scholarly journals The Multidimensionality of Trust: Assessing Finnish Audiences’ Views on the Trustworthiness of Digital News

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Minna Horowitz ◽  
Markus Ojala ◽  
Janne Matikainen ◽  
Johanna Jääsaari
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Basic Premise ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Digital News ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

Finland provides an interesting case study on trust in the media in the digital era. The country is known to exhibit the greatest levels of trust in the political establishment and the government, as well as the media. In the Finnish “digital welfare state,” the news is an inseparable part of the mechanism, producing a high level of social trust within the welfare state system, and Finland features the highest level of media freedom and literacy in Europe. This multimethod study examines different understandings of trust by studying in what ways Finnish audiences experience trust in news, especially when consuming news on digital platforms, and what factors explain trust in different news sources. Our basic premise is that trust can be understood in three ways: as dispositions of individual actors, as the social organization and the relationship between different social nodes and the system, and as a constantly negotiated property of social relations. We apply this three-dimensional framework in two sets of audience survey research data (2019, 2020) and reflect the findings with a focus group and expert interviews as well as with two similar surveys a decade prior. Our results depict relatively high levels of trust in the media in Finland and surprisingly little change in audiences’ perceptions of trustworthiness compared to the earlier surveys. The most defining characteristic of Finnish audiences is critical trust. Audiences are aware of the impacts of digitization, especially the dangers of social media bubbles and disinformation. They also recognize market-driven imperatives of journalism yet appreciate legacy news media in its different digital forms. Our study indicates that a balance between skepticism and reliance on news outlets can exist in audiences’ perceptions of the trustworthiness of digital news.

How to Tell the Truth without Outraging the Press?

MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Chinese Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Press ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
Chinese News Media

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 

Writer movements between news outlets reflect political polarization in media

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110271
Author(s):  
Nick Hagar ◽  
Johannes Wachs ◽  
Emőke-Ágnes Horvát
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Structural Factors ◽  
Digital News ◽  
The Media ◽  
Or Organization

Digital news outlets rely on a variety of outside contributors, from freelance journalists, to political commentators, to executives and politicians. These external dependencies create a network among news outlets, traced along the contributors they share. Using connections between outlets, we demonstrate how contributors’ publishing trajectories tend to align with outlet political leanings. We also show how polarized clustering of outlets translates to differences in the topics of news covered and the style and tone of articles published. In addition, we demonstrate how contributors who cross partisan divides tend to focus on less explicitly political topics. This work addresses an important gap in the media polarization literature, by highlighting how structural factors on the production side of news media create an ecosystem shaped by political leanings, independent of the priorities of any one person or organization.

Accountability and the Media

2014 ◽  
Vol 652 (1) ◽  
pp. 206-221
Author(s):  
Anton Harber
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Access ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
The Face ◽  
Public Broadcaster ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Poor Management

Two decades of contestation over the nature and extent of transformation in the South African news media have left a sector different in substantive ways from the apartheid inheritance but still patchy in its capacity to fill the democratic ideal. Change came fast to a newly open broadcasting sector, but has faltered in recent years, particularly in a public broadcaster troubled by political interference and poor management. The potential of online media to provide much greater media access has been hindered by the cost of bandwidth. Community media has grown but struggled to survive financially. Print media has been aggressive in investigative exposé, but financial cutbacks have damaged routine daily coverage. In the face of this, the government has turned its attention to the print sector, demanding greater—but vaguely defined—transformation and threatened legislation. This has met strong resistance.

scholarly journals Designing a Renaissance for Digital News Media

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 115-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anette Novak
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Interaction Design ◽  
Scientific Community ◽  
Design Research ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Digital News ◽  
The Media

User participation in the journalistic context has theoretically been possible since the emergence of the Internet. The few interface formats which have been developed to link newsrooms and citizens have, however, not followed the same explosive development as other parts of the media landscape. One reason often referred to by the scientific community is the defensive newsroom culture. This essay presents an alternative interpretation and argues that bridging the gap between interaction design research, media and communications research, and practitioners within digital news media, could shed new light on the stalled process of newsroom co-creation with users.

scholarly journals SEO and Digital News Media: Visibility of Cultural Information in Spain’s Leading Newspapers

Tripodos ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 41-61
Author(s):  
Carlos Lopezosa ◽  
Lluís Codina ◽  
Mario Pérez-Montoro
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
Web Traffic ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Digital News ◽  
The Media ◽  
Visibility Index ◽  
The Web ◽  
Digital Newspapers

This paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the visibility, and of other SEO indicators, of the culture sections of Spain’s leading digital newspapers —specifically, elmundo.es, elpais. com, lavanguardia.com, abc.es, el­confidencial.com and 20minutos.es— based on data collected by the media analytics company, comScore, and the web traffic metric, Alexa Rank. The analysis employs a set of positioning in­dicators: namely, a visibility index, keywords, social signals, keyword profiles, URLs, SERP-Snippets, reference domains and best anchor texts, as made availa­ble by SISTRIX, an SEO analytics audit toolbox. Thus, we were able to deter­mine which of the digital newspapers’ culture sections has the best visibility. Likewise, we were able to identify which of these media are best positioned on Google, presumably as a result of more effective positioning strategies. We con­clude with a discussion of our results and, on the basis of these findings, re­commend ways in which the visibility of journalistic information can be optimi­sed in search engines.   SEO i cibermitjans: visibilitat de la informació cultural dels principals diaris d’Espanya Aquest article realitza una anàlisi com­parativa de visibilitat i altres indicadors SEO de la secció de cultura dels principals cibermitjans espanyols: elmundo.es, elpais.com, lavanguardia.com, abc. es, elconfidencial.com i 20minutos. es. Les anàlisis s’han dut a terme amb la utilització d’un conjunt d’indicadors de posicionament (visibilitat, paraules clau, senyals socials, paraules clau, url, snippets, dominis de referència i mi­llors textos àncora) utilitzant l’eina de auditoria i anàlisi de posicionament en cercadors, SISTRIX. Ens preguntem quin d’aquests mitjans té millor una secció de notícies culturals amb millor visibilitat. L’estudi dut a terme amb els indicadors seleccionats permet, d’aquesta manera, presentar una anàlisi comparativa del periodisme cultural i identificar quins d’aquests mitjans presenten millors posicions a Google, presumiblement, com a resultat d’estratègies de posicio­nament. Finalitzem amb una discussió dels resultats juntament amb unes re­comanacions finals per optimitzar la vi­sibilitat de la informació periodística en els cercadors.

Young adults know that their issues are not represented in the news: Israeli young adults and mainstream news media

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Benny Nuriely ◽  
Moti Gigi ◽  
Yuval Gozansky
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Online News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the ways socio-economic issues are represented in mainstream news media and how it is consumed, understood and interpreted by Israeli young adults (YAs). It examines how mainstream media uses neo-liberal discourse, and the ways YAs internalize this ethic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome its limitations. Design/methodology/approach This was a mixed methods study. First, it undertook content analysis of the most popular Israeli mainstream news media among YAs: the online news site Ynet and the TV Channel 2 news. Second, the authors undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 29 Israeli YAs. The analysis is based on an online survey of 600 young Israelis, aged 18–35 years. Findings Most YAs did not perceive mainstream media as enabling a reliable understanding of the issues important to them. The content analysis revealed that self-representation of YAs is rare, and that their issues were explained, and even resolved, by older adults. Furthermore, most of YAs' problems in mainstream news media were presented using a neo-liberal perspective. Finally, from the interviews, the authors learned that YAs did not find information that could help them deal with their most pressing economic and social issue, in the content offered by mainstream media. For most of them, social media overcomes these shortcomings. Originality/value Contrary to research that has explored YAs’ consumerism of new media outlets, this article explores how YAs in Israel are constructed in the media, as well as the way in which YAs understand mainstream and new social media coverage of the issues most important to them. Using media content analysis and interviews, the authors found that Young Adults tend to be ambivalent toward media coverage. They understand the lack of media information: most of them know that they do not learn enough from the media. This acknowledgment accompanies their tendency to internalize the neo-liberal logic and conservative Israeli national culture, in which class and economic redistribution are largely overlooked. Mainstream news media uses neo-liberal discourse, and young adults internalize this logic, while simultaneously finding ways to overcome the limitations this discourse offers. They do so by turning to social media, mainly Facebook. Consequently, their behavior maintains the logic of the market, while also developing new social relations, enabled by social media.

