Informing Immersed Citizens: The Impact of Interactivity on Comprehending News in Immersive Journalism

Immersive journalism has emerged as an innovative journalistic approach promising enhanced attention and understanding through interactive, virtual environments. Previously, this was mostly tested through factual knowledge. However, evaluating immersive audio-visual modalities solely along factual knowledge falls short of considering, firstly, what about and how an immersive experience is remembered and, secondly, the importance of considering the perceptions surrounding information acquisition. Therefore, this study examines how interactivity in immersive journalism affects traditional as well as novel ways of comprehending news, such as episodic memory. In addition, we consider perceptions related to knowledge. We draw on a laboratory experiment (N = 149) testing the effect of three levels of interactivity provided (no interactivity vs. looking around vs. looking around + control over pace and order of storyline). Results indicate that a higher range of interactivity does not influence factual memory, but leads to an increase in perceived knowledge, thus indicating an illusion of knowledge. Moreover, there is a tendency to formulate more subjective takeaways in the high-interactivity condition, while interactivity did not influence the credibility evaluations. This provides partial empirical support for the credibility paradox of immersive journalism

Voorspellende factoren voor vallen bij chronisch CVA-patiënten

Vallen is een groot probleem bij patiënten met een beroerte (CVA). Zo zijn complicaties van vallen de hoofdoorzaak van onverwachte sterfte bij ouderen. Het doel van dit onderzoek is om te onderzoeken waardoor iemand valt, zodat er gerichte valpreventie programma’s opgericht kunnen worden om vallen te voorkomen. De onderzoeksvraag luidt: “Welke factoren zijn voorspellend voor vallen bij chronisch CVA-patiënten?”. De factoren balans, loopsnelheid, depressie, valangst en hemiplegische zijde zijn in kaart gebracht door de BBS, 10MWT, GDS en de FES-I bij CVA-patiënten (N=46). In de statistieken lijkt er een trend te zijn. Echter kan geen van de factoren vallen voorspellen

Political leadership in the media:Gender bias in leader stereotypes during campaign and routine times

This article studies gender differences in media portrayals of political leadership, starting with the expectation that male politicians are evaluated more often on traits belonging to the male leader stereotype, and that female politicians have no such advantage. These gender differences are expected to be especially pronounced during non-campaign periods. To test these expectations, a large-scale automated content analysis of all Dutch national newspapers from September 2006 to September 2012 was conducted. The results show that male politicians received more media coverage on leadership traits in general, although the male and female leader stereotypes explain most of the variation in gender bias between leadership traits. These gender effects are found during seldom-studied routine periods but not during campaigns. As leadership trait coverage has electoral consequences, this gender-differentiated coverage likely contributes to the under-representation of women in politics