News now: exploratory study of digital news story organization and structure

2017 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Newspaper publication has expanded beyond the printed format to digital formats to attract readers using iPhone apps, Facebook, Twitter and other outlets. Some apps will open the full story and others link to the full story on the newspaper's website. My exploratory research sought to explore different digital platforms by investigating Washington Post headlines written for the iPhone Application, Facebook, and Twitter. While these platforms limit the information available before linking to the full story on the website, each digital platform provided enough information to identify organizational patterns and sequences of who, what, where, why and how — the key concepts in the journalistic inverted pyramid writing organization. My research investigated the Washington Post's digital headlines in the summer of 2012. The research questions were RQ1: Which questions are answered most frequently in news story headlines on the iPhone app, Facebook newsfeed, and Twitter tweets? RQ2: What are the question sequences presented in the headlines on the iPhone app, Facebook newsfeed, and Twitter tweets? RQ2A: Is there a difference in organization of questions sequences in the headlines of story topics present in one of each of the following platforms: iPhone app, Facebook newsfeed, and Twitter tweets? For my content analysis of the Washington Post digital headlines, I created a sample of a constructed week and took screenshots of headlines. For analysis, I coded all stories (n = 216) published on at least one other platform. I developed a codebook, and one additional coder and I coded every headline in the sample. Despite some variables receiving lower Krippendorff Alpha results than suggested for publication for intercoder reliability (ranging from 0.33 to 0.83), most variables achieved acceptable percent agreements from 84.7% to 95.8%. Because of the exploratory nature of my study, I proceeded with data analysis. Patterns emerged related to information sequences in headlines. "Who" and "what" were used in 77% (n = 22) as leading information in the headline sequences. "Where" was the only other variable included at the beginning of sequences. While 22 different organizational sequences emerged, 50% were used only once. Research Question 2A investigated organization of question sequences. The variable "what," a main action, was included in 100% (n = 27) of the headlines in a portion of the sample using a single headline for each platform about one story. The sequence (who, what) was included in 22% (n = 9) across all three platforms. Other story topics provided additional variables on different platforms

Storytelling im Journalismus

The strategic use of storytelling in public relations and marketing has been increasing over the years and lately found its way into journalism as well. Acknowledging this development the paper addresses the question to what extent storytelling may improve the recipient’s ability of understanding and learning from journalistic texts.In a first step the question is raised, what constitutes narrativity and in which forms it manifests in journalistic texts. The result is a typology that distinguishes between a more or less narrative account of events and the narrative presentation of abstract information. The second part of the paper collected and discussed numerous approaches and empirical evidence concerning processing and effects of narrative text. Even though, the emphasis is on understanding and knowledge acquisition other processes and effects like attention, entertainment or persuasion are considered as well. These general approaches for text processing are transferred to the reception of journalistic texts in the third part of the paper and thus providing a framework of narrative effects in journalistic coverage. The framework distinguishes not only different types of narratives in journalism but also different types of recipients.In conclusion the theoretical as well as the empirical evidence suggest: The inverted pyramid as the classic form of presenting news regarding events in a non-narrative fashion fails for less educated people with only little previous knowledge on the topic. These recipients benefit from a narrative news story in terms of understanding, knowledge acquisition, and enjoyment. Contrary storytelling as a strategy of conveying abstract information packaged within a story seems rather unsuitable. Narrative presentation might be able to improve understanding and learning of relevant information in individual cases but involves a high risk of distraction and confusion. In many cases the recipient will concentrate automatically on the less important background story and ignore the relevant but abstract target information.Der strategische Einsatz von Geschichten hat vor allem in PR und Marketing an Bedeutung gewonnen, spielt zunehmend aber auch im Journalismus eine Rolle. Die Dissertation geht der Frage nach, inwieweit Storytelling dazu geeignet ist, dem Rezipienten das Verstehen von und Lernen aus journalistischen Texten zu erleichtern. In einem ersten Schritt wird diskutiert, was Narrativität ist und in welchen Formen sie sich in journalistischen Texten äußert. Daraus resultiert eine Typologie journalistischer Informationstexte, die grundlegend unterscheidet zwischen der narrativen Darstellung von Ereignisberichten und der Rolle der Narrativität bei der Vermittlung abstrakter Hintergrundinformationen. Im zweiten Teil der Dissertation werden zahlreiche Ansätze und Befunde zur Verarbeitung und Wirkung narrativer Texte disziplinübergreifend zusammengetragen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf der kognitionspsychologischen Beschäftigung mit Verstehen und Wissensaneignung. Weitere Rezeptionsprozesse und –folgen wie Aufmerksamkeit, Unterhaltung oder Persuasion werden aber ebenfalls berücksichtigt. Die Übertragung dieser allgemeinen Ansätze konkret auf die Rezeption journalistischer Beiträge erfolgt im dritten Teil der Arbeit in Form eines Frameworks der Wirkungen narrativer Berichterstattung. Das Framework unterscheidet neben mehreren Formen von Narrativität auf Stimulusseite auch verschiedene Rezipiententypen.Für Ereignisberichte (invertierte Pyramide vs. narrative Nachrichtengeschichte) zeigt sich, dass die invertierte Pyramide nur für Personen mit hoher Bildung und viel Vorwissen zum Thema geeignet ist. Wer wenig zum Thema weiß und selten Nachrichten rezipiert, kommt mit der narrativen Nachrichtengeschichte deutlich besser zurecht. Geht es hingegen um die Vermittlung abstrakter Hintergrundinformationen, so ist Storytelling eher wenig geeignet. Zwar kann eine narrative Vermittlung im Einzelfall tatsächlich Verstehen und Behalten relevanter Informationen verbessern, die Gefahr der Ablenkung und Verwirrung ist aber groß: Häufig konzentriert sich der Rezipient automatisch auf die eigentlich unwichtige Rahmenhandlung und ignoriert die wichtigen Zielinformationen