Newspapers and online journalism

Understanding non-use of interactivity in online newspapers – Insights from Structuration theory

by Anders Olof Larsson

While some online newspapers have embellished their online presence with a variety of interactive features, most... more While some online newspapers have embellished their online presence with a variety of interactive features, most online newspapers still appear to take on the role of cautious traditionalists, adopting a mostly conservative stance towards the new medium. Correspondingly, most audience members appear to act in a similar way. This paper shows how concepts related to structuration theory can be utilized to further our theoretical understanding of the use (and non-use) of interactive features in the online newspaper context.  It employs concepts from the structuration theory to provide another interpretation of the existing empirical research. The paper concludes by suggesting that “non-use” in this regard can be understood as part of reproducing what might be called a “structure of audiencehood” rather than a “structure of prosumerism”.

Exploring the Political-Economic Factors Of Participatory Journalism

by Alfred Hermida

This comparative study of user-generated content (UGC) in 10 Western democracies examines the political economic... more This comparative study of user-generated content (UGC) in 10 Western democracies examines the political economic aspects of citizen participation in online media, as assessed by journalists who work with this content. Drawing on interviews with more than 60 journalists, we explore their perceived economic motivations for an ongoing redefinition of traditional journalistic roles, as UGC becomes an increasingly dominant feature of news websites.

Women Jurors on Trial: Popular Depictions of the American Woman Juror in Twentieth- Century Newspaper Coverage

by Journal of Research on Women and Gender

Meredith Clark-Wiltz, Franklin College

Predication et information islamique en ligne

by Ermete Mariani

“Prédication et information islamique en ligne”, in Gonzalez-Quijano Yves, Guaaybess Tourya (eds), Les Arabes parlent aux Arabes : la revolution de l’information dans le monde arabe. Paris: Sindbad – Actes Sud, 2009, pag. 224-239

... Comment les éditeurs eux-mêmes définissent-ils ce qu’ils
nomment, dans leurs sites, les “nouvelles... more ... Comment les éditeurs eux-mêmes définissent-ils ce qu’ils
nomment, dans leurs sites, les “nouvelles islamiques” (islamic
news), une “étiquette” souvent mise en avant bien que sa signification soit fort imprécise ? La réponse à une telle question
passe par l’analyse de la production de sites majoritairement
arabophones et anglophones car l’anglais est de facto la langue
dominante aussi bien dans les médias internationaux4 que
dans l’espace virtuel5. Mais elle implique surtout de prendre en
compte les stratégies de communication, les politiques éditoriales des sites, qui peuvent varier du tout au tout

En effet, Internet est en général présenté aux utilisateurs
comme un outil permettant, soit de privilégier des événements
négligés par les médias de masse traditionnels, soit de réagir à
une mauvaise couverture médiatique, ou même une information
biaisée sur l’islam, en faisant la promotion du regard que
les musulmans portent eux-mêmes. Pour autant, les statuts
extrêmement variés des éditeurs – entreprises médiatiques, institutions politiques, groupes militants et sites commerciaux… – imposent de repenser le rapport entre information et communication parce que, sur ce type de site en particulier, les rôles des différents acteurs (journaliste professionnel ou citoyen,
attaché de presse, da‘iya, “prêcheur”…), n’est plus clairement
identifiable.

The Disquieting Revolution: A Genealogy of Reason and Racism in the Québec Press

by Alan Wong

Wong, Alan. “The Disquieting Revolution: A Genealogy of Reason and Racism in the Québec Press”. Global Media. 4.1 (2011): 145-162. Web.

Within the past decade, a series of contentious events concerning the accommodation of different cultural and... more Within the past decade, a series of contentious events concerning the accommodation of different cultural and religious traditions and practices in Quebec has incited much debate in this region. Labelled the “reasonable accommodation” issue by the local press, this controversy, which has its roots in neo-nationalist sentiments born of the Quiet Revolution, has incited responses ranging from denunciations of racist discrimination to calls for more stringent measures to ensure the assimilation of non-Westerners into Québécois culture. As Monika Kin Gagnon points out, this concept has moved beyond its legal origins to become a “social discourse” in the culture at-large, in that many in Quebec are vocally expressing their anxieties over the idea that the rights of newcomers has reached a tipping point, whereby the limits of reason are now over-stretched, weakening the dominant population’s values and identity. Much of this fear was stoked by certain stakeholders in the 2007 Quebec election, namely politicians and media outlets, when reasonable accommodation was highlighted as a major issue. This paper provides an analysis of that election and the campaigns leading into it, revealing how the press and the leaders of the three major political parties were complicit in transforming some negligible and private incidents into a greater menace endangering the very existence of Quebec society. By tracing the genealogy of “the reasonable Québécois”, I will demonstrate how reason and racism became intertwined during the course of this debate over rights, identity, and citizenship in Quebec.

