scholarly journals Collective learning in news consumption

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niccolo Pescetelli ◽  
Alex Rutherford ◽  
Albert Kao ◽  
Iyad Rahwan

In a complex digital space---where information is shared without vetting from central authorities and where emotional content, rather than factual veracity, better predicts content spread---individuals often need to learn through experience which news sources to trust and rely on. Although public and experts' intuition alike call for stronger scrutiny of public information providers, and reliance on global trusted outlets, there is a statistical argument to be made that counter these prescriptions. We consider the scenario in which news statements are used by individuals to achieve a collective payoff---as is the case in many electoral contexts. In this case, a plurality of independent though less accurate news providers might be better for the public good than having fewer highly accurate ones. In a carefully controlled experiment, we asked people to make binary forecasts and rewarded them for their individual or collective performance. In accordance with theoretical expectations, we found that when collectively rewarded people learned to rely more on local information sources and that this strategy accrued better collective performance. Importantly, these effects positively scaled with group size so that larger groups benefited more from trusting local news sources. We validate these claims against a real-world news dataset. These findings show the importance of independent (instead of simply accurate) voices in any information landscape, but particularly when large groups of people want to maximize their collective payoff. These results suggest---at least statistically speaking---that emphasizing collective payoffs in large networks of news end-users might foster resilience to collective information failures.

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-21
Author(s):  
Ewa Skrabacz

AbstractConstituting the key element of a democratic system, political parties are among entities obliged by the Polish legislator to comply with the principle of disclosure by providing public information. The main objective of this paper is to determine the level of Polish political parties’ disclosure, understood here as their willingness to disclose information on their own structures. It seems that the practice of disclosing such basic organizational data may constitute a specific measure of Polish political parties’ respect for the idea of disclosure. The subject matter of the conducted research was particular parties’ sites in the Public Information Bulletin as well as their official websites. An attempt was made to acquire data concerning party structures by way of direct contact with particular parties’ organizational units – questionnaires were sent to both central and regional/district organizational units. In order to acquire a wider perspective, the research also included data provided by the Central Statistical Office concerning political parties’ organizational structures and election manifestos. The conducted analysis was summarized in the form of a ranking of the examined political parties based on a proposed political party disclosure index. This attempt to measure disclosure on the basis of data on internal structures provided by parties themselves is of a preliminary character which, nevertheless, makes it possible to capture the general properties of the phenomenon under analysis. Among the examined parties, it is PSL, SLD, and PO that, to an acceptable degree, follow the principle of disclosure in the analysed scope (indexes at the level of 60%-80% of the maximum value). Four other parties, i.e. N, Wolność, Razem, and Kukiz’15, are on the edge of the zone making it possible to regard their disclosure as sufficient (indexes at the level of around 50% of the maximum value). In the case of PiS, whose index does not reach 20% of the maximum value, it should be concluded that this party implements the principle of disclosure at a minimum level. The ranking did not show relationships between parties’ willingness towards providing information and their sizes or positions on the political scene (parliamentary parties vs. extra-parliamentary parties).


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Francoeur

There is a tendency, particularly among Western pundits and technologists, to examine the Internet in almost universally positive terms; this is most evident in any discussion of the medium’s capacity for democratization. While the Internet has produced many great things for society in terms of cultural and economic production, some consideration must be given to the implications that such a revolutionary medium holds for the public sphere. By creating a communicative space that essentially grants everyone his or her own microphone, the Internet is fragmenting public discourse due to the proliferation of opinions and messages and the removal of traditional gatekeepers of information. More significantly, because of the structural qualities of the Internet, users no longer have to expose themselves to opinions and viewpoints that fall outside their own preconceived notions. This limits the robustness of the public sphere by limiting the healthy debate that can only occur when exposed to multiple viewpoints. Ultimately, the Internet is not going anywhere, so it is important to equip the public with the tools and knowledge to be able to navigate the digital space. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-66
Author(s):  
Coni Wanprala ◽  
Isnaini Muallidin ◽  
Dewi Sekar Kencono

At present the development of technology and information has reached a very rapid level. Technology and information are used as a service media in the government environment which is also known as e-Government, one of which is the service of public information disclosure. The central government through Law No. 14 of 2008 concerning Openness of Public Information, encourages all Public Agencies including the Sleman Regency Government to make transparency in the administration of the state by utilizing information technology. This research is a qualitative descriptive study which aims to describe the reality that occurs. The object of research in this study is the official website of the Information and Documentation Management Officer (PPID) of Sleman Regency with the domain https://ppid.slemankab.go.id then the Sleman Regency Communication and Informatics Office as the organizer of the public information disclosure program. The data collection technique itself is carried out by means of interviews, documentation studies, and field observations (observations). After collecting and presenting data, then the data will be reduced first then analyzed and concluded. From the results of the study, in general the researchers concluded that the Sleman Regency PPID website had reached the level of qualification to become a quality website, however there were still some improvements and evaluations that had to be done by the relevant agencies in order to be better, namely (i) the website was still being assessed as a one-way service (ii) There are still many OPDs that are not ready to implement PPID (iii) data and information are still not updated (iv) lack of responsiveness of services in requests for information.


Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lyn Holley ◽  
Rebecca K Lutte

This paper briefly summarizes evidence for the influence of popular films on public perception of government and on public policy.  Two films examined through the lens of public administration, and the lessons they teach about public administration, are exposed.  One film, Ghostbusters conveys a strongly negative image, and the other, A Thousand Heroes a strongly positive message.  Only Ghostbusters was and remains popular and profitable.  Public information efforts by government and the public administration community have been limited or reactive.  The authors argue for the increased support for public information initiatives such as those of the Public Employees Roundtable (PER) and  the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA).


HUMANIKA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Tri Handayani ◽  
Amin Taufiq Kurniawan

This paper focuses on digitalization archival photo Diponegoro University, as the basis for Diponegoro University towards the era of public information openness. This basis can be realized among others bythe publication digital photo archives of the three traditional missions of academic institutions (tridharma perguruan tinggi)  and  digital photo archive of administrative activity of Head of the University of Diponegoro through the website of Khazanah Arsip Foto Undip (Collection of Undip Photo Archive). As a conclusion, Khazanah Arsip Foto Undip were digitalized and uploaded to the Undip website were information to the public about the achievements of the University of Diponegoro in organizing the three traditional missions of academic institutions activities, and the information to the public about the achievements of the Head of Diponegoro University policy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 56
Author(s):  
Carl A. Latkin ◽  
Lauren Dayton ◽  
Jacob R. Miller ◽  
Grace Yi ◽  
Afareen Jaleel ◽  
...  

There is a critical need for the public to have trusted sources of vaccine information. A longitudinal online study assessed trust in COVID-19 vaccine information from 10 sources. A factor analysis for data reduction revealed two factors. The first factor contained politically conservative sources (PCS) of information. The second factor included eight news sources representing mainstream sources (MS). Multivariable logistic regression models were used. Trust in Dr. Fauci was also examined. High trust in MS was associated with intention to encourage family members to get COVID-19 vaccines, altruistic beliefs that more vulnerable people should have vaccine priority, and belief that racial minorities with higher rates of COVID-19 deaths should have priority. High trust in PCS was associated with intention to discourage friends from getting vaccinated. Higher trust in PCS was also associated with participants more likely to disagree that minorities with higher rates of COVID-19 deaths should have priority for a vaccine. High trust in Dr. Fauci as a source of COVID-19 vaccine information was associated with factors similar to high trust in MS. Fair, equitable, and transparent access and distribution are essential to ensure trust in public health systems’ abilities to serve the population.


Author(s):  
Robert F Engle ◽  
Martin Klint Hansen ◽  
Ahmet K Karagozoglu ◽  
Asger Lunde

Abstract Motivated by the recent availability of extensive electronic news databases and advent of new empirical methods, there has been renewed interest in investigating the impact of financial news on market outcomes for individual stocks. We develop the information processing hypothesis of return volatility to investigate the relation between firm-specific news and volatility. We propose a novel dynamic econometric specification and test it using time series regressions employing a machine learning model selection procedure. Our empirical results are based on a comprehensive dataset comprised of more than 3 million news items for a sample of 28 large U.S. companies. Our proposed econometric specification for firm-specific return volatility is a simple mixture model with two components: public information and private processing of public information. The public information processing component is defined by the contemporaneous relation with public information and volatility, while the private processing of public information component is specified as a general autoregressive process corresponding to the sequential price discovery mechanism of investors as additional information, previously not publicly available, is generated and incorporated into prices. Our results show that changes in return volatility are related to public information arrival and that including indicators of public information arrival explains on average 26% (9–65%) of changes in firm-specific return volatility.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Vanessa Rodríguez-Breijo ◽  
Núria Simelio ◽  
Pedro Molina-Rodríguez-Navas

This study uses a qualitative approach to examine what political and technical leaders of municipalities understand transparency and public information to mean, and what role they believe the different subjects involved (government, opposition, and the public) should have. The websites of 605 Spanish councils with more than 100,000 inhabitants were analysed and three focus groups were held with political and technical leaders from a selection of sample councils. The results show that the technical and political leaders of the councils do not have a clear awareness of their function of management accountability or of the need to apply journalistic criteria to the information they publish, defending with nuances the use of propaganda criteria to focus on the actions of the local government, its information, the lack of space dedicated to public debate and the opposition’s actions. In relation to accountability and citizen participation, they have a negative view of citizens, who they describe as being disengaged. However, they emphasize that internally it is essential to continue improving in terms of the culture of transparency and the public information they provide citizens.


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