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.

Could cutting costs mean changing minds? Effects of local television news work routines on viewer attention, information-processing, and perceptions of story importance

Market-driven changes to local television news content can come with consequences to viewers in terms of understanding, remembering and subsequently deliberating about news information. This study focuses on the effects of television news packages on viewers with the understanding that ‘high-effort’ storytelling is not supported uniformly across stations. Using an experiment, this study compares the effects of high- and low-effort storytelling on viewers’ memories for story facts, reported emotional states and perceptions of the importance of stories to determine whether cost-cutting measures will have important consequences for the half of US adults who report relying regularly on local television news for their civic information and for the multi-platform audiences whose preferred content originates from traditional television news work routines.

A Little Birdie Told Me: Journalistic and Individualistic Twitter Use of Local Television News Reporters

Twitter is a social networking platform that connects its users to information in the form of posts that are a maximum of 140 characters long. Twitter has become an important method for news distribution for both print and broadcast news stations. News organizations, individuals and journalists all use Twitter for different purposes, which raises questions as to how local television news reporters tweets both as journalists and as individuals. This study analyzes the tweets of the personal Twitter accounts of five local television news reporters from each of the local television news stations in Toronto (City News, CTV Toronto, Global Toronto, CP24 and CBC Toronto). Findings reveal the existence of blurring of personal (individualistic) and professional (journalistic) uses of Twitter. The tweets from the personal Twitter accounts of local television news reporters in Toronto suggest that while these reporters still take their gatekeeping roles as journalists seriously, they sometimes take advantage of Twitter as a platform that encourages public declaration and personal observations

A Little Birdie Told Me: Journalistic and Individualistic Twitter Use of Local Television News Reporters

Twitter is a social networking platform that connects its users to information in the form of posts that are a maximum of 140 characters long. Twitter has become an important method for news distribution for both print and broadcast news stations. News organizations, individuals and journalists all use Twitter for different purposes, which raises questions as to how local television news reporters tweets both as journalists and as individuals. This study analyzes the tweets of the personal Twitter accounts of five local television news reporters from each of the local television news stations in Toronto (City News, CTV Toronto, Global Toronto, CP24 and CBC Toronto). Findings reveal the existence of blurring of personal (individualistic) and professional (journalistic) uses of Twitter. The tweets from the personal Twitter accounts of local television news reporters in Toronto suggest that while these reporters still take their gatekeeping roles as journalists seriously, they sometimes take advantage of Twitter as a platform that encourages public declaration and personal observations