News Consumption

In recent years, there has been a growing trend of news sharing through private messaging apps. This shift presents significant challenges for journalism, particularly in terms of media trust and news dissemination. Despite the importance of studying the role of private messaging apps in shaping public opinion, there is a lack of systematic approaches. After a scientific literature review including terms such as “WhatsApp”, “Telegram”, and “mesospaces”, content and thematic analyses were carried out to identify research methods and topics. A total of 61 documents was retrieved in late 2022, 53 of which are articles in WoS journals. Results shed light on the most common practices, and while WhatsApp remains the most studied platform, paradoxically, it is still in the experimental stage. While the use of private messaging apps for news reception may be considered a private activity, the findings suggest that this private reception does not necessarily equate to individual or isolated consumption. The results have implications for stages such as news gathering and production, while also revealing subtopics in research on these platforms, such as the need for new digital literacies, trust as a primary casualty of disinformation, and some community practices. This approach underlines the need for transnational studies to identify common practices in the use of these technologies that are not solely driven by the particular context of a country.

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En los últimos años, ha habido una creciente tendencia de compartir noticias a través de aplicaciones de mensajería privada. Este cambio presenta desafíos significativos para el periodismo en términos de confianza en los medios y difusión de noticias. A pesar de la importancia de la investigación sobre mensajería privada y periodismo en la construcción de la opinión pública, faltan enfoques sistemáticos. Tras una revisión de literatura científica que incluyó términos como “WhatsApp”, “Telegram” y “mesoespacios”, se realizaron análisis de contenido y temáticos para identificar métodos y temas de investigación. Se recuperaron 61 documentos en 2022, de los cuales 53 son artículos en revistas WoS. Los resultados arrojan luz sobre las prácticas más comunes y, aunque WhatsApp sigue siendo la plataforma más estudiada, paradójicamente aún se usa de modo experimental. Si bien el uso de aplicaciones de mensajería privada para la recepción de noticias puede considerarse una actividad privada, los hallazgos sugieren que esta recepción privada no necesariamente equivale a un consumo individual o aislado. Las implicaciones de los resultados se relacionan con la recopilación y producción de noticias, pero también surgen subtemas como la necesidad de nuevas alfabetizaciones digitales, la confianza como primera víctima de la desinformación y algunas prácticas comunitarias. Este enfoque subraya la necesidad de estudios transnacionales para identificar prácticas comunes con estas tecnologías que no estén únicamente impulsadas por el contexto particular de un país.

An alarming number of Floridians do not trust K-12 schools. But if schools focus more on civics, they could increase public trust. Those are two of the key takeaways of our recently conducted poll of Floridians. The Institute for Governance and Civics at Florida State University partnered with Hunt Research to conduct a survey of 1,234 likely Florida voters before the 2024 general election on a host of issues dealing with education. The results showed: • A worrisome number of Floridians distrust K-12 schools; and • That distrust stems largely from concerns that schools have become too politicized. Yet, the survey also shows that there is a consensus on how to restore trust in schools. A plurality of Floridians agree that the purpose of K-12 education should be to prepare students to be responsible citizens. And they believe a greater focus on the Constitution and American civics will enhance their trust in schools. These findings reveal that a renewed focus on constitutionally grounded education focused on American civics will increase Floridians' confidence in K-12 education. And it will, at the same time, produce a more civically literate population.

This study scrutinizes the news consumption habits and patterns among Sultan Qaboos University students in Oman, with a particular emphasis on the role of social networks in shaping news acquisition. Leveraging the theoretical lens of Uses and Gratifications and a review of relevant literature, the research explores the types of news that resonate with students and the benefits they derive from news consumption. The study also seeks to determine whether  the emergence of the Internet news platforms has diminished students' reliance on traditional media and to uncover the factors that drive their news consumption behaviors.A survey methodology was employed, utilizing an electronic questionnaire to gather data from a carefully selected sample of 175 individuals. The data analysis reveals that students consume a variety of news, with a notable preference for local news. Their news consumption habits are characterized by frequent access via smartphones and a predilection for short news clips, with no fixed schedule for their consumption patterns. While social media serves as their primary source for breaking news, students express reservations about its credibility. Despite acknowledging the reliability of traditional media, students do not frequently engage with it for news consumption.

