Resisting Political Fragmentation on the Internet

Daedalus ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 140 (4) ◽  
pp. 108-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Kelly Garrett ◽  
Paul Resnick
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Political Fragmentation ◽  
Software Designers ◽  
The Face ◽  
Desirable Behavior ◽  
Partisan News

Must the Internet promote political fragmentation? Although this is a possible outcome of personalized online news, we argue that other futures are possible and that thoughtful design could promote more socially desirable behavior. Research has shown that individuals crave opinion reinforcement more than they avoid exposure to diverse viewpoints and that, in many situations, hearing the other side is desirable. We suggest that, equipped with this knowledge, software designers ought to create tools that encourage and facilitate consumption of diverse news streams, making users, and society, better off. We propose several techniques to help achieve this goal. One approach focuses on making useful or intriguing opinion-challenges more accessible. The other centers on nudging people toward diversity by creating environments that accentuate its benefits. Advancing research in this area is critical in the face of increasingly partisan news media, and we believe these strategies can help.

Partisan media effects beyond one-shot experimental designs

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Kathleen Searles ◽  
Joshua P. Darr ◽  
Mingxiao Sui ◽  
Nathan Kalmoe ◽  
Raymond Pingree ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Media Effects ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Repeated Exposure ◽  
Experimental Designs ◽  
Fox News ◽  
Partisan Media ◽  
News Effects ◽  
Partisan News

Abstract Previous study demonstrates that partisans perceive in-party news outlets as fair, and out-party news outlets as unfair. However, much of this study relies on one-shot designs. We create an ecologically valid design that randomly assigns participants to news feeds within a week-long online news portal where the balance of in-party and out-party news outlets has been manipulated. We find that sustained exposure to a feed that features out-party news media attenuates Democrats' beliefs that Fox News is unfair, but the same is not true for Republican's perceptions of MSNBC's fairness. Unexpectedly, repeated exposure to in-party news did increase Republicans' beliefs that Fox News is unfair. This study updates our understanding of partisan news effects in a fragmented online news environment.

Perception of factuality in selected online news media

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 134-148
Author(s):  
Eva Eddy
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Other ◽  
News Report ◽  
Specific Event ◽  
The Way

Abstract The paper focuses on one’s perception of factuality in selected online news media. A group of university students of English were approached and presented with ten statements about Sweden and asked to evaluate their truthfulness. Half of the group (informed respondents) were then advised on the ways media use to infer a narrative onto the reader, potentially influencing the way they view events, while the other half (uninformed respondents) were not made aware of this fact. The respondents were then presented with a news report describing a specific event that took place in Sweden; however, half of each group were asked to read its tabloid description while the other halves were shown the event as reported by a broadsheet (both online). They were then asked to reevaluate the statements they were presented with before and decide whether their opinions changed based on the article they had just read. The results suggest that one is inclined to believe what they read, regardless whether the source seems reliable and whether they are aware of the fact media might manipulate their audiences.

scholarly journals Social engineers and myth-busters: A comparative research on Lithuanian, Norwegian and Serbian language experts

2020 ◽  
pp. 292-344
Author(s):  
Vuk Vukotić
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Great Majority ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Other ◽  
Striking Similarity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The One

This article compares the language ideologies of language experts (both academic and non-academic) in online news media in Lithuania, Norway and Serbia. The results will reveal that language is understood in diametrically opposed ways amongst Lithuanian and Serbian academic experts on the one, and Norwegian academic experts on the other hand. Lithuanian and Serbian academic experts are influenced by modernist ideas of language as a single, homogenous entity, whose borders ideally match the borders of an ethnic group. Norwegian academic experts function in the public sphere as those who try to deconstruct the modernist notion of language by employing an understanding of language as a cognitive tool that performs communicative and other functions. On the other hand, non-academic experts in all the three countries exhibit a striking similarity in their language ideologies, as the great majority expresses modernist ideals of language.

scholarly journals Cybersecurity, Bureaucratic Vitalism and European Emergency

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Simon ◽  
Marieke de Goede
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Hierarchical Organization ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
The Face ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

Securing the internet has arguably become paradigmatic for modern security practice, not only because modern life is considered to be impossible or valueless if disconnected, but also because emergent cyber-relations and their complex interconnections are refashioning traditional security logics. This paper analyses European modes of governing geared toward securing vital, emergent cyber-systems in the face of the interconnected emergency. It develops the concept of ‘bureaucratic vitalism’ to get at the tension between the hierarchical organization and reductive knowledge frames of security apparatuses on the one hand, and the increasing desire for building ‘resilient’, dispersed, and flexible security assemblages on the other. The bureaucratic/vital juxtaposition seeks to capture the way in which cybersecurity governance takes emergent, complex systems as object and model without fully replicating this ideal in practice. Thus, we are concerned with the question of what happens when security apparatuses appropriate and translate vitalist concepts into practice. Our case renders visible the banal bureaucratic manoeuvres that seek to operate upon security emergencies by fostering connectivities, producing agencies, and staging exercises.

