Different quantities and types of links have notable effects on the readers of online news, write Félix Arias-Robles and José Alberto García-Avilés, both of Universidad Miguel Hernández. The authors conducted an online experiment with 170 Spanish university students, who were assigned to read one out of six potential article versions. Arias-Robles and García-Avilés recorded the … Continued

News consumers largely value online news sites based on their offline legacies, a report published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) states. The report was produced by Kantar Media consultancy group as a part of RISJ’s annual Digital News Report. Audience members were interviewed in focus groups in four countries: the … Continued

Marc Ziegele and Pablo B. Jost, both of Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, investigate the effects of a comment moderation strategy that recommends news outlets to respond publicly to uncivil comments, ask their authors to discuss more civilized, and demonstrate that the news outlet prefer high-quality discussions. The article explores how factual vs. sarcastic journalistic responses … Continued

Users are more likely to report crass comments, if they are made aware of the community guidelines prior to reading comments on a news website, write Teresa K. Naab and Anja Kalch, both of University of Augsburg. They conducted two experiments on German college students to see how different conditions affected their “flagging” behaviour (i.e. … Continued