scholarly journals Online Newspapers and the Comment Sections: Perception and Use

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
I. Ejepu Chidimma
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Survey Method ◽  
Online Newspapers ◽  
News Content ◽  
Uses And Gratification ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Uses And Gratification Theory ◽  
Online Newspaper

Development in online communication within the last decade which coincided with the advent of web2.0 technologies has enabled user generated content online. This development saw the evolve of print newspapers to it online version. The comment platform is the space attached beneath an online newspaper where readers register their views on the news content. This place of deliberation which serves to gauge public opinion on the affairs of the nation can be muddled with users view of the content of new stories, the news media and its comment section. Research has shown that readers of online newspapers use the comment section for various purposes. This work focused on online Nigerian newspaper and its readers, Thus, it examined users’ perception of Nigerian news sites and its online comment section as well as investigating the various uses of the comment section by Nigerian online media users. It hinged on the Uses and Gratification theory. Online survey method was adopted to distribute five hundred copies of online questionnaires with a return rate of 406 copies. Data was collected and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The findings revealed that most readers of Nigerian news sites perceive news content as biased and that affiliation of news site to a particular zone affects readers view of the news stories. In addition, it discovered that the comment section of online Nigerian news site is used mostly for sharing ideas

Between Coronavirus and COVID-19: Influence of Nigerian Newspapers’ Headline Construction on Audience Information-Seeking Behaviour

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. R. Ojebuyi ◽  
M.I. Lasisi ◽  
U.O. Ajetunmobi
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
News Media ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Information Seeking Behaviour ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
The Relationship

Since the onset of the new coronavirus, the mass media, across the globe, have continued to draw special attention to the disease by adopting different pragmatic and rhetoric strategies. In Nigeria for instance, the news media have continued to draw people’s attention to the virus by using COVID-19 and coronavirus as synonymous lexical entities in the headlines of their news stories. These lexical choices are believed to have some influence on how the audience understand and seek information about the virus. However, existing studies in media and health communication have not copiously explored the relationship between the lexical choices by media to report the COVID-19 pandemic and people’s information-seeking behaviour about the virus. This study was, therefore, designed to investigate how Nigerian journalists used coronavirus and COVID-19 as the key terms to report the virus and how the pragma-semantic implicatures of the lexical choices influenced audience information-seeking behaviours. Pragmatic Acts and Information-Seeking theories were employed as the theoretical framework while online survey and content analysis were adopted as methods. Findings show that although Nigerian journalists used coronavirus (SD=2.090) more often than COVID-19 (SD=1.924) in the headlines, the audience employed COVID-19 (M=2.23, SD=.810) more than coronavirus (M=1.88, SD=.783) while searching information about the virus. Besides, journalists’ use of COVID-19 in the headlines to educate (Chi-square =37.615, df=11, P<.000), warn (Chi-square =26.153, df=11, P<.006), assess (Chi-square= 24.350, df=11, P<.011) and sensitise (Chi-square =24.262, df=11, P<.012) facilitated audience interest in seeking information about the virus than when coronavirus is used as a keyword in the headlines. The lexical choices made by journalists to report a health crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic have implications for citizens’ knowledge about the crisis.

scholarly journals Are Experts (News)Worthy? Balance, Conflict, and Mass Media Coverage of Expert Consensus

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Merkley
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Expert Consensus ◽  
News Production ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Thematic Context

Overlooked in analyses of why the public often rejects expert consensus is the role of the news media. News coverage of expert consensus on general matters of policy is likely limited as a result of journalists’ emphasis in news production on novelty and drama at the expense of thematic context. News content is also biased towards balance and conflict, which may dilute the persuasiveness of expert consensus. This study presents an automated and manual analysis of over 280,000 news stories on ten issues where there are important elements of agreement among scientists or economists. The analyses show that news content typically emphasizes arguments aligned with positions of expert consensus, rather than providing balance, and only occasionally cites contrarian experts. More troubling is that expert messages related to important areas of agreement are infrequent in news content, and cues signaling the existence of consensus are rarer still.

scholarly journals Social Media and Religious Minorities: Analyzing the Usage of Facebook Groups among Christian Minority to Highlight their Issues in Pakistan

2021 ◽  
Vol VI (I) ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Sumera Batool ◽  
Saba Sultana ◽  
Sana Tariq
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Online Discussions ◽  
Survey Method ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
Marginalized Communities ◽  
Uses And Gratification ◽  
Uses And Gratification Theory ◽  
Participation Level