Saving the News

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Minow
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Government Accountability ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Private Industry ◽  
Government Action ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

This book argues that US democracy presumes a news industry but that industry currently is failing. It focuses on the contributions of digital platforms and legal rules to the current situation and on the government's responsibilities for alleviating the problem. As the book shows, the First Amendment of the US Constitution assumes the existence and durability of a private industry. Despite some concerns that government action now is not permitted, nothing in the Constitution forecloses government action to regulate concentrated economic power, to require disclosure of who is financing communications, or to support news initiatives where there are market failures. Moreover, the federal government always been involved in shaping the media environment; it has contributed financial resources, laws, and regulations to develop and shape media in the United States. The government has subsidized development of the internet and crafted legal immunities for digital platforms; the government has crafted the direction and contours of America's media ecosystem. The shift of people’s attention to media platforms that borrow news stories without paying for them and spread misinformation jeopardizes journalism, reliable news sources, and the very respect for truth-telling. To maintain government accountability and inform a public as required in a democracy, The book outlines an array of reforms, including a new fairness doctrine, regulating digital platforms as public utilities, using antitrust authority to regulate the media, policing fraud, and more robust funding of public media. As the text stresses, such reforms are not merely plausible ideas; they are the kinds of initiatives needed if the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press continues to hold meaning in the twenty-first century.

Framing media populism: The political role of news media editorials in Duterte’s Philippines

Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146488492095950
Author(s):  
Jefferson Lyndon D Ragragio
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fourth Estate ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Media Frames ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

Editorials are a political force used by news media to fulfil its watchdog function in fragile democracies like the Philippines. However, they also serve as a platform to invite a more positive reading of strongman administration. Against the backdrop of media populism, the article will problematize how the Fourth Estate articulates its political stance by examining the tensions and complexities in editorials. It will highlight the ways the media deals with subjects and stories surrounding Rodrigo Duterte. Through an analysis of editorials of four leading dominant news outlets (Bulletin, Inquirer, Rappler, and Star), three meta-thematic categories of media frames are uncovered. First, character degradation frames delineate how the media denounces the ties of Duterte with other political actors, particularly the Marcoses and China’s Xi. Second, pro-establishment frames echo the optimistic mantra of the government amid crisis. And third, non-editorial frames exhibit the failure of media to publish watchdog-inspired editorials. Each of these categories has underlying frames that are indicative of the democratic potential, or lack thereof, of news media.

scholarly journals Political Agenda Setting in the Hybrid Media System: Why Legacy Media Still Matter a Great Deal

2020 ◽  
pp. 194016122092502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Ines Langer ◽  
Johannes B. Gruber
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Investigative Journalism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Media System ◽  
Hybrid Dynamics ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

This article examines the roles of the media in the process of political agenda setting. There is a long tradition of studies on this topic, but they have mostly focused on legacy news media, thus overlooking the role of other actors and the complex hybrid dynamics that characterize contemporary political communication. In contrast, through an in-depth case study using mixed-methods and multiplatform data, this article provides a detailed analysis of the roles and interactions between different types of media and how they were used by political and advocacy elites. It explores what happened in the different parts of the system, and thus the paths to attention that led to setting this issue in the political and media agendas. The analysis of the case, a partial policy reversal in the United Kingdom provoked by an immigration scandal known as the “Windrush scandal” reveals that the issue was pushed into the agenda by a campaign assemblage of investigative journalism, political and advocacy elites, and digitally enabled leaders. The legacy news media came late but were crucial. They greatly amplified the salience of the issue and, once in “storm mode,” they were key for sustaining attention and pressure, eventually compelling the government to respond. It shows that they often remain at the core of the “national conversation” and certainly in the eye of a media storm. In the contemporary context, characterized by fierce battles for attention, shortening attention spans and fractured audiences, this is key and has important implications for agenda setting and beyond.

scholarly journals The Naturalization Policy in Online News Media

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 456
Author(s):  
Dian Purworini ◽  
Engkus Kuswarno ◽  
Purwanti Hadisiwi ◽  
Agus Rakhmat
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Royal Palace ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

Mediation by the government in the Royal Palace of Surakarta’s internal conflict was considered reasonable and appropriate policy by the media. The approach to the conflict did not emphasize a strong cultural aspect of that culture-based organization. This research aimed to examine how online news media reported on the Royal Palace of Surakarta’s internal conflict. Furthermore, this research used framing analysis as proposed by Stephen D Reese to analyze the news published in February 2014. The outcome indicated that there was framing construction of the government policies. The content of the news presented that framing processes occurred. Those started from the transmission of the various debated about government policy, then reinforced through elections sentence that supported certain policy and continued to the naturalization process. The final process was an important strategy to make mediation as an accepted policy that should be done by the government. In the conclusion, the perception to be formed was that government policies were appropriate, and so everyone should hold it. The conflict resolution could be achieved through the mediation as already conducted.

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