A new sensation? An international exploration of sensationalism and social media recommendations in online news publications

Journalism ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 1497-1516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle K Kilgo ◽  
Summer Harlow ◽  
Víctor García-Perdomo ◽  
Ramón Salaverría
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Significant Variation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online News ◽  
Digital Environment ◽  
News Values ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Media Interaction

The well-known phrase ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ describes the sensational approach that has penetrated the history of news. Sensationalism is a term without complete consensus among scholars, and its meaning and implications have not been considered in a digital environment. This study analyzes 400 articles from online-native news organizations across the Americas, evaluating the sensational treatment of news categories and news values, and their associated social media interaction numbers on Facebook and Twitter. Findings suggest that ‘hard’ news topics like government affairs and science/technology were treated sensationally just as often as traditionally sensationalized categories like crime or lifestyle and society. In addition, audiences are not necessarily more likely to respond to sensational treatments. This study also finds that online-native news organizations use sensationalism differently, and there is significant variation in publications from the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.

scholarly journals A family of falsehoods: Deception, media hoaxes and fake news

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teri Finneman ◽  
Ryan J. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
False Information ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Information Spread ◽  
History Of

“Fake news” became a concern for journalists in 2017 as news organizations sought to differentiate themselves from false information spread via social media, websites and public officials. This essay examines the history of media hoaxing and fake news to help provide context for the current U.S. media environment. In addition, definitions of the concepts are proposed to provide clarity for researchers and journalists trying to explain these phenomena.

Exploring Factors That Lead to People Watching Professional Soccer on Television

2018 ◽  
pp. 436-469
Author(s):  
Alan D. Smith ◽  
Steve R. Clinton
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Professional Soccer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Media Interaction ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Television Ratings

The purpose of this study is to examine and determine factors that lead to increased television ratings for soccer in the U.S. The study primarily focuses on fantasy soccer participation, involvement in soccer, presence of a local professional team, and social media interaction. After providing a brief history of soccer television ratings in the U.S., a conceptual model based on these factors is developed and explained. The factors of this conceptual model are tested through statistical analysis. Based on these results, the model provides recommendations and conclusions for soccer decision makers to increase television ratings in the future, which ultimately will drive and increase the bottom line of all parties involved.

From Ink to Web and Beyond

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather McKee Hurwitz
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Women Activists ◽  
The United States ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Women's Activism ◽  
Media Activism ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
History Of ◽  
Feminist Movements

Mainstream media ignores the breadth and diversity of women’s activism and often features sexist, racist, and sexualized portrayals of women. Also, women hold disproportionately fewer jobs in media industries than men. Despite these challenges, women activists protest gender inequality and advocate a variety of other goals using traditional and new social media. This chapter examines the history of women’s media activism in the United States from women activists’ use of mainstream and alternative newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, to how activists adopted Internet technologies and new digital media strategies starting in the 1990s, to how contemporary feminists protest with Facebook and hashtag activism today. I argue that women activists’ use of new social media may necessitate significant shifts in how we research continuity and diversity in women’s and feminist movements, and how we conceptualize resources, micromobilization, and leadership in social movements broadly. I conclude with several suggestions for future research.

How journalists use social media in France and the United States: Analyzing technology use across journalistic fields

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 2728-2744 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Powers ◽  
Sandra Vera-Zambrano
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Technology Use ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
American Journalism ◽  
Routine Tasks ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Depth Interviews

This article examines journalists’ use of social media in France and the United States. Through in-depth interviews, we show that shared practical sensibilities lead journalists in both countries to use social media to accomplish routine tasks (e.g. gather information, monitor sources, and develop story ideas). At the same time, we argue that the incorporation of social media into daily practice also creates opportunities for journalists to garner peer recognition and that these opportunities vary according to the distinctive national fields in which journalists are embedded. Where American journalism incentivizes individual journalists to orient social media use toward audiences, French journalism motivates news organizations to use social media for these purposes, while leaving individual journalists to focus primarily on engaging with their peers. We position these findings in relation to debates on the uses of technologies across national settings.

scholarly journals Investigating evaluation and news values in news items that are shared through social media

Corpora ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Bednarek
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
English Language ◽  
Online News ◽  
News Values ◽  
News Value ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Linguistic Focus ◽  
News Corpus ◽  
News Sharing

The sharing of news through social media platforms is now a significant part of mainstream online media use and is an increasingly important consideration in journalism practice and production. This paper analyses the linguistic characteristics of online news sharing on Facebook, with a focus on evaluation and news values in a corpus of the 100 ‘most shared’ news items from ‘heritage’ English-language news media organisations. Analyses combine corpus linguistic techniques (semantic tagging, frequency analysis, concordancing) with manual, computer-aided annotation. The main focus is on discursive news values analysis (DNVA), which examines how news values are established through semiotic resources, enabling new empirical insights into shared news and adding a specific linguistic focus to the emerging literature on news sharing. Results suggest that all ‘traditional’ news values appear to be construed in the shared news corpus and that there is variety in terms of the items that are widely shared. At the same time, the news values of Eliteness, Superlativeness, Unexpectedness, Negativity and Timeliness seem especially important in the corpus. The findings also indicate that ‘unexpected’ and ‘affective’ news items may be shared more, and that Negativity is a more important news value than Positivity.

