications of the conflicting reactions to ostomies, in general, and ostomy selfies, in particular, are discussed with regard to the effort to destigmatize ostomies in society.


Author(s):  
Elitza Katzarova

What role is there for publicity in the global anti-corruption debate? This chapter introduces the concepts of “transparency” and “publicity” as analytical tools that account for differentiated channels through which the availability of information can induce social change. Two case studies provide insights into the role of traditional media in comparison to new social media. The first case analyzes the role of Western news coverage during the negotiations of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in the mid-1990s and the threat of publicity as a negotiation strategy. The second case investigates the role of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the success of the anti-corruption strike carried out by Indian social activist Anna Hazare in 2011. By introducing and further applying the conceptual toolkit of “transparency” and “publicity” to both cases, this chapter argues that transparency requires publicity or in the case of the OECD negotiations—the threat of publicity—in order for the anti-corruption campaign to be successful. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ramifications for transparency and publicity as tools for social change.


2019 ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Reece Peck

This chapter tracks the populist stylistic resonances between country western music and Fox News Channel programming. Using country musician John Rich’s 2009 song “Detroit” as a case study, it demonstrates how Fox News employed a unique mix of tabloid aesthetics and populist epistemic appeals to conscribe potentially progressive interpretations of Rich’s song. In doing so, the chapter illuminates how Fox endows its conservative political news brand with affective power and social meaning. Tracking the migration of country style from the music sector to the news sector, it elucidates how political-taste alignments factor into conservative news cultures. The chapter concludes with a call for greater scholarly attention to the way conservative news actively partisanizes national taste divisions while relying on those very divisions in framing news coverage.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramaswami Mahalingam ◽  
Srinath Jagannathan ◽  
Patturaja Selvaraj

ABSTRACT:In this qualitative study we examine the role of caste, class, and Dalit janitorial labor in the aftermath of floods in Chennai, India, in 2015. Drawing from a variety of sources including interviews, social media, and news coverage, we studied how Dalit (formerly known as ‘untouchable’) janitors were treated during the performance of janitorial labor for cleaning the city. Our study focuses on two theoretical premises: (a) caste-based social relations reproduce inequalities by devaluing Dalit labor as ‘dirty work’; and (b) Dalit subjectivities, labor, and sufferings including occupational hazards become invisible and ungrievable forcing Dalits to provide a counter narrative to preserve the memory of their trauma and dignity injuries. We find that the discursive construction of janitorial labor as dirty work forced Dalit janitors to work in appalling and unsafe working conditions. Janitors suffered several dignity injuries in terms of social exclusion and a lack of recognition for their efforts and accomplishments. Specifically, we examine various ways through which caste, dirty work, and dignity intersected in the narrative accounts of Dalit janitors. We also explore memory and how processes of remembering and forgetting affected the dignity claims of Dalit janitors.


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