The issues of religious, ethnic and racial minorities are one of the major problems in modern democratic states where the majority governs. The article finds out the role of religious Facebook groups in highlighting the issues of the Christian minority. The objectives were to observe the reasons of participation, level of dependence and the nature of effects of online discussions of Facebook groups on the Christian community. Uses and gratification theory was applied to understand that how new technologies in media are used to gratify the needs of marginalized communities in a pluralist society. Data was collected through a survey method from the Christian minority, which was Facebook users and members of Facebook religion. The findings of the study revealed that usage of Facebook Groups is motivating the Christian community towards the solution of their problems; there is an association between usage of Facebook groups and awareness level regarding social issues among the Christian community.

scholarly journals Citizen videojournalism in professional online news media as a vehicle for democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Lai
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Depth Information ◽  
New Journalism ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Participatory Journalism ◽  
News Organizations

"Citizen journalists have reconstructed the traditional means of journalism practice by being their own eyewitness reporters, producers, and news information distributors; they self-advocate for citizens' voices, analyze news, debate, and construct news stories from citizens' perspectives. The internet has created an open system that encourages free press and enables the mobilization of the rights and practice of public free speech. Deliberative democratic goals are significant in participatory journalism, and these challenges mainstream news journalism in their traditional roles as conveyors of journalism standards, professional practices, and ethics mediation. As new media's momentum picks up, the journalistic space between public and professional journalists will need to be shared, and the practices of journalism will have to shift their models for this new form of democratic platform. Through new media and new journalism practices that encourage citizen involvement, journalism is evolving in setting a different standard of what is newsworthy. It is shifting editorial and political agendas to make use of wider content from the public, which could possibly infer the approval of using new journalism models to encourage citizen participation in news making. This research examines how the democratic practice of citizen participation in news content submissions affect news standards, by which the quality of news journalism is evaluated. This paper assesses how news organizations obtain content from citizens, how they make decisions to print and broadcast the content, and asks whether journalism has progressed into a model that involves citizens and professionals in an effective news production process. This study focuses on the implication of acquiring contributions of citizen journalism from the distinctive perspectives of news practices, participatory journalism, and the deliberation of democracy of citizens' press. This paper focuses on how the integration of user-generated content (UGC), in news stories as a vehicle that provides voices for citizens in a democratic movement. The usage of UGC in news institutions has changed traditional journalistic practices in terms of their news value, standard and quality. Essentially, editors of the news media determine which images captured by citizen journalists will be used, and they also decide the messages that they want to send to the public through framing and editing techniques. Previous research on editorial practice has identified various standards about newsworthiness that serve as selection criteria. However, there is a limited amount of research available on how UGC has changed the traditional journalism model. Through qualitative interviews with seven image editors, five news companies, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CTV, Macleans, Rabble and The Toronto Star, this study sheds light on the editor's perceptions about citizen journalist videos and images in news content online. Three Canadian case examples are examined for their visual content analysis: the immigration ex-judge sex bribe case, the Vancouver police tasering of a Polish man, and Victoria police manhandling two young men at a nightclub. Through analysis of the interviews and case studies, this study finds that editors feel that UGC has not altered their traditional news standards. However, upon closer examination of news report cases, it does appear that UGC, which often consists of low quality videos with information entertainment content, has in fact affected the practices of quality journalism. The news media have adopted UGC content styles, which tend toward being more sensational, graphic, raw; these styles can make "hard news", which conveys investigative in-depth information, appear similar to "soft news", such as sensational infotainment. Notwithstanding that professional news organizations use public content in their news stories, they have not provided a platform of partnership to allow citizens to have a democratic voice through their media"--From Abstract.

scholarly journals ‘Saying goodbye’ during the COVID-19 pandemic: A document analysis of online newspapers with implications for end of life care

2021 ◽  
pp. 026921632110170
Author(s):  
Lucy E Selman ◽  
Ryann Sowden ◽  
Erica Borgstrom
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Daily Mail ◽  
Online Newspapers ◽  
Online Newspaper ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Guardian

Background: News media create a sense-making narrative, shaping, reflecting and enforcing cultural ideas and experiences. Reportage of COVID-related death and bereavement illuminates public perceptions of, and responses to, the COVID-19 pandemic. Aim: We aimed to explore British newspaper representations of ‘saying goodbye’ before and after a COVID-related death and consider clinical implications. Design: Document analysis of UK online newspaper articles published during 2 week-long periods in March–April 2020. Data sources: The seven most-read online newspapers were searched: The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Sun, The Times and The Metro. Fifty-five articles discussed bereavement after a human death from COVID-19, published during 18/03–24/03/2020 (the UK’s transition into lockdown) or 08/04–14/04/2020 (the UK peak of the pandemic’s first wave). Results: The act of ‘saying goodbye’ (before, during and after death) was central to media representations of COVID bereavement, represented as inherently important and profoundly disrupted. Bedside access was portrayed as restricted, variable and uncertain, with families begging or bargaining for contact. Video-link goodbyes were described with ambivalence. Patients were portrayed as ‘dying alone’ regardless of clinician presence. Funerals were portrayed as travesties and grieving alone as unnatural. Articles focused on what was forbidden and offered little practical guidance. Conclusion: Newspapers portrayed COVID-19 as disruptive to rituals of ‘saying goodbye’ before, during and after death. Adaptations were presented as insufficient attempts to ameliorate tragic situations. More nuanced and supportive reporting is recommended. Clinicians and other professionals supporting the bereaved can play an important role in offering alternative narratives.