Keywords: Election; Immigrants; News Media; Québec; Racism; Reasonable Accommodation; Religion

’Dangerous Shortcuts’: Representations of LGBT Refugees in the Post-9/11 Canadian Press

by Alan Wong

Jenicek, Ainsley, Edward Lee, and Alan Wong. “’Dangerous Shortcuts’: Representations of LGBT Refugees in the Post-9/11 Canadian Press”. Canadian Journal of Communications 34.4 (2009): 635-658. Print

Canadian newspapers are a principal source of information on refugees claiming asylum in Canada on the basis of... more Canadian newspapers are a principal source of information on refugees claiming asylum in Canada on the basis of persecution for their sexual orientation. Many articles rely on culturally racist and classist stereotypes of sexual minorities to demonstrate claimants’ legitimacy. Refugees’ stories are further deployed as “mediating agents” to confirm Canada’s “superiority” over other regions, particularly those identified as Islamic. To determine what thematic constructions are most prevalent among Canadian news sources, the authors conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) and secondary textual analysis of articles culled from five Canadian English-language newspapers, employing critical race and queer theories as framing devices.

Keywords: Post-colonialism; Multiculturalism; Feminist/Gender; Newspapers; Rhetoric

The First Ten Years of BBC Online

by Cynthia Carter

co-authored by Thorsen, E., Allan, S. and Carter, C. (2010) in Monaghan, G. and Tunney, S.(eds) Web Journalism: A New Form of Citizenship? Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press.

Addicted to Talk: Newspaper Representations of the Female Speaking Subject

by Anthony Fisher

This study aims to contribute to current understandings of the ways in which print and online news media are... more This study aims to contribute to current understandings of the ways in which print and online news media are implicated in sustaining dominant gender and language ideologies (Cameron 2003) and the discourses in which these are realized, while marginalizing others. To this end, the study interrogates an archive of newspaper articles gathered over a 32 month period between 2006 and 2008, in which language and gender discourses are implicitly or explicitly invoked. Taking a mixed-methodological approach, the study combines quantitative and content analysis with qualitative analyses focusing on transitivity relations. In this way it is possible to provide an indication of the relative frequencies with which dominant language and gender discourses are observed across a corpus of newspaper texts, while also investigating the articulation of one particular gender ideology in an individual text from the dataset.

The qualitative component of the analysis draws on systemic functional grammar in focusing on transitivity relations, with particular attention to the evaluative aspect of the ideational metafunction with which transitivity is associated in the original model set out by Halliday (1985). It demonstrates how in one text from the dataset, a globally topical discourse of 'talkative women' finds an implicit parallel in the transitivity choices observed. The paper goes on to account for such representational practices in terms of Foucault's panopticon metaphor, and closes by considering the value of linguistic analysis in challenging the dominant gender discourses observed in the dataset, as well as the broader gender ideologies such discourses articulate.

The Campus Iconoclast

by Ryan Ozawa

Molecules of Knowledge - a new approach to Knowledge production, management and consumption

by Stefano Mariani

Master Thesis

Mapping Digital Media: Netherlands

by Levien Nordeman

Co-authored with Martijn de Waal, Thomas Poell, Andra Leurdijk

"The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from... more "The Mapping Digital Media project examines the global opportunities and risks created by the transition from traditional to digital media. Covering 60 countries, the project examines how these changes affect the core democratic service that any media system should provide: news about political, economic, and social affairs.

This is an exciting and difficult time for independent journalism and civil society in the Netherlands. Thanks to unprecedented opportunities for new ways of doing journalism, connecting to audiences or mobilizing civil society, and getting one’s voice heard, a new media ecology seems to be taking shape.

However, the challenges are great. Although newspapers still reach significant readerships, they face grave economic threats from decreasing subscriptions and sales, and shrinking revenue from advertising. "Shocklogs” are making sectors of public debate less civilized, and intensified competition is changing the tone of much news reporting. There is a looming threat of concentration in the distribution market, mostly by foreign companies such as Apple and Google. The rise of PR influence and wire stories, meanwhile, undermines original news-gathering, and poses a particular danger to independent news at the local level.

The means of countering these threats have not yet realized their potential, and may never do so. Investigative journalism on blogs exists, but is for most part still marginal, crowd-funding and other innovative techniques are promising, but it remains to be seen whether they can off set the negative developments. Public broadcasting has so far preserved its traditional standards, but there is no guarantee that it will be able to fill any of the emerging gaps—due to budget cuts and the threat of having to curtail its internet activities."

