The agenda-setting power of fake news: A big data analysis of the online media landscape from 2014 to 2016

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 2028-2049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris J Vargo ◽  
Lei Guo ◽  
Michelle A Amazeen

This study examines the agenda-setting power of fake news and fact-checkers who fight them through a computational look at the online mediascape from 2014 to 2016. Although our study confirms that content from fake news websites is increasing, these sites do not exert excessive power. Instead, fake news has an intricately entwined relationship with online partisan media, both responding and setting its issue agenda. In 2016, partisan media appeared to be especially susceptible to the agendas of fake news, perhaps due to the election. Emerging news media are also responsive to the agendas of fake news, but to a lesser degree. Fake news coverage itself is diverging and becoming more autonomous topically. While fact-checkers are autonomous in their selection of issues to cover, they were not influential in determining the agenda of news media overall, and their influence appears to be declining, illustrating the difficulties fact-checkers face in disseminating their corrections.

2019 ◽  
pp. 089443931987659
Author(s):  
Wai Han Lo ◽  
Benson Shu Yan Lam ◽  
Meily Mei Fung Cheung

This article examines the news framing of the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election using a big data analysis approach. Analyses of intermedia framing of over 370,000 articles and comments are conducted including news published in over 30 Chinese press media, four prominent Chinese online press media, and posts published on three candidates’ Facebook pages within the election period. The study contributes to the literature by examining the rarely discussed role of intermedia news framing, especially the relationship between legacy print media, online alternative news media, and audience comments on candidates’ social network sites. The data analysis provides evidence that audiences’ comments on candidates’ Facebook pages influenced legacy news coverage and online alternative news coverage. However, this study suggests that legacy news media and comments on Facebook do not necessarily have a reciprocal relationship. The implication of the findings and limitations are discussed.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Guo ◽  
Chris Vargo

This study examined how fake news, misinformation, and satire, affected the emerging media ecosystem during the 2016 U.S. presidential election through an integrated intermedia agenda-setting analysis, which studies broad attributes and myopic stories and events. A computer-assisted content analysis of millions of news articles was conducted alongside a qualitative analysis of popular news headlines and articles. The results showed that websites that spread misinformation had a fairly close intermedia agenda-setting relationship with fact-based media in covering Trump, but not for the news about Clinton. Satire websites barely interacted with the agenda of other media outlets. Overall, it seemed that rather than playing a unique agenda-setting role in this emerging media landscape, fake news websites added some noise to an already sensationalized news environment.


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 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjana Pantic

This gatekeeping theory-based study investigates ongoing practices that most prominent news media organizations employ to enable user participation. A thorough analysis of 20 top news websites in the world suggests that reader participation in developing news content and reacting to it is limited. Specifically, major news websites allow participation in areas that increase website traffic, while enabling citizens to produce stories is not a widely adopted form of reader participation.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 2874
Author(s):  
Amy Fitzgerald ◽  
Jennifer Halliday ◽  
Daniel Heath

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is an emerging technology used for understanding ecosystems, environmental change, and stressors. Cellular and extracellular DNA are collected from environmental samples instead of individual wildlife animals, and as such eDNA comes with associated logistical and ethical benefits. It is increasingly being used, yet to date public knowledge and perceptions of eDNA have not been explored. Given that most of the public gathers scientific information from news media sources, this is a logical first place to start. This paper reports on a framing and agenda-setting analysis of news media coverage of eDNA in Canada and the United States from 2000 to 2020. The findings indicate that eDNA is being framed as an emerging and powerful tool, although questions regarding its validity and reliability are raised vis-à-vis identifying the presence of invasive species. Less than half of the news articles analyzed address broader social or ethical issues in relation to eDNA, and the majority focus on the potential financial impacts of eDNA findings on development projects and business interests. The potential ethical advantages of non-lethal sampling methods used via eDNA sampling are not addressed, nor are the potential ethical issues raised by its potential use in bioprospecting, indicating that the current state of agenda setting regarding eDNA in these newspapers is focused on economic impacts, to the exclusion of potential ethical issues. This unfolding news coverage will likely be key to understanding public perceptions of this novel technology.


Author(s):  
Inge Hutagalung

In general, media coverage can have a strong influence on the reputation of a cultural heritage. Media coverage often has an effect on a cultural heritage’s reputation when ‘good’ or ‘bad’ news is reported.This amplifying effect has often been studied through the lens of agenda setting theory. The hypothesis behind the theory is that the frequency with the media report on an issue determines that issues’ salience in the minds of the general public. In other words, the media may not be successful often time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. The news media ‘set’ the public agenda.Since people cannot possibly attend no to every little detail about the cultural heritage around them, setting in communication is important because it helps shape the perspectives through which people see all cultural heritage in the world.In generating good news coverage about a cultural heritage, communicating with the media is one of important activities that should be maintained between communication professionals (in cultural heritage) with journalists. Keywords: media coverage, agenda setting, framing news


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-194
Author(s):  
Yiyan Zhang

Abstract While intermedia agenda-setting scholars have examined the process from a global perspective, trans-regional intermedia agenda setting, especially in non-western context, remains understudied. By analyzing the time-series data of news coverage on air pollution, a non-political topic, from online news media in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan from 2015 to 2018, this study revealed a triangular first-level agenda-setting relationship among the three regions and identified the changing agenda setters across years, which disproves the imperialistic stereotype that there is a one-way control from mainland China media. The study also revealed the significant yet unconventional moderating effect of the political stance of news organizations in the trans-regional information flow. This study contributes to the intermedia agenda-setting literature by introducing the method of controlling the real-life situation in the Granger Causality test and by showing that non-political issues can also be politicalized in the salience transferring process.


2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Eshbaugh-Soha ◽  
Ronald J. McGauvran

Most research on media in the post-broadcast age of politics focuses on how media affect the public, not on the interinstitutional relationships between the presidency and news media. This study tackles this important topic by studying news coverage of and presidential attention to the issue of income inequality. We use web scraping and text analysis software to build a dataset of weekly news coverage from 1999 through 2013, across traditional and nontraditional media, including newspapers, broadcast and cable television transcripts, and online news websites. The data show that presidential attention to income inequality influences the income inequality news agenda across all sources except network television and affects the tone of newspaper coverage. Presidential influence of tone is especially pronounced on income inequality issues that have an international focus. The implications of this paper are significant not only for understanding how media and the presidency interact in the post-broadcast age but also for the prospects for federal policies that may combat income inequality.


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