Picture: Untitled by Artem Sapegin, license CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: What do people expect from automated news?

The quality of automated news is competitive with human journalists for routine tasks, a new study states. Mario Haim, of LMU Munich, and Andreas Graefe, of Macromedia University, Germany, tested people’s perceptions of both automated and human-written news, and the influence of people’s prior expectations regarding the source. The authors conducted an online survey in … Continued

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Published: 16 Aug 2017
Untitled by Quinn Kampschroer, licence CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: Twitter is no substitute to local news outlets

Focus of political conversation on Twitter is on the national rather than the local level, write Jaigris Hodson, of Royal Roads University, Canada and April Lindgren, of Ryerson University, Canada. They analysed over 19 000 Twitter messages related to the 2015 federal election in Canada. Hodson and Lindgren focused on eight Canadian communities, all outside … Continued

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Published: 14 Aug 2017
Untitled by Karolina Grabowska, licence CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: Fractured news reading on smartphones is supplemented by other platforms

A commonly cited truism is that smartphones are fracturing news reading into fast, intermittent spates of attention – so-called “snacking” or “grazing” on news. But is this really the case, asks Logan Molyneux, of Temple University. Molyneux conducted two online surveys, to which over 2 600 Americans responded. The author expected the audience to spend … Continued

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Published: 7 Jul 2017
Untitled by Michael Schwarzenberger, licence CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: Which social media posts by newsrooms gather most likes and comments?

Which types of social media posts gather most interaction from the audience? Are there differences between newsrooms and social media platforms? Anders Olof Larsson, of Westerdals Oslo School of Arts, Communication and Technology, investigated these questions with a quantitative comparison of four Norwegian newsrooms on two social media platforms. The data sample consists of the … Continued

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Published: 30 Jun 2017
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ARTICLE: Skeptic post-Millenials like opinionated journalists, but don’t trust them

How does the post-Millenial generation assess the Twitter behaviour of journalists compared to celebrities and opinionators? Jasun Carr, of Idaho State University, and Mitchell Bard, of Iona College, conducted an online experiment with 310 American college students. The participants were first surveyed over their demographics and their tendency to skepticism. Then they were presented with … Continued

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Published: 30 Jun 2017
And the pieces came to life... by HonghuW, licence CC BY-NC 2.0

ARTICLE: Partisanship can help news media literacy

What kind of people are more likely to develop their news media literacy (NML) skills, ask Melissa Tully, of University of Iowa, and Emily K. Vraga, of George Mason University. The authors surveyed 946 American college students before and after a semester of taking general communication courses. Against their expectations, Tully and Vraga noticed that … Continued

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Published: 28 Jun 2017
Picture: Screenshots of the news websites Plaza Pública and Confidencial Digital

ARTICLE: Readers want quality journalism, innovation, and financial independence from Guatemalan and Nicaraguan news sites

Readers associate innovation with unique or alternative ways of doing journalism, not necessarily with just technology. A research by Summer Harlow, of Florida State University, looked at audience motivations of choosing news sources and their opinions about digital news sites in Guatemala and Nicaragua. A convenience sample of readers of Plaza Pública and Confidencial Digital … Continued

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Published: 27 Jun 2017
Untitled by Tania Dimas, licence CC0 1.0

ARTICLE: Incomprehensible news create “illusions of knowledge”

People with low need for cognition (NFC) will feel more knowledgeable after reading an incomprehensible news article than after reading a comprehensible article, Mathias Weber and Christina Koehler, both of Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, discovered. The authors conducted an online experiment with 82 Germans. The participants read one of two versions of the same … Continued

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Published: 26 Jun 2017
Prime Minister Tony Blair by Center for American Progress, licence CC BY-ND 2.0

ARTICLE: What affects politicians’ media reputations?

How are political leaders treated by newspapers, and how does that affect the leaders’ popularity? Daniel Stevens, of University of Exeter, and Barbara Allen, of Carleton College compared the United States and United Kingdom by examining their leaders’ press coverage and election success. The authors wanted to test three different theories. Reinforcement: opposition supporters and … Continued

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Published: 26 Jun 2017