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/media/articles_publications/publications/mapping-digital-media-netherlands-20120123

Work notes on the Perugia Cippus

by Mel Copeland

This is a PDF file of work notes relating to the longest extant Etruscan text, the Perugia Cippus. This text includes a history of queens and kings. It is unfortunate that Livy and other Roman historians did not record more names of Etruscan regents, since we now have a rather long list, particularly of Etruscan queens, and it would be helpful if we can reconcile a few of the names and events to other histories. Nevertheless, the many names of queens listed cause one to take another look at the role of women in Etruscan society. We know the Etruscans treated their women with respect, possibly equals, as can be seen on tomb paintings, etc., but this long list of queens, with only a few kings listed, is curious. These Work Notes relate to other Work Notes, such as the Zagreb Mummy and Tavola Cortonensis. These can be helpful in auditing the translations of the other 160 texts (and growing) on the Etruscan Phrases website.

We have converted appropriate documents into PDF files in order to facilitate review of the work. The documents work together with the Etruscan Phrases.a.html which should be opened as an index to the other pages that are covered in the discussion of the these Work Notes.

This work focuses on refining declension and conjugation patterns used throughout the Etruscan Phrases texts. Although most of the words decline following Latin patterns, there are some words that are not Latin but rather like French / Italian. Conjugation patterns tend to follow Latin cases, except for 1st person singular, where the tense tends to be like French and Romanian verbs.

The Etruscans separated words and phrases by means of single or double dots ; i.e., a period and a colon. We respected those punctuation marks from the beginning, as we compiled the words that make up the Etruscan vocabulary. The definition and case / tense of a word has to be consistent wherever it is used in all of the texts, and while words may have several meanings, as in Latin or any other language, we have attempted to be conservative, applying the same meaning across the texts where a word is used.

It is hoped that this work, Etruscan Phrases, will take the discussion on the Etruscan civilization from the darkness of mystery to a measurable landscape, of the Etruscan people describing their own times, hopes, dreams, regents and history. We trust that other scientists will agree and embrace the prospect of rewriting history using factual data based upon a true understanding of the Etruscan writings, to free us from the obtuse speculations of the past. There is a great opportunity, as it was when Jean-François Champollion gave us the ability to read the writings of the Egyptian monuments, their histories and their Book of the Dead.

In a manner of speaking the Zagreb Mummy is of the same nature, as it is what could be called the Etruscan Book of the Dead. It seems to be liturgical in nature but often refers to places in Etruria. The Tavola Cortonensis appears to be a message among army generals and the Perugia Cippus is a history, the first written history extant written by the Etruscans. While stele were used as boundary markers, this stone appears to be a commemorative stone placed, perhaps, at the dedication of a school (Etr. SKVL).

This document includes like phrases and words from other major texts, such as the Tavola Cortonensis, Tavola Eugubine, Zaagreb Mummy, Tavola Novilara, the Pyrgi Gold tablets, Lemnos Stele and miscellaneous short inscriptions on pottery.

Resurrecting the war-by-media on climate science: Ian Plimer's Heaven+ Earth

by Elaine McKewon

Paper presented to the Journalism Education Association of Australia conference: Perth, Western Australia, 30 Nov-2 Dec 2009.

Abstract: Professor Ian Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth: Global Warming - The Missing Science, was launched during... more Abstract: Professor Ian Plimer’s book, Heaven and Earth: Global Warming - The Missing Science, was launched during April 2009, in the weeks leading up to the debate in federal Parliament on the Rudd government’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme. This paper examines media coverage of the book and the controversy it created. In his book, Professor Plimer expressly targets a general readership and argues that there is no connection between human activity and climate change. This contradicts the consensus view among the world’s top climate scientists (consolidated through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that rising global temperatures are the result of greenhouse gas emissions and in particular, carbon dioxide. The overwhelming majority of reviews by scientists in Australia have repudiated the book on the basis that it reflects a poor understanding of climate science, misrepresents scientific studies cited as supporting evidence, and relies on distorted arguments that have long been refuted in the peer-reviewed literature. So why did an unreliable book about climate science by a mining geologist obtain so much coverage in the Australian media?

Using quantitative and qualitative analyses, this paper considers the Australian media’s coverage of Professor Plimer’s book in national and metropolitan dailies, regional and community newspapers and online news web sites. Reporting on the book varied considerably between media organisations and has even differed sharply within individual organisations. This analysis indicates that ideology formed the basis of institutional bias in The Australian newspaper’s highly favourable coverage of the book. The implicit (mis)informational bias in The Australian’s coverage of the book played a significant role in redirecting the public conversation on climate science towards ‘denialism’ and helped prevent the passage of ETS legislation.