This article aims to analyse the perspectives of children and young people about disinformation and news consumption. Based on the inputs of participants and their own perceptions on the matter we explore how the disinformation phenomenon is present in their daily lives, the different ways they experience and perceive its potential impact on society, as well as strategies adopted to tackle it. The analysis is based on data obtained from 38 focus groups held with 257 children and young people attending sixth (11-13 years old), ninth (14-16 years old) and twelfth (17-20 years old) grades in public schools in mainland Portugal. Results indicated that they have access to news regularly; however, it is not pursued to fulfil a particular purpose. Televised news constitutes the main source of news
consumption. News broadcasted on TV are perceived as the most reliable source if compared to online information and social networks, which are considered more susceptible to fake news, although responses indicated that children and youth do not analyse information thoroughly. Disinformation is a relatively familiar issue for a portion of the participants but is seen as neither a problem nor a concern. There is a weak awareness about the impacts and consequences of this phenomenon, although there are differences according to age.

This study seeks to understand how journalists deal with story/truth-making in their daily news practice, based on in-depth interviews with 67 journalists from Belgium and the Netherlands. The findings revealed a difference between news makers and storytellers and related differences in the way journalists prepare and present news stories. In preparing stories, news makers consider pegs and predefined angles as vital, while storytellers see them as obstacles. In presenting stories, newsmakers defend many of the journalistic conventions challenged by storytellers. The findings are discussed in terms of boundary work and in the light of the ubiquity of online news.

This study examines the impact of word count in Facebook posts on user engagement and emotional responses, focusing on sports shoe brands. It addresses a research gap concerning the effects of post length on various emotional aspects and engagement metrics within social media marketing. Data were collected from January 1, 2024, to January 30, 2024, covering posts from January 2013 to December 2023 on official Facebook pages of several sports shoe brands. After cleaning an initial 723 posts, 636 were analyzed using statistical methods and Python libraries. Eight emotional aspects—fear, anger, sadness, trust, anticipation, joy, disgust, and surprise—were examined in relation to post length. Mean reaction values and emotional aspects were compared before and during the COVID-19 period. A structured equation model (SEM) in AMOS assessed these relationships. The analysis revealed that longer posts positively influenced trust (β = 0.208, ρ < 0.001), anticipation (β = 0.095, ρ < 0.05), joy (β = 0.259, ρ < 0.001), and surprise (β = 0.072, ρ < 0.05), but did not significantly affect fear (β = 0.065, ρ = 0.089), sadness (β = 0.054, ρ = 0.155), or disgust (β = 0.072, ρ = 0.116). During COVID-19, increased trust and anticipation were noted, while sadness and anger decreased. This study highlights that longer Facebook posts can enhance engagement through increased trust, anticipation, joy, and surprise, offering valuable insights for optimizing social media content strategies.

Understanding journalism students' perceptions of their news consumption is fundamental for defining media strategy and new professional profiles. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyze the relationship between Portuguese journalism students and news. To achieve this goal, an online survey was conducted. The analyzed database comprises 449 responses from students representing all regions of the country. This dataset constitutes the largest and most diverse national sample to date for analyzing this research topic in Portugal. The findings indicate that the majority of respondents do not read printed newspapers and magazines, instead preferring to obtain information via traditional media websites, digital platforms, and social media. While the frequency of reading starts off relatively low, there is an observed increase as students advance through their journalism courses. For these young people, the consumption of news is primarily centered on digital platforms, with television being the last traditional medium to have a significant impact.

Esta investigación examina la oferta y la demanda de noticias en siete sitios de la Argentina a través de un análisis de contenido cuantitativo de las noticias publicadas de manera más prominente en las homepages o páginas de inicio y las listas de las "más leídas" durante un periodo de siete meses, que incluye la campaña presidencial y la asunción de un nuevo presidente en 2015. El análisis cuantitativo de más de 5500 noticias muestra que existe una brecha significativa y consistente entre las preferencias de los periodistas y los consumidores y una mayor variabilidad en las preferencias de los integrantes del público que en las elecciones de los productores profesionales de noticias. Este trabajo utiliza tales hallazgos para reflexionar sobre los conceptos de fijación de agenda y ciudadanía monitorial.