scholarly journals Digital Geogames to foster local biodiversity

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 16-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Schaal ◽  
Steffen Schaal ◽  
Armin Lude
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Situational Interest ◽  
Game Based Learning ◽  
School Students ◽  
Uses And Gratification ◽  
Uses And Gratification Theory ◽  
Group Participant ◽  
Framework Development

Abstract The valuing of biodiversity is considered to be a first step towards its conservation. Therefore, the aim of the BioDiv2Go project is to combine sensuous experiences discovering biodiversity with mobile technology and a game-based learning approach. Following the competence model for environmental education (Roczen et al, 2014), Geogames (location based games on smartphones) for experiential outdoor learning activities are developed. The Finde Vielfalt Simulation (FVS) Geogame focuses on adolescent visitors of German youth hostels. The FVS-players are involved in a narrative keeping the traditions of their ancestors’ heritage as decisions are needed to balance biodiversity and economic success. They discover the natural environment and they solve location-based tasks at several places. If the players manipulate a simulation successfully they stand the test of the ancestors. The initial theoretical framework consists of the components biodiversity-related attitudes, behaviour and knowledge, general environmental behaviour and attitude towards nature. According to the Uses and Gratification Theory, the game-related enjoyment is added. For the assessment different scales were developed or adapted and tested for secondary-school children. The framework evolved stepwise through systematic expert hearings, interviews with the target group, participant observation as well as through an online survey. In a first step the situational interest was considered to be important for the valuing of biodiversity. The final version of the framework was used and validated within a pilot study with 180 secondary school students. The framework development was a highly transformative process engaging different actors, using complementary methodological approaches and integrating different disciplinary perspectives.

YouTube stickiness: the needs, personal, and environmental perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsiu-Sen Chiang ◽  
Kuo-Lun Hsiao
Keyword(s):  
Web Sites ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Video Service ◽  
Uses And Gratification ◽  
Uses And Gratification Theory ◽  
Video Sharing ◽  
Sharing Behavior

Purpose – Many video sharing sites (e.g. YouTube, Vimeo, and Break) host user-generated video content in the hopes of attracting viewers and thus profits. Therefore, continuous use and video sharing behavior on the part of site users is critical to the continue enjoyment of other users and to the video service providers business. The purpose of this paper is to provide an improved understanding of what motivates internet users to share videos and spend more time on video sharing web sites. Design/methodology/approach – The authors propose a research model based on Uses and Gratification Theory and on Social Cognitive Theory, incorporating key determinants of web site stickiness. An online survey instrument was developed to gather data, and 265 questionnaires were used to test the relationships in the model. Findings – The causal model was validated using SmartPLS 2.0, and 14 out of 18 study hypotheses were supported. The results indicated that continuance motivation and sharing behavior were important antecedents of YouTube stickiness and mediated the influence of need, personal, and environmental factors. Practical implications – The proposed framework can be used by online video service providers to develop a platform that satisfies user needs and to enhance sharing intention. Originality/value – The study provides a comprehensive framework of the antecedents and effects of continuance motivation and sharing behavior on video sharing web sites.

scholarly journals Citizen videojournalism in professional online news media as a vehicle for democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Lai
Keyword(s):  
Citizen Participation ◽  
News Media ◽  
Online News ◽  
Depth Information ◽  
New Journalism ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Content ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Participatory Journalism ◽  
News Organizations