STRATEGIES FOR IMPOSING A CHARGE ON ONLINE NEWS CONTENT DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ján Višňovský
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Mobile Applications ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Information Graphics ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Websites ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Global Events ◽  
A Charge

The COVID-19 pandemic not only marked global events in 2020, but also left its marks on news media functioning. The Coronavirus has become a thematic agenda of the newscast of the last month in global, national, and regional media. While radio and TV stations came up with special programmes on the subject of the pandemic, in newspapers, on the Internet and in mobile applications there appeared specialized sections and columns, in which media published news items thematically related to the Coronavirus. Some TV stations made their archives and other usually paid services available free of charge, and mobile operators offered their customers unlimited data. However, the approach to the charging a toll for the Internet content has also changed. While some media made all content available to their readers, others unlocked, for instance, news items and various content devoted to the pandemic (comments, analyzes, information graphics, etc.). The purpose of the paper is to point out different approaches to the strategy of imposing a charge on the content of news websites during the COVID-19 pandemic, on the example of the most widely read Slovak news portals.

Examining predictors of online news use: perceived bias in traditional media and preference for partisan news

Info ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 59-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Woohyun Yoo ◽  
Dong-Hee Shin
Keyword(s):  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Predictive Values ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Life Project ◽  
The Impact ◽  
News Use ◽  
Partisan News

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine, in the context of online news use, the predictive values of two factors: perceived bias in traditional media and preference for partisan news. Design/methodology/approach This study used data collected as part of the Pew Internet and American Life Project between December 28, 2009, and January 19, 2010. The data were analyzed using linear regression analysis. Findings The findings provide evidence of the values of two potentially significant predictors of online news use: a perception of bias in traditional media and preference for partisan news. In addition, higher levels of political partisanship were shown to intensify the positive effect of perceived bias in traditional media on online news use in new media outlets, reinforcing the impact of preference for partisan news on participatory online news use. Research limitations/implications Depending on individual decisions, the internet can either help to empower deliberative democracy (where diverse and different voices coexist) or lead to an extremely polarized society. Originality/value With the explosive growth of the internet as a news source, media scholars have explored the factors that encourage people to rely on the internet for news and information. Nevertheless, certain attributes of online news consumption originating from individual attitudes about and perceptions of the media environment remain underspecified. This research helps advance an understanding of the types of people who seek news online and how they use various sources.

Jurisdictional protectionism in online news: Am erican journalists and their perceptions of hyperlinks

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 684-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsan-Kuo Chang ◽  
Brian G. Southwell ◽  
Hyung-Min Lee ◽  
Yejin Hong
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Sociology Of Professions ◽  
Tv News ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Financial Consideration

Because of their widespread use on the internet, hyperlinks have become a useful tool in information sharing and knowledge distribution in online communication, particularly in the realm of journalism. Their importance has received little scholarly attention, however. Against the backdrop of the sociology of professions, the purpose of this study is to determine how journalists approach hyperlinks and what they perceive to be their functions in online news. A national survey of newspaper editors and TV news directors in the United States shows that American journalists exhibit a sense of jurisdictional protectionism in online news. They appear to privilege US hyperlinks over foreign ones, especially internal links to their own websites. They are also predominantly against linking to foreign news media that cover the same events or issues. Financial consideration seems to be the main reason behind the journalistic preference.

scholarly journals Discovered and Undiscovered Fields of Digital Politics : Mapping Online Political Communication and Online News Media Literature in Hungary

Intersections ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Márton Bene ◽  
Gabriella Szabó
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Single Case ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Digital Politics ◽  
And Linguistics

The article reviews the main theoretical and empirical contributions about digitalnews media and online political communication in Hungary. Our knowledge synthesis focuses on three specific subfields: citizens, media platforms, and political actors. Representatives of sociology, political communication studies, psychology, and linguistics have responded to the challenges of the internet over the past two decades, which has resulted in truly interdisciplinary accounts of the different aspects of digitalization in Hungary. In terms of methodology, both normative and descriptive approaches have been applied, mostly with single case-study methods. Based on an extensive review of the literature, we assess that since the early 2000s the internet has become the key subject of political communication studies, and that it has erased the boundaries between online and offline spaces. We conclude, however, that despite the richness of the literature on the internet and politics, only a limited number of studies have researched citizens’ activity and provided longitudinal analyses.

Trolling the Global Citizen: The Deconstructive Ethics of the Digital Subject

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Staunton
Keyword(s):  
Communication Technology ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Global Citizen ◽  
Essential Ingredient ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Rhetorical Figures ◽  
The Face ◽  
And Performance

This article compares two contemporary rhetorical figures: the ‘internet troll’, a name invoked to represent a variety of offensive and disturbing online discourse, and the narrator and main character of avant-garde English author Tom McCarthy’s debut novel Remainder (2005). By thinking about how these two figures relate to Levinas’ brand of deconstructive ethics, I attempt to develop an idea about how global communication technology (which is, including literature, an essential ingredient, inspiration and sometimes ‘form’ of the ‘global citizen’) bends our perception and performance of what is ethical. Both the troll and McCarthy’s narrator represent the necessity of understanding in a world caged in technical language describing itself. And at the same time, each figure will be shown to represent the motivating force of a global society that strives for total understanding: an absence of understanding, or in Levinasian terms, the face of the other.

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