In the study reported in this article, the diverse news media repertoires in Portugal are investigated using a Q-methodological approach. We analyse the participants’ perceptions of the experienced values of the cross-media news landscape (Schrøder, 2012) and identify seven news media repertoires: quality media lovers (R1); broadcast media consumers (R2); Volume 14, Issue 2 November 2017 Page 284 television news addicts, press consumers and social media avoiders (R3); news snackers (R4); online based-media and social media addicts (R5); online newspaper lovers and radio news avoiders (R6); and television, press and social/online-based media consumers (R7). A preference for traditional media, especially television, and increasing use of social media, constitute the salient features of the Portuguese national news repertoires.

This study examines antecedents of paying for news subscriptions. Taking the customerperceived value approach, we investigate the impact of perceived quality and perceived journalistic and societal value of news. News habit strength, different motivations for news use, and entertainment spending were also examined for their value in predicting how much people report paying for news. Results of a national survey (N = 403) show that perceived quality of news, habit strength, motivation of social-cultural interactions, and entertainment spending are positively predictive of how much people pay, after demographic controls. These findings not only suggest practical implications for news organizations seeking to increase subscriber support but also raise critical questions about how Americans' relationships with newspaper news is degrading.

Early optimism saw possibilities for social media to renew democratic discourse, marked by hopes for individuals from diverse backgrounds to find opportunities to learn from and interact with others different from themselves. This optimism quickly waned as social media seemed to breed ideological homophily marked by "filter bubbles" or "echo chambers." A typical response to the sense of fragmentation has been to encourage exposure to more cross-partisan sources of information. But do outlets that reach across partisan lines in fact generate more civil discourse? And does the civility of discourse hosted by such outlets vary depending on the political context in which they operate? To answer these questions, we identified bubble reachers, users who distribute content that reaches other users with diverse political opinions in recent presidential elections in Brazil, where populism has deep roots in the political culture, and Canada, where the political culture is comparatively moderate. Given that background, this research studies unexplored properties of content shared by bubble reachers, specifically the quality of conversations and comments it generates. We examine how ideologically neutral bubble reachers differ from ideologically partisan accounts in the level of uncivil discourse they provoke, and explore how this varies in the context of the two countries considered. Our results suggest that while ideologically neutral bubble reachers support less uncivil discourse in Canada, the opposite relationship holds in Brazil. Even non-political content by ideologically neutral bubble reachers elicits a considerable amount of uncivil discourse in Brazil. This indicates that bubble reaching and incivility are moderated by the national political context. Our results complicate the simple hypothesis of a universal impact of neutral bubble reachers across contexts.

Research has explored the links between personality and political news consumption, resulting in mixed results that vary across platforms. One potential reason for these inconclusive patterns might be that previous work has exclusively relied on self-reported measures of political news consumption. Considering that personality has been linked to biased response behavior in the past, we investigate to what extent the relationship is affected by potential measurement errors associated with different capturing methods. To do so, we introduce an innovative measurement technique: logs capturing actual internet use through webtracking. While we do not find strong evidence that personality is systematically related to over- or underestimating one's political news consumption, the comparison between the behavioral webtracking measure and self-reported news consumption nevertheless reveals significant differences: notably, openness is positively associated with self-reported online news consumption, but this relationship does not hold in the webtracking data. Instead, when using behavioral measures, neuroticism is a better predictor of political news consumption – an association not observed in the self-reported data. Our insights refine our understanding of the interplay between personality and online political news consumption and enhance the broader discourse on survey response behaviors linked to personality.

Η λέξη που επιλέχθηκε από το λεξικό Collins ως η λέξη της χρονιάς του 2017 ήταν η λέξη «fake news», δηλαδή οι παραποιημένες, συχνά εντυπωσιακές πληροφορίες που διαδίδονται υπό το πρόσχημα της είδησης. Για να εξηγήσει η επιτροπή σύνταξης του λεξικού την αιτία για την οποία επέλεξε την συγκεκριμένη λέξη, επικαλείται ως κύριο λόγο ότι η χρήση του όρου αυξήθηκε κατά 365% σε σχέση με το 2016. Οι αλλαγές που επέφεραν οι νέες τεχνολογίες, με κυρίαρχες τις πλατφόρμες κοινωνικής δικτύωσης, θεωρήθηκαν από πολλούς ερευνητές και ακαδημαϊκούς ότι ενισχύουν τη Δημοκρατία, καθώς δίνουν φωνή σε περιθωριοποιημένες κοινωνικές ομάδες, προωθούν τον πλουραλισμό και ενισχύουν τον ακτιβισμό. Ο αρχικός ενθουσιασμός για το διαδίκτυο και τα Κοινωνικά Μέσα άρχισε να φθίνει και αντικαταστάθηκε από ανησυχία, όταν, από το 2016 και εξής, παρατηρήθηκε διεθνώς μια έξαρση διασποράς των λεγόμενων «ψευδών ειδήσεων» κυρίως μέσω των Κοινωνικών Δικτύων, με στόχο την υπονόμευση, τον επηρεασμό και την καθοδήγηση της κοινής γνώμης.

