ARTICLE: Calling minor gaffes scandals hurts journalism’s credibility

When journalists try to exaggerate and scandalize a small transgression, they undermine the public’s trust in journalism, a team of Radboud University researchers discovered. Paul Graβl, Gabi Schaap, Flavia Spagnuolo and Jonathan Van ’t Riet conducted an experiment with 128 Dutch university students, where the participants read different kinds of news articles and assessed both … Continued

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Published: 18 Oct 2019

ARTICLE: Sensational news coverage contributes to Islamist radicalization

Mainstream news media can contribute to the radicalization of Muslims into violent Islamists, write Philip Baugut and Katharina Neumann, both of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. They interviewed 34 Islamist prisoners and 10 former Islamists over how media and online propaganda had affected their radicalization. Online propaganda by Islamist preachers often derides the Western … Continued

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Published: 16 Oct 2019

ARTICLE: American elite uses media to manipulate public opinion

The wealthier the richest 1 per cent is, the more individualistic the news supply is – especially if rest of the population is liberal, Hamilton College researchers Ann L. Owen and Andrew Wei discovered. This corresponds with so-called “media capture” theory, which suggests the elite project their ideology through news especially when they see their … Continued

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Published: 14 Oct 2019

ARTICLE: News about Donald Trump’s presidency make readers unhappy

Following the coverage of the first ten months of Donald Trump‘s presidency made American citizens feel negative emotions. María Celeste Wagner, of University of Pennsylvania, and Pablo J. Boczkowski, of Northwestern University, interviewed 71 Americans over their experiences following news at that time. The interviews quickly turned to president Trump in specific. Most commonly the … Continued

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Published: 9 Oct 2019
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ARTICLE: Online journalism rarely meets all audience expectations

When it comes to sourcing practices, online journalism often fails its audience’s expectations, a study from Finland suggests. Ville Manninen, of University of Jyväskylä, compared the expectations of young adult Finns to real-life sourcing practices in Finnish online journalism. An analysis of 36 news items from 3 newsrooms and 12 journalists revealed that, on average, … Continued

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Published: 12 Jun 2019
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ARTICLE: The impact of socioeconomic status on news use has changed over the years

Socioeconomic status does affect how people consume the news, but there is little knowledge on how this impact has changed over the years. Annika Bergström, Jesper Strömbäck and Sofia Arkhede looked into this topic. The researchers from the University of Gothenburg did a longitudinal analysis of newspaper and television news consumption focusing on Sweden between … Continued

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Published: 15 Mar 2019
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ARTICLE: Swedish teenagers feel confident about identifying credible news, but often fail at it

Many teenagers fail to identify the credibility of false or biased news online, a new research article finds. Using an online survey with a test, Thomas Nygren and Mona Guath of Uppsala University seeked to find out how teenagers in Sweden determine the credibility of digital news. They investigated people’s civic online reasoning, meaning “the … Continued

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Published: 22 Feb 2019
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ARTICLE: Mobile apps have become increasingly important for news personalisation

Newsrooms are changing with personalisation of news. “Whether personalisation reinforces the relationship between users and news outlets in the long run is open to debate”, a new study discusses. Jessica Kunert of the University of Hamburg and Neil Thurman of LMU Munich, did a content analysis of 15 major news outlets in the UK, United … Continued

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Published: 24 Jan 2019
Picture: Nairobi skyline by Babak Fakhamzadeh, license CC BY-NC 2.0, cropped

ARTICLE: Chinese media has a limited effect on Kenyan and South African students

The growing number of Chinese-owned media in different African has demonstrated how Beijing wants to create a stronger mediated relationship with Africa. Some of the media projects in recent years have caused notable controversy and opposition. But how influential are Chinese media in Africa? ask Herman Wasserman of the University of Cape Town, and Dani … Continued

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Published: 18 May 2018