Exploring Factors that Lead to People Watching Professional Soccer on Television

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 66-95
Author(s):  
Alan D. Smith ◽  
Steve R. Clinton
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Conceptual Model ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Bottom Line ◽  
Professional Soccer ◽  
History Of ◽  
Media Interaction ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Television Ratings

The purpose of this study is to examine and determine factors that lead to increased television ratings for soccer in the U.S. The study primarily focuses on fantasy soccer participation, involvement in soccer, presence of a local professional team, and social media interaction. After providing a brief history of soccer television ratings in the U.S., a conceptual model based on these factors is developed and explained. The factors of this conceptual model are tested through statistical analysis. Based on these results, the model provides recommendations and conclusions for soccer decision makers to increase television ratings in the future, which ultimately will drive and increase the bottom line of all parties involved.

“Why attacking the Bureau of Industry and Commerce?”: news value flow to news comments on Chinese social media

2021 ◽  
pp. 016344372199443
Author(s):  
Juan He
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Story ◽  
News Values ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Negative Judgment ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
News Value ◽  
Suitable Site ◽  
Value Flow ◽  
Industry And Commerce

Comments on social media provide a suitable site to view text-reader relations from the perspective of news reading. This article interrogates readers’ evaluative responses to Weibo shared news in China. The study, drawing upon Discursive News Values Analysis and appraisal, first identifies the news values of Eliteness, Personalization, Negativity and Positivity in a news story about car quality sourced from the Weibo network of People’s Daily. Then the following 1027 comments, including Chinese characters and emojis, are investigated by using a mixed-methods approach. The corpus analysis shows that business Eliteness (the Mercedes dealership) and Personalization (the buyer) are convergently valued news actors, while readers evaluate authoritative Eliteness (the Bureau) in an unexpected way. Close examination of the appraisal devices in the comments uncovers a divergence between negative judgment toward Eliteness and positive affect/judgment for Personalization. Emojis play an important role in activating attitudes through the interplay with language. In commentary journalism, the readers’ response can influence news value decisions when there is a mismatch between the news values promoted by news organizations and the values that readers perceive as newsworthy.

Organizational adaptations to social media: How social media news workers in the Philippines are embedded in newsrooms and influences on editorial practices

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clarissa C. David ◽  
Edson C. Tandoc ◽  
Evelyn Katigbak
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Market Orientation ◽  
Television News ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Mass Market ◽  
Direct Exposure ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
History Of ◽  
Editorial Decisions ◽  
Editorial Practices

Through interviews with journalists from four top online newsrooms in the Philippines, this study examined the organizational arrangements surrounding social media teams and how these influence social media being incorporated into journalism decisions. Organizations considered audience preferences in their editorial decisions, but they depended on arrangements surrounding social media teams. Some organizational arrangements included inclusion of social media editors in story conferences and meetings, collaboration between reporters and social media teams, and direct exposure of top editors to engagement analytics. Drivers of news organizations incorporating social media into newsmaking processes include mass-market orientation, primacy of digital over print/television news formats, and history of a legacy brand.

scholarly journals Anti-science Misinformation and Conspiracies: COVID–19, Post-truth, and Science & Technology Studies (STS)

2021 ◽  
pp. 097172182110034
Author(s):  
Amit Prasad
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
False Information ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Science Technology ◽  
The Us ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
History Of

COVID–19 has not only resulted in nearly two and a half million deaths globally but it has also spawned a pandemic of misinformation and conspiracies. In this article I examine COVID–19 misinformation and conspiracies in the United States (US). These misinformation and conspiracies have been commonly argued to be anti-science. I argue, although it is important to rebut false information and stop their spread, social scientists need to analyse how such anti-science claims are discursively framed and interpreted. Specifically, I show how the framing of the anti-science conspiracies utilise the credibility of science and scientists. I also explore how the COVID–19 misinformation and conspiracies were given different meaning among different social groups. The article is divided into three sections. In the first section I analyse the discursive emplotment of the Plandemic video that had Dr Judy Mikovits presenting several COVID–19 conspiracy theories and went viral before it was taken down from major social media platforms. I show how the video draws on the credibility of science, scientists, and scientific journals to present misinformation and conspiracies claims against vaccination, mask wearing, etc. The second section explores how COVID–19 misinformation and conspiracies were interpreted among the African-American community by drawing on the history of black community’s experiences in the US and as such how their interpretations stand in contrast to the interpretations of the COVID–19 misinformation and conspiracies among the White community. The last section analyses the role of STS in engaging with anti-science and post-truth issues and emphasises the need to excavate genealogies of the present even with regard to misinformation and conspiracies.

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