Since 2016, online social networks (OSNs), especially their “big data” algorithms, have been intensively blamed in popular news discourse for acting as echo chambers. These chambers entrap like-minded voters in closed ideological circles that cause serious damage to democratic processes. This study examines this “echo chamber” argument through the rather divisive case of EU politics among EU citizens. Based on an exploratory secondary analysis of the Eurobarometer 86.2 survey dataset, we investigate whether the reliance on OSNs as a primary EU political news source can lead people to more polarisation in EU-related political beliefs and attitudes than a reliance on traditional media. We found little evidence for this polarisation, lending credence to a rejection of social media’s “echo chamber” effect.

Scholarly work argues that mobile technology facilitates serendipitous news consumption. This article examines how users understand serendipity in mobile news consumption and whether this leads to news diversity. Technology-mediated news encounters are argued to reduce news diversity, yet these theoretical filter bubbles cannot be found empirically. This paper investigates whether this might be explained by incidental news use. A mixed methods study (n=20) was set up, which involved interviews, on-device loggings and experience sampling data. Results show that incidental news differs in the level of user agency, ranging from responding to an unsolicited recommendation or alert; via monitoring, facilitated by a previous action (e.g. activated news notifications); to browsing or stumbling upon unexpected topics during news use. Incidental encounters become serendipitous when they provide new information or insights and consequently stick in one's mind. Based on our findings, we further develop a conceptual model for (mobile) incidental news, which shows the interplay of news recommendations by peers, algorithms, and editors. Editorial recommendations result in topic diversity. Both peer and algorithmic recommendations lead to brand diversity, yet this remains unnoticed to audiences. Peer recommendations mostly do not lead to topic or viewpoint diversity, but are perceived as valuable when they do.

In this study, we analyze for the first time newly available engagement data covering millions of web links shared on Facebook to describe how and by which categories of U.S. users different types of news are seen and shared on the platform. We focus on articles from low-credibility news publishers, credible news sources, purveyors of clickbait, and news specifically about politics, which we identify through a combination of curated lists and supervised classifiers. Our results support recent findings that more fake news is shared by older users and conservatives and that both viewing and sharing patterns suggest a preference for ideologically congenial misinformation. We also find that fake news articles related to politics are more popular among older Americans than other types, while the youngest users share relatively more articles with clickbait headlines. Across the platform, however, articles from credible news sources are shared over 5 times more often and viewed over 7 time...

Western democracies have seen a decreased participation in activities traditionally associated with political participation. One aspect of participating politically is to keep up-to-date with what happens in society, for example, by following the news. Here, youth have been found to be less active than older generations. The decline in young people's consumption of news media does not necessarily mean that they are disinterested in news or politics; they may get their information from other sources, for example, social media. Using a qualitative multi-method approach, this article investigates how young people who are interested in civic and political issues, and who regularly access news from various sources, experience and understand, specifically, Facebook and Twitter as sources of news about public affairs. The participants appreciated the immediateness of social media news, and felt that it could provide insights into new perspectives and make news stories feel more relevant. However, it was also experienced as one-sided, fragmented, and subjective, giving a biased, or even false, image of what happens in society. The consumption of news was strongly related to the idea of being a "good" citizen. However, since the participants did not regard social media news as "real news," their image of themselves as citizens suffered. If young people in general resemble our participants in this respect, research that asks about their news consumption runs a risk of getting answers that underestimate it, thus reinforcing the idea that young people are less interested and informed about public affairs than is actually the case.