"Citizen journalists have reconstructed the traditional means of journalism practice by being their own eyewitness reporters, producers, and news information distributors; they self-advocate for citizens' voices, analyze news, debate, and construct news stories from citizens' perspectives. The internet has created an open system that encourages free press and enables the mobilization of the rights and practice of public free speech. Deliberative democratic goals are significant in participatory journalism, and these challenges mainstream news journalism in their traditional roles as conveyors of journalism standards, professional practices, and ethics mediation. As new media's momentum picks up, the journalistic space between public and professional journalists will need to be shared, and the practices of journalism will have to shift their models for this new form of democratic platform. Through new media and new journalism practices that encourage citizen involvement, journalism is evolving in setting a different standard of what is newsworthy. It is shifting editorial and political agendas to make use of wider content from the public, which could possibly infer the approval of using new journalism models to encourage citizen participation in news making. This research examines how the democratic practice of citizen participation in news content submissions affect news standards, by which the quality of news journalism is evaluated. This paper assesses how news organizations obtain content from citizens, how they make decisions to print and broadcast the content, and asks whether journalism has progressed into a model that involves citizens and professionals in an effective news production process. This study focuses on the implication of acquiring contributions of citizen journalism from the distinctive perspectives of news practices, participatory journalism, and the deliberation of democracy of citizens' press. This paper focuses on how the integration of user-generated content (UGC), in news stories as a vehicle that provides voices for citizens in a democratic movement. The usage of UGC in news institutions has changed traditional journalistic practices in terms of their news value, standard and quality. Essentially, editors of the news media determine which images captured by citizen journalists will be used, and they also decide the messages that they want to send to the public through framing and editing techniques. Previous research on editorial practice has identified various standards about newsworthiness that serve as selection criteria. However, there is a limited amount of research available on how UGC has changed the traditional journalism model. Through qualitative interviews with seven image editors, five news companies, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CTV, Macleans, Rabble and The Toronto Star, this study sheds light on the editor's perceptions about citizen journalist videos and images in news content online. Three Canadian case examples are examined for their visual content analysis: the immigration ex-judge sex bribe case, the Vancouver police tasering of a Polish man, and Victoria police manhandling two young men at a nightclub. Through analysis of the interviews and case studies, this study finds that editors feel that UGC has not altered their traditional news standards. However, upon closer examination of news report cases, it does appear that UGC, which often consists of low quality videos with information entertainment content, has in fact affected the practices of quality journalism. The news media have adopted UGC content styles, which tend toward being more sensational, graphic, raw; these styles can make "hard news", which conveys investigative in-depth information, appear similar to "soft news", such as sensational infotainment. Notwithstanding that professional news organizations use public content in their news stories, they have not provided a platform of partnership to allow citizens to have a democratic voice through their media"--From Abstract.

scholarly journals AGENDA SETTING BY THE MALAY ONLINE NEWSPAPERS DURING THE SEMENYIH BY-ELECTION

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (17) ◽  
pp. 121-131
Author(s):  
Muhamad Mat Yakim ◽  
Shafizan Mohamed ◽  
Kamaruzzaman Abdul Manan
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Online News ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Online Newspapers ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Set Up

Media can play an important role in the public's voting decision. In Malaysia, Facebook the one of the most popular social media used in political communication. In relation, this paper investigates whether online news shared on Facebook set the political agenda for its readers. The Semenyih by-election offered an interesting case to study this relationship. In response to the importance of social networking sites as sources of information, news media organizations have set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links to articles. This allows for wider news reach as well as audience participation. When audience members read and subsequently comment on news articles on Facebook, it becomes possible to identify public opinions and sentiments on the issues being covered. Content analysis was done on 300 issues highlighted by two Malay online news Facebook pages namely Malaysiakini BM and Sinar Harian during the Semenyih by-election. A total of 691 user issues were sampled to investigate whether user issues mirror the issues and sentiments presented in the news articles. The descriptive findings showed that news sentiments and audience sentiments are almost similar but did not exactly match.

scholarly journals An Investigation of the Influencing Factors of Chinese WeChat Users’ Environmental Information-Sharing Behavior Based on an Integrated Model of UGT, NAM, and TPB

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2710
Author(s):  
Yang Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Information Sharing ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Environmental Communication ◽  
Environmental Information ◽  
Uses And Gratification ◽  
Uses And Gratification Theory ◽  
Sharing Behavior

Sustainable development is a common challenge for all. Under this background, how to promote public participation in environmental communication has become an important topic. The purpose of this study is to understand the motivating mechanism behind Chinese WeChat users’ environmental information-sharing behavior by taking China’s unique social and cultural background into account. A comprehensive theoretical model for this study is constructed based on the uses and gratification theory, the norm activation model, and the theory of planned behavior. Through an online survey, data were collected from 526 participants to test the research model. The research results show that Chinese WeChat users’ environmental information-sharing behavior is motivated by both egoistic factors (self-presentation, information seeking, and socializing) and altruistic factors (awareness of consequences and ascription of responsibility). During the behavioral decision-making process, these motivating factors impact people’s actual sharing behavior via their attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, personal norms, and behavioral intention in various patterns. The findings are discussed from an interdisciplinary perspective of media usage, prosocial behavior, and behavioral psychology. This article not only proposes a new conceptual framework to explain social media users’ behavior of sharing environmental information but also provides important theoretical and practical implications regarding motivating public participation in environmental communication on social media.

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