scholarly journals Prevalence in News Media of Two Competing Hypotheses about COVID-19 Origins

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 320
Author(s):  
David Rozado
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Structural Break ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Daily News ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Potential Sources ◽  
Competing Hypotheses ◽  
Media Organizations ◽  
Escape Hypothesis

The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the most disruptive and painful phenomena of the last few decades. As of July 2021, the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that caused the outbreak remain a mystery. This work analyzes the prevalence in news media articles of two popular hypotheses about SARS-CoV-2 virus origins: the natural emergence and the lab-leak hypotheses. Our results show that for most of 2020, the natural emergence hypothesis was favored in news media content while the lab-leak hypothesis was largely absent. However, something changed around May 2021 that caused the prevalence of the lab-leak hypothesis to substantially increase in news media discourse. This shift has not been uniformed across media organizations but instead has manifested itself more acutely in some outlets than others. Our structural break analysis of daily news media usage of terms related to the laboratory escape hypothesis provides hints about potential sources for this sudden shift in the prevalence of the lab-leak hypothesis in prestigious news media.

scholarly journals Beyond the ‘refugee crisis’: How the UK news media represent asylum seekers across national boundaries

2020 ◽  
pp. 174804852091323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glenda Cooper ◽  
Lindsey Blumell ◽  
Mel Bunce
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
Daily News ◽  
News Websites ◽  
National Boundaries ◽  
The Uk

Migration is one of the most pressing, divisive issues in global politics today, and media play a crucial role in how communities understand and respond. This study examines how UK newspapers ( n =  974) and popular news websites ( n =  1044) reported on asylum seekers throughout 2017. It contributes to previous literature in two important ways. First, by examining the ‘new normal’ of daily news coverage in the wake of the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe. Second, by looking at how asylum seekers from different regions are represented. The content analysis finds significant variations in how asylum seekers are reported, including terminology use and topics they are associated with. The article also identifies important commonalities in how all asylum seekers are represented – most notably, the dominance of political elites as sources across all media content. It argues that Entman’s ‘cascade network model’ can help to explain this, with elites in one country able to influence transnational reports.

Agenda-Setting Dynamics during the Campaign Period

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Partheymüller
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Information Environment ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Agenda Setter ◽  
Memory Decay ◽  
The Media

It is widely believed that the news media have a strong influence on defining what are the most important problems facing the country during election campaigns. Yet, recent research has pointed to several factors that may limit the mass media’s agenda-setting power. Linking news media content to rolling cross-section survey data, the chapter examines the role of three such limiting factors in the context of the 2009 and the 2013 German federal elections: (1) rapid memory decay on the part of voters, (2) advertising by the political parties, and (3) the fragmentation of the media landscape. The results show that the mass media may serve as a powerful agenda setter, but also demonstrate that the media’s influence is strictly limited by voters’ cognitive capacities and the structure of the campaign information environment.

scholarly journals Learning Social Media Content Optimization: How Can SMEs Draw the Users' Attention on Official WeChat Accounts?

2022 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xueyun Zeng ◽  
Xuening Xu ◽  
Yenchun Jim Wu
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Psychological Needs ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Knowledge Based ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Artificial Intelligence Technology ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Content Optimization

Application of artificial intelligence is accelerating the digital transformation of enterprises, and digital content optimization is crucial to take the users' attention in social media usage. The purpose of this work is to demonstrate how social media content reaches and impresses more users. Using a sample of 345 articles released by Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on their official WeChat accounts, we employ the self-determination theory to analyze the effects of content optimization strategies on social media visibility. It is found that articles with enterprise-related information optimized for content related to users' psychological needs (heart-based content optimization, mind-based content optimization, and knowledge-based content optimization) achieved higher visibility than that of sheer enterprise-related information, whereas the enterprise-related information embedded with material incentive (benefits-based content optimization) brings lower visibility. The results confirm the positive effect of psychological needs on the diffusion of enterprise-related information, and provide guidance for SMEs to apply artificial intelligence technology to social media practice.

Data-Driven Information Consumption

2019 ◽  
pp. 424-437
Author(s):  
Joseph McKendrick
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Business Model ◽  
News Media ◽  
Publishing Industry ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
News Content ◽  
Content Development ◽  
Media Organizations ◽  
Different Sources

Things are changing dramatically within the publishing industry. However, news media itself isn't on the wane, as many pundits are stating. In this chapter, the author explores how the business model for media organizations is shifting away from print, and away from the “gateway” approach to journalism and content development, in which a few select articles are presented to audience by editors, writers and reporters. In its place, the new digital media model is creating a plethora of content from many different sources, oftentimes first-hand accounts, original sources, or commentary. In the process, rather than resulting in a dearth of news content, audiences have access to an often dizzying, overwhelming and potentially contradictory content. This is creating potentially new roles for news and publishing organizations, serving as sources of validation and aggregation of content. At the same time, the rise of digital media is providing consumers a far wider range of choices pushing media organizations to provide content more tailored to their audiences.

Participatory spaces in online media: Half-opening the gates to users

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjana Pantic
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
User Participation ◽  
Online Media ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Websites ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Organizations

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.

Challenging the Models of Terrorism Discourse in the News: European and Islamic Values in the French and Italian Press

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 384-413
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Ugolini ◽  
Dario Fanara
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Social Role ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Media Content Analysis ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
The Social ◽  
Terrorism Discourse ◽  
Islamic Values

The aim of this paper is to reflect on the social role of European journalists as they cover the issue of terrorism, which is a potential threat to European society itself. For this purpose, the paper presents the results of a qualitative media content analysis related to the news coverage of the aftermath of three major terrorist attacks. Specifically, the research focuses on the values involved in the coverage of the event rather than on the strict report of what happened. The authors observe that both liberal/‘trustee’ and polarized pluralist/‘advocacy’ models engender a double paradox concerning the interest of citizens in being informed or being protected by news media. Nonetheless, the liberal value of responsibility emerges as fundamental, in order to face and resolve this paradox.

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