The work of news avoidance among news consumers and avoiders

The study “Avoiding News is Hard Work, or is it? A Closer Look at the Work of News Avoidance among Frequent and Infrequent Consumers of News” by Stephanie Edgerly from Northwestern University explored the experiences of both frequent and infrequent news consumers when avoiding news. News avoidance is an interesting concept in today’s world, when … Continued


Sourcing, verifying, and mediating journalistic truth during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict

The study “Sourcing Dis/Information: How Swedish and Ukrainian Journalists Source, Verify, and Mediate Journalistic Truth During the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict” by Nina Springer and Gunnar Nygren from University of Stockholm, and Dariya Orlova and Daria Taradai from University of Kyiv-Mohyla academy, and Andreas Widholm from University of Stockholm looked at how journalists both on the ground … Continued


Motivations to share fake news on social media platforms: a systematic literature review

The study “A systematic literature review of the motivations to share fake news on social media platforms and how to fight them” by Cristiane Melchior and Mírian Oliveira from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) in Brazil was a systematic literature review of 64 journal articles published up to April 2022 on … Continued


Are journalists addicted to Trump?

The study “The last remaining thing we have in common: journalists publicly perform their addiction to former President Trump” by Ron Bishop from Drexel University Philadelphia was a rhetorical analysis of news stories from 2016 to 2021 where journalists deployed the addiction metaphor to describe their relationship with the former president Donald Trump. With his … Continued


How journalists can capitalize on anti-journalistic hate

The study “Haters as Anti-Fans? Accruing Capital through Audiences Who Hate Journalists” by Jane Yeahin Pyo from University of Illinois interviewed 40 South Korean journalists who had experienced harassment and hateful expressions and how they capitalized on this hate. Drawing from fan scholarship on anti-fans like Gray’s (2003) insight that haters, like fans, amass immense … Continued


How Russians used credibility heuristics

The study “Harnessing Distrust: News, Credibility Heuristics, and War in an Authoritarian Regime” by Maxim Alyukov from King’s College London looked at how Russian citizens used credibility heuristics to assess regime propaganda during the conflict in Ukraine in 2016-2017. Addressing the current, escalated conflict starting in 2022, the author notes the worrying trend noted by … Continued


The role of automated fact-checking (AFC) on journalistic authority

The study “A Case of Claims and Facts: Automated Fact-Checking the Future of Journalism’s Authority” by Patrick R. Johnson from University of Iowa used metajournalistic discourse analysis to analyze 137 articles about automated fact-checking to understand its role. Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler (2016) claim that fact-checking is “one of the most significant innovations in journalistic … Continued


Canadian journalists’ views of dark participation 

The study “Journalists’ Views and Management of Dark Participation” by Ahmed Al-Rawi from Simon Fraser University and Taeyoung Kim from Loughborough University interviewed 15 Canadian journalists on their experiences with dark participation practices, particularly in relation to to hate speech, dis- and misinformation, and trolling. Dark participation refers to various forms of misconduct on user-generated … Continued


Editorial trust-building in German news outlets

The study “The quality oriented, the audience engagers, the transparent: Types of editorial trust-building in German news outlets” by Bernadette Uth from University of Muenster explored the issue of media trust and what sort of strategies news outlets use to regain and build trust. Especially in times of crisis, trustworthy information sources – journalism – … Continued


Article: Trust and Journalistic Transparency Online

The study “Trust and Journalistic Transparency Online” by Michael Koliska from Georgetown University experimented on news consumers’ trust as brought on by transparency, and further, in the second experiment, explored the reasons for the findings in the first. Transparency in journalism is defined as opening up the journalistic processes (production, decision making) to outsiders, i.e. … Continued