sensationalism – Journalism research news

ARTICLE: Sensationalism does indeed boost viewing time of news videos

The biggest truism about the use of sensationalism in news stories seems to be that it is a guarantee for success in terms of selling the stories to the public, write Paul Hendriks Vettehen, and Mariska Kleemans, both of Radboud University Nijmegen. The article aims to test this “sensationalism truism” by exploring the impact of sensationalist content … Continued

Tags: audience, sensationalism
Published: 16 Nov 2017

Picture: Video game controller by Pawel Kadysz, license CC0

ARTICLE: Gaming journalists defending their role during GamerGate

During the GamerGate controversy in 2014 and 2015, gaming journalists had to manage a debate on two fronts: defending gaming journalism and remediating attacks on women. Gregory Perreault of Appalachian State University and Tim Vos of University of Missouri conducted interviews with 17 gaming journalists and analysed several published responses to criticism. The authors conducted … Continued

Tags: audience, journalistic identity, public relations, sensationalism
Published: 14 Oct 2016

Evening watching television by flash.pro, licence CC BY 2.0

ARTICLE: Audience attitudes towards immigrants change depending on which news they watch

Television news offered by public service broadcasters are different from those by commercial broadcasters – and they have different effects on their audiences, write Laura Jacobs, Cecil Meeusen, and Leen d’Haenens, all of University of Leuven. The authors analysed the contents of 1 630 news items broadcast by the Flemish public broadcaster VRT and the … Continued

Tags: audience, representation, sensationalism, television
Published: 7 Oct 2016

ARTICLE: Sensationalism in news coverage

New article by Bouchra Arbaoui, Knut De Swert and Wouter van der Brug, all of University of Amsterdam, explores how sensationalism in the news is affected by two characteristics of television systems: the dependency on commercial revenues and the audience fragmentation. The study is based on a sample of 14 television systems and 29 television stations in … Continued

Tags: sensationalism, television
Published: 11 Aug 2016

Picture: Newspapers B&W by Jon S, license CC BY 2.0, edited

PROJECT: Tabloidization in the UK newspapers 1970–2010

Julia Lefkowitz is a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. Currently she is writing a doctoral thesis on the concept of ‘tabloidization’ as a function of the rise of new ICTs and adjunct institutional and public sphere shifts. Influence of tabloids on quality newspapers The thesis uses linguistic methods to study the … Continued

Tags: newspapers, project, sensationalism, United Kingdom
Published: 7 Jul 2016

Picture: Abstract architectures by Luca Biada, licence CC BY 2.0

ARTICLE: The dual-convergence between tabloids and quality news

As news values of tabloids influence the so-called quality newspapers to become more tabloid-like, the effect also works the other way around. A new article by Julia Lefkowitz of the University of Oxford studies quoted speech in tabloid and “quality” British newspapers from 1970 to 2010. The author uses a corpus linguistic approach to count … Continued

Tags: media history, media policy, sensationalism
Published: 20 Jun 2016

ARTICLE: Science journalism headlines over-the-top

The headlines of science stories are often excessively emotive and exeggeratory, writes Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska, of Opole University. The author studied the headlines of 400 most-read stories published on the website of the science magazine New Scientist. According to Molek-Kozakowska, the headlines mostly resemble the popular journalistic style rather than scientific style. This entails eye-catching, enthusing, … Continued

Tags: science journalism, sensationalism
Published: 5 Apr 2016

ARTICLE: Faces of victims and killers alike get forgotten

People usually don’t recognize the faces of murder victims, even if the case was widely publicised, write Michael Brookes, David Wilson, Elizabeth Yardley, Mohammed Rahman, Sophie Rowe, all of Birmingham City University. The authors showed 103 UK residents photos of both victims and their murderers to gauge how well the subjects could recall the people … Continued

Tags: audience, crime journalism, sensationalism
Published: 19 Feb 2015

ARTICLE: A hero in the making – myth in newspapers

Three of the most prominent German newspaper were all taken in by a mythical narrative surrounding the political shooting star, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg. Stine Eckert, of Wayne State University, took a look at how the newspapers Spiegel, Focus, and Stern responded to Guttenberg between his ascension in 2009 and his downfall in 2011. All three … Continued

Tags: political journalism, representation, sensationalism
Published: 9 Feb 2015