scholarly journals Exploring digital divides in older adults’ news consumption

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-177
Author(s):  
Annika Bergström

AbstractMedia structure is rapidly steering towards digital formats and distribution. Meanwhile, many Western societies have ageing populations, where older adults are less digitally active than the population at large. This, combined with the fact that the news media are crucial in providing information and fostering engagement and cohesion, means that the news consumption of older adults deserves scholarly attention. Based on national representative surveys, this article analyses the use of traditional and digital news among people aged 66 to 85 between 2014 and 2018. The findings show that the overall reading of newspapers is decreasing among pensioners of all ages, whereas radio and television news both have rather stable audience shares. Despite the overall decline of newspaper reading, the reading of digital newspapers is becoming more common, and digital newspapers seem, to some extent, to have replaced printed newspapers. Concerning factors explaining digital news consumption among the 65+ group, general Internet habits, sex, and political interest are shown to be the most important.

2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Van Cauwenberge ◽  
Hans Beentjes ◽  
Leen d’Haenens

A typology of young news users in the Low Countries A typology of young news users in the Low Countries This article investigates different types of young news users (15-34 years) in the Low Countries. Therefore a survey among 1200 Flemish and Dutch youngsters and adolescents was conducted, analyzing the combined use of media platforms for news consumption and time spent with these news carriers. The cluster analysis identified five types of news users: the sound and vision group, characterized by the use of mainly audiovisual news platforms, combined with online news sites; the e-news users, who give most prominence to online news sites but also rely on traditional news platforms, the all rounders, depending on a range of off- and online news channels; the traditionalists, who spent most time with offline news media; and the dabblers, a group with an overall low level of news consumption. Our results indicate that Flemish and Dutch youngsters combine online and traditional news platforms for their news gathering, giving most prominence to traditional news media, especially television news.


Tripodos ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 41-61
Author(s):  
Carlos Lopezosa ◽  
Lluís Codina ◽  
Mario Pérez-Montoro

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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annika Bergström ◽  
Jesper Strömbäck ◽  
Sofia Arkhede

The transformation from low- to high-choice media environments has triggered concerns of rising inequalities in news media use. This concern has been buttressed by research showing that motivational factors have become more important predictors of news media use. Less attention has been paid to how changes in media environments have altered the impact of socioeconomic status on news media use. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the changing impact of socioeconomic status on newspaper and television news consumption, empirically focussing on Sweden between 2000 and 2016. Among other things, results suggest that the impact of socioeconomic status on news media use has increased with respect to reading morning newspapers but decreased for reading tabloids and watching television news.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Vissenberg ◽  
David De Coninck ◽  
Leen d’Haenens

Abstract Previous research has found that news coverage on immigration is often biased in negative ways and that it inspires the formation of negative attitudes towards immigrants. However, academic research about this link between news consumption and attitudes towards immigrants among adolescents remains limited. The current study aims to test this association from a media-exposure and intergroup-contact perspective using survey data from 875 adolescents in Flanders, Belgium. The findings show that only television news consumption, thus no other types of news consumption, was associated with adolescents’ attitudes towards immigrants. Intergroup contact within the friend group, outside the school context, was linked to more positive attitudes. This study nuances earlier findings that news consumption predicts attitudes towards immigrants. Implications for future research are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35
Author(s):  
Kim Christian Schrøder ◽  
Mark Blach-Ørsten ◽  
Mads Kæmsgaard Eberholst

AbstractIn media systems theory, the Nordic countries are often held to constitute a specific media system (Brüggemann et al., 2014). In this article, we put this claim to the test in the area of news consumption. Based on findings about the four Nordic countries Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland in the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report (Newman et al., 2019), and inspired by previous studies of the audience dimension of media systems (Hölig et al., 2016; Peruško et al., 2015; Van Damme et al., 2017), we undertake a descriptive empirical analysis of the 2019 data of this 38-country study. Our study compares news audience practices in the Nordic countries with those of countries belonging to other supranational media systems. We find that while there are some internal differences within the Nordic media system, there are salient news consumption commonalities that are specific to the Nordic countries, such as preferred sources of news, pathways to news, paying for online news, and trust in the news.


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.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110271
Author(s):  
Nick Hagar ◽  
Johannes Wachs ◽  
Emőke-Ágnes Horvát

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.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Maurer ◽  
Jörg Haßler ◽  
Simon Kruschinski ◽  
Pablo Jost

Abstract This study compares the balance of newspaper and television news coverage about migration in two countries that were differently affected by the so-called “refugee crisis” in 2015 in terms of the geopolitical involvement and numbers of migrants being admitted. Based on a broad consensus among political elites, Germany left its borders open and received about one million migrants mainly from Syria during 2015. In contrast, the conservative British government was heavily attacked by oppositional parties for closing Britain’s borders and, thus, restricting immigration. These different initial situations led to remarkable differences between the news coverage in both countries. In line with news value theory, German media outlets reported much more on migration than did their British counterparts. In line with indexing theory, German news coverage consonantly reflected the consensual view of German political elites, while British news media reported along their general editorial lines.


Author(s):  
Patrícia Rossini ◽  
Jennifer Stromer-Galley ◽  
Ania Korsunska

Abstract While the debate around the prevalence and potential effects of fake news has received considerable scholarly attention, less research has focused on how political elites and pundits weaponized fake news to delegitimize the media. In this study, we examine the rhetoric in 2020 U.S. presidential primary candidates Facebook advertisements. Our analysis suggests that Republican and Democratic candidates alike attack and demean the news media on several themes, including castigating them for malicious gatekeeping, for being out of touch with the views of the public, and for being a bully. Only Trump routinely attacks the news media for trafficking in falsehoods and for colluding with other interests to attack his candidacy. Our findings highlight the ways that candidates instrumentalize the news media for their own rhetorical purposes; further constructing the news media as harmful to democracy.


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