The Blame Frame: Media Attribution of Culpability About the MMR–Autism Vaccination Scare

by Avery Holton

Co-authored with Brooke Weberling (South Carolina) , Christopher E. Clarke (Cornell) & Michael J. Smith (Louisville). Published in Health Communication, 2012.

Scholars have examined how news media frame events, including responsibility for causing and fixing problems, and how... more Scholars have examined how news media frame events, including responsibility for causing and fixing problems, and how these frames inform public judgment. This study analyzed 281 newspaper articles about a controversial medical study linking the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination with autism. Given criticism of the study and its potential negative impact on vaccination rates across multiple countries, the current study examined actors to whom news media attributed blame for the MMR–vaccine association, sources used to support those attributions, and what solutions (e.g., mobilizing information), if any, were offered. This study provides unique insight by examining the evolution of these attributions over the lifetime of the controversy. Findings emphasize how news media may attribute blame in health risk communication and how that ascription plays a potentially vital role in shaping public behavior. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

I giornali on-line

by Francesca Pasquali

Published in Problemi dell’informazione, XXIII, 1, Marzo, 1998, pp. 109-123.

Exchanging Health for Commercialization: The News Media’s Mediation of the Baby Carrots Campaign

by Avery Holton

Co-authored with Mike Mackert, Brad Love

The public receives a great deal of its public health information from the media, which has the ability to deliver... more The public receives a great deal of its public health information from the media, which has the ability to deliver such information and to affect public perceptions about issues. The study presented here examines the media’s mediating role in a recent marketing campaign with possible health implications. The baby carrots campaign targeted children and teenagers, advertising baby carrots as junk food. The campaign received much attention from media sources, and coverage of the campaign moved across a range of media from traditional outlets to digital news sources, mostly without putting a critical eye to the campaign or how relevant health issues were addressed. A census study of print and online media content over a four-month period beginning just before the campaign’s launch revealed the media relied heavily on campaign sources to frame the advertisements as positive and effective in generating buzz. Media coverage of the campaign offered little commentary from independent sources, such as message-design or public health experts, and limited input from the general public, thus presenting an imbalanced perspective. Blogs were more critical, framing the campaign as negative and non-effective. However, this study revealed that neither the media nor blogs raised relevant health issues such as the potential health benefits of eating more carrots. While the campaign’s marketers may have succeeded in promoting baby carrots ephemerally through the media, journalists and other media sources may have missed an opportunity to promote a more lasting public health discussion.

WHERE ELSE IS THE MONEY?

by François Nel

Use of and Satisfaction with Newspaper Sites in the Local Market: Exploring Differences Between Hybrid and Online-Only Users

by Seth Lewis

Chyi, H. I., Yang, M., Lewis, S. C., & Zheng, N. (2010). Use of and Satisfaction with Newspaper Sites in the Local Market: Exploring Differences Between Hybrid and Online-Only Users. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 87(1), 62-83.

This study explores U.S. newspapers’ online readership in the local market by comparing (1) “hybrid” readers who... more This study explores U.S. newspapers’ online readership in the local market by comparing (1) “hybrid” readers who access both the print and online versions and (2) online-only readers. Survey data gathered from twenty-eight newspaper sites show that hybrid readers outnumber online-only users by a 2-to-1 margin and use their local newspaper sites more actively. Regression analyses identify predictors of site satisfaction and user type. These findings provide new perspectives on the nature of multiplatform news consumption as readers weigh related goods of news and information.

News Platform Preference: Advancing the Effects of Age and Media Consumption on Political Participation

by Seth Lewis

Bachmann, I., Lee, J. K., Kaufhold, K., Lewis, S. C., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2010). News Platform Preference: Advancing the Effects of Age and Media Consumption on Political Participation. International Journal of Internet Science, 5(1), 34-47. URL: http://www.ijis.net/ijis5_1/ijis5_1_bachmann_et_al_pre.html

This study compares the effects of consuming news preference online or offline on political participation. It also... more This study compares the effects of consuming news preference online or offline on political participation. It also examines the variation in these effects between young and older adults. Given that young adults are disproportionately more intensive users of the Internet, Internet use may have varying effects on people’s political participation by their age. Secondary analysis of Pew data found that people’s preference for consuming news online versus offline explains a significant portion of variance of political participation, both online and offline. More importantly, the effects of online media preference were significantly stronger for young adults than for their older counterparts. These findings suggest that a preference for news online matters far more for younger adults than for older adults, and that the Internet may indeed be narrowing the participation gap between age groups.

Comparing media systems and media content

by Małgorzata Kolling (Skorek)

Wessler, H., Skorek, M., Kleinen-von Königslöw, K., Held, M., Dobreva, M., & Adolphsen, M. (2008). Comparing media systems and media content. Journal of Global Mass Communication 1:165-189.