Perceptions of Partisanship in Local Television News

People turn to local media for information during crises such as the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). What factors impact media consumers’ decisions about which local television news broadcast to watch? This study argues that media consumers infer the partisanship of local television affiliates — judging local Fox and NBC news broadcasts to be right and left slanted, respectively, based on their perceived associations with Fox News and MSNBC. Using the results from a representative survey of Americans (N = 5,461), the study demonstrates that local Fox and NBC viewers are significantly more likely to watch Fox News or MSNBC. As a result, watching local Fox is associated with less coronavirus risk because media consumers choose local Fox believing that it will align with their existing conservative views. This study demonstrates the importance of the perceptions of local news partisanship in influencing the consumption of critically important local crisis news.

Local News and Geolocation Technology in the Case of Portugal

New projects have recently emerged to develop geolocation technology for the publication of local news in Portugal. These types of new initiatives open the possibility to explore new media perspectives, identifying emerging directions and opportunities to develop more competitive ways to publish local news. In this work, we study these ideas and to what extent they can be used to cope with the challenges that the local Portuguese press is currently facing. We provide local news editors with information to further develop their e-participation and news publishing activities. To this end, we present 10 indicators that measure geolocation technology that has been successful in providing attractive services to local consumers. Lastly, we analyze five Portuguese apps by means of the proposed guideline. Our work shows that the use of geolocation technology has a great potential for local journalism in Portugal but nevertheless we still find flaws in their implementation.

Influence of Personal Experience on Readership of Local Contents in National Newspapers Among Residents of Select Communities in Anambra North

This study is a response to over concentration of media studies on media effect. Premised on the negligence of what personal experiences and social ties can do to media consumers. The study examined whether personal experiences stimulate the need for information among respondents; if personal experience of issues informs readership of local news in national newspapers; determine whether community attachment encourages exposure to local news in national newspapers and establish whether people who are more involved in a community read local contents in national newspaper more than those who are less involved. The study applied survey and FGD research methods using questionnaire and interview guide to gather data from 400 respondents purposively selected from a total of 1,554,095 residents of the study area. The community attachment and sense of community theories were used to provide theoretical background for the study. Findings revealed that personal experiences of an issue in a community involvement of the resident encourage the desire for media interpretation of the issues already known. Drawing from available literatures and field data from the study, the researcher equally found that the more closely tied and committed one is to one‟s community, the more one desires to know about that community. The two null hypotheses tested and rejected provided more statistical support to the research findings obtained from the study.