157 research outputs found
Greater media choice risks creating an information gap between ânews-seekersâ and ânews-avoidersâ
For democracy to function correctly, citizens need to have an adequate level of political knowledge on which to judge political representatives. Media use is generally regarded as being one of the key factors affecting the distribution of this information, but how has the greater media choice provided through the Internet and other mediums affected the knowledge of citizens? Jesper StrömbÀck presents a case study from Sweden which maps the changing media use of citizens since the mid-1980s. He illustrates that as media choice has increased, there has also been a rise in the percentage of individuals who either actively seek out news or avoid it. This raises the prospect that greater media choice could create unequal levels of political knowledge across society, potentially reducing social cohesion and creating a fertile ground for protest movements
Media Use and Societal Perceptions: The Dual Role of Media Trust
How citizens' perceptions of societal problems are shaped by media use has been a critical question in media effects research for decades. This study addresses a specific puzzle concerning media effects in contemporary fragmented media environments: the dual role of media trust as both (a) an antecedent variable guiding news selection and (b) a moderator variable conditioning the effects of news use on perceptions of societal problems. Building upon the differential susceptibility to media effects model, we analyze the role of media trust for citizensâ orientation towards mainstream and alternative news media - and how such usage influences perceptions of two major societal issues: health care and school. Findings from a four-wave panel survey conducted in Sweden suggest that public service and alternative news use matter for citizens' perceptions of societal problems and that media trust influences news choices and may, partly, condition media effects
Interpreting the Media Logic behind Editorial Decisions
This article enters into debates about media logic in political coverage by way of a case study of the 2015 U.K. General Election. We quantitatively and qualitatively examine two dominant themes of coverageânews about campaign rallies and horse-race reportingâas both are widely seen in political communication scholarship as symptomatic of a media logic. We draw on a content analysis of BBC, ITV, Sky News, Channel 4, and Channel 5 U.K. national television newscasts and semi-structured interviews with their heads of news and/or senior editors to help interpret how far a media logic was the editorial driving force behind coverage. At face value, our content analysis appears to support the media logic thesis, with all broadcastersâin particular commercial television newscastsâcovering more process than policy issues. But our case study questions the antecedents of media logic and shines a light on a political logic that may have remained in the dark in large-scale content analysis studies. In following a political logic, we argue that this promoted the horse-race narrative, and naturalized the partiesâ highly stage-managed rallies and walkabout
Identity, Empathy and Argument: Immigrants in Culture and Entertainment Journalism in the Scandinavian Press
Cultural and entertainment journalism deals with aesthetic experiences, advice on cultural consumption, as well as reflection and debate on ethical and moral humanistic issues. Does this sub-field of journalism systematically represent immigrants and integration differently than the other news and commentary articles? Comparing immigration discourse in a representative sample of six Scandinavian newspapers between 1970 and 2016 using content analysis we find that cultural journalism, while clearly reverbing with the dominant national issues at the time, did provide alternative perspectives. It not only brought up themes like racism, multiculturalism, national identity and religion more often, but was also more positive, more gender-balanced and more often gave a voice to immigrants than other news did. A closer qualitative reading further suggests a typology of ten main story-types, varying relatively little over time and across national borders. Cultural journalism in this case illustrates how the cultural public sphere can positively contribute to the debate of complicated issues in the public sphere by offering resources for identification, empathy and arguments for specific points of view.publishedVersio
Navigating high-choice European political information environments : a comparative analysis of news user profiles and political knowledge
The transition from low- to high-choice media environments has had far-reaching
implications for citizensâ media use and its relationship with political knowledge.
However, there is still a lack of comparative research on how citizens combine the
usage of different media and how that is related to political knowledge. To fill this
void, we use a unique cross-national survey about the online and offline media use
habits of more than 28,000 individuals in 17 European countries. Our aim is to (i) profile
different types of news consumers and (ii) understand how each user profile is
linked to political knowledge acquisition. Our results show that five user profiles â
news minimalists, social media news users, traditionalists, online news seekers, and hyper
news consumers â can be identified, although the prevalence of these profiles varies
across countries. Findings further show that both traditional and online-based news
diets are correlated with higher political knowledge. However, online-based news
use is more widespread in Southern Europe, where it is associated with lower levels
of political knowledge than in Northern Europe. By focusing on news audiences, this
study provides a comprehensive and fine-grained analysis of how contemporary
European political information environments perform and contribute to an informed
citizenry
Political Parties and 'the Immigration Issue':Issue Ownership in Swedish Parliamentary Elections 1991-2010
Medierna som fjÀrde statsmakt: : en studie av innebörden av begreppet granskande journalistik
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