Are newspapers heading towards post-print obscurity? A case study of The Independent’s transition to online-only

With print circulations in decline and the print advertising market shrinking, newspapers in many countries are under pressure. Some—like Finland’s Taloussanomat and Canada’s La Presse—have decided to stop printing and go online-only. Others, like the Sydney Morning Herald, are debating whether to follow. Those newspapers that have made the switch often paint a rosy picture of a sustainable and profitable digital future. This study examines the reality behind the spin via a case study of The Independent, a general-interest UK national newspaper that went digital-only in March 2016. We estimate that, although its net British readership did not decline in the year after it stopped printing, the total time spent with The Independent by its British audiences fell 81%, a disparity caused by huge differences in the habits of online and print readers. This suggests that when newspapers go online-only they may move back into the black, but they also forfeit much of the attention they formerly enjoyed. Furthermore, although The Independent is serving at least 50% more overseas browsers since going online-only, the relative influence on that growth of internal organizational change and external factors—such as the “Trump Bump” in news consumption—is difficult to determine

My friends, editors, algorithms, and I: Examining audience attitudes to news selection

Prompted by the ongoing development of content personalization by social networks and mainstream news brands, and recent debates about balancing algorithmic and editorial selection, this study explores what audiences think about news selection mechanisms and why. Analysing data from a 26-country survey (N=53,314), we report the extent to which audiences believe story selection by editors and story selection by algorithms are good ways to get news online and, using multi-level models, explore the relationships that exist between individuals’ characteristics and those beliefs. The results show that, collectively, audiences believe algorithmic selection guided by a user’s past consumption behaviour is a better way to get news than editorial curation. There are, however, significant variations in these beliefs at the individual level. Age, trust in news, concerns about privacy, mobile news access, paying for news, and six other variables had effects. Our results are partly in line with current general theory on algorithmic appreciation, but diverge in our findings on the relative appreciation of algorithms and experts, and in how the appreciation of algorithms can differ according to the data that drive them. We believe this divergence is partly due to our study’s focus on news, showing algorithmic appreciation has context-specific characteristics

Who's Cueing Whom? Mass-elite linkages and the future of European integration

The 2005 French and Dutch referendum campaigns were characterized by an alleged disconnect between pro-European political elites and Eurosceptic masses. Past evidence regarding elite-mass linkages in the context of European integration has been conflicting. Whereas some scholars argue that political elites respond to the changing preferences of their electorates, others suggest that party elites cue the mass public through a process of information and persuasion. We contend that these conflicting results stem from the reciprocal nature of elite-mass linkages and estimate a series of dynamic simultaneous equations models to account for this reverse causation. Using Euro-barometer and expert survey data from 1984-2002, we find evidence of a dual-process model, whereby party elites both respond to and shape the views of their supporters. We also find that the strength of these results is contingent on several factors, including the type of electoral system, intra-party dissent and voter characteristics. Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications

All in the family: partisan disagreement and electoral mobilization in intimate networks—a spillover experiment

We advance the debate about the impact of political disagreement in social networks on electoral participation by addressing issues of causal inference common in network studies, focusing on voters' most important context of interpersonal influence: the household. We leverage a randomly assigned spillover experiment conducted in the United Kingdom, combined with a detailed database of pretreatment party preferences and public turnout records, to identify social influence within heterogeneous and homogeneous partisan households. Our results show that intrahousehold mobilization effects are larger as a result of campaign contact in heterogeneous than in homogeneous partisan households, and larger still when the partisan intensity of the message is exogenously increased, suggesting discussion rather than behavioral contagion as a mechanism. Our results qualify findings from influential observational studies and suggest that within intimate social networks, negative correlations between political heterogeneity and electoral participation are unlikely to result from political disagreement

Content analysis of elite articulations

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67140/2/10.1177_002200276400800406.pd

Does discussion lead to opinion change within Political Science students? A pedagogical exercise of deliberative democracy

While the model of deliberative democracy gives a crucial role to dialog, empirical evidence has not yet established if discussion helps to reach a better understanding of political issues and, above all, if individuals are prepared to change their views. It is still unclear when the deliberative model, and more specifically discussion, could be usefully employed as a teaching tool, to improve students’ knowledge. This article presents an exercise performed within the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the LUISS University of Rome. Students were asked to discuss in the classroom the issues related to the course, and to cast a vote on selected issues before and after deliberation. Although our sample is not representative, we have gathered evidence from the same population on a rather large number of issues. Students changed their view in 24.6% of cases, and they agreed that discussion increased their understanding, while those with strong ex-ante views resulted more reluctant to change their opinions because of discussion. The analysis also showed the presence of individuals that are more likely to be permeable to discussion while others that are more likely to be impermeable

“... As Long as Power Relations Exist ... Yes, There are Inequalities…”1 Social and Educational Inequalities in Greece According to the Views of Female and Male Students of Tertiary Education Institutions

The issue of social and more specifically educational inequalities in Greek society and education seems to concern the Greek society less and less nowadays. Scientific research and the contemporary sociological theory have focused on specific areas of interest of the phenomenon, neglecting the issue in its macro sociological dimension, without, of course, this meaning that the frames and fields of analysis that have emerged are of minor importance. The main question that concerns this research is, if social and educational inequalities are recognized today by the Greek social body and on which fields they focus. Do social and educational inequalities exist in Greece? Are they recognizable and how are they manifested? Our research was carried out with two research tools: a questionnaire which includes two attitude scales (social and educational inequalities) (N=800) and another one which contains a single question, which concerns the expression of opinion about whether the sample considers that there are inequalities in the Greek education system, and the justification of its views (N=800). The questionnaires were answered by female and male students of Greek Universities and Technological Educational Institutes. We chose the university student status in the sample, in order to record attitudes and opinions of young people who are considered “favored” by the education system. The analysis showed that the sample considers that, indeed, there are inequalities in Greek society as well as in Greek education and it is able to recognize a significant range of indications of the phenomenon. It seems that the experienced inequality prevailed against the “favorable” treatment which the system “reserved” in this specific sample. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2017.v7n1p3