The article presents the first version of a methodologically innovative typology of people's use and experience of news, across different media platforms. Theoretically, the article is based on the modernized version of Jürgen Habermas's theory of the public sphere, which is sometimes labelled theory of cultural citizenship, or civic agency. We observe the citizen-consumers' selection from the available news media through the theoretical lens of 'perceived worthwhileness', which consists of seven dimensions that aggregate to condition an individual's portfolio of news media in everyday life. The empirical investigation uses an integrated qualitative-quantitative method, resulting in a typology of cross-media news consumption with seven user types, which is compared with the Pew 2008 study of news consumption in the United States. In this article we present the first version of an innovative map of people's use and experience of news, across different media platforms that offer the Danish public different kinds of information about what is going on in society around them.

This research sought to identify to what extent news media consumption plays a role in forming an individual's political identity and their views on individual stances. The subsequent novel quantitative study asked students of various disciplines at Marquette University questions in regards to how much they pay attention to various news sources, to what extent they trust those news sources, and their views on individual issues as they relate to their chosen political identity. Results from the study found basic trends in regards to selected news sources and one's political disposition. Furthermore, stances on certain issues, like border security, were found to be more heavily shaped by media consumption patterns, showing the power of how news media frames issues. This study can be thought of as a precursor for more expansive research that could include a more representative sample of the American population.

The evolution and adaptation of journalistic practice in response to discourses taking place in networked and shared media environments and the implications of same have been the focus of much academic attention in recent years. This paper examines the agenda-setting potential of Twitter and considers how this feeds into and affects journalistic output. It does so by applying a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework in considering whether reportage on particular news events are re-framed in the aftermath of Twitter campaigns. In August 2016, the Irish media's framing of the Hawe murder suicide via sourcing, emphasis and agency drew widespread criticism on social media for its perceived 'omission' or 'significant silence' about one of the victims, Clodagh Hawe, from the narrative in favour of a greater focus on the perpetrator, Alan Hawe. Criticism of the initial coverage of the incident was in large part driven by the #hernamewasclodagh social media campaign. This paper takes an intertextual approach to the analysis of correlations between emphases within the social media campaign and differences in the framing of the news media coverage before and after that campaign.

With the advent of Web 2.0, new forms of journalism arose, paving the way for the implementation of computational and automatization processes in all aspects of mass communication. As such, chatbots have already been adapted in the news media platforms bringing forward a series of issues and effects upon journalistic narrative, content and professional practices. This paper presents the role of chatbots and their characteristics, discusses the application of different types of chatbots in the news media and presents a theoretical overview of the advantages and disadvantages regarding their adaptation in journalism, as well as key ethical concerns connected to the emergence of this new journalistic narrative.

India will have 1 billion smart phone users by 2026, according to a recent Deloitte report Big bets (2022). As for news consumption, a June 2022 article in Mint says that around 72% on Indians access news through smartphones, and only 35% via computers. News aggregator platforms and apps such as Google News (53%), Daily Hunt (25%), In Shorts (19%), and News Point (17%) are also gaining currency Jha (2022). Even though the use of mobile phones is increasing, a 2022 study conducted by the Reuters Institute in 46 markets says that the trust in news is falling, especially with the younger age group. Youth Avoiding News, Says Reuters Study. (2022). The report says, “These groups are critical audiences for publishers and journalists around the world, and for the sustainability of news, but are increasingly hard to reach and may require different strategies to engage them.” This study also marks the difference in the consumption pattern between social natives (18 to 24) and digital natives...

This study is a textual analysis of Egyptian queer activist Sarah Hegazi's suicide in 2020. Based on a grounded theory approach, qualitative analysis was performed on 23 media articles from Egypt, Lebanon, and the United States, with particular focus on episodic/thematic frames and the stigma/ stigma-challenging frames due to their significance in studies about mental illness. The main findings reveal that Egypt had the highest stigma frames coupled with the lowest sympathy theme and the least attack on the Egyptian regime, whereas US and Lebanese outlets displayed high sympathy and vehemently attacked the Egyptian regime. Further, the study explains the findings in relation to country media systems. The significance of the study lies in its analysis of media coverage in three countries to help us understand how Arab and American media discuss the intersection of mental health and queerness in the Arab world. It also enriches the health communication literature as the first study to analyze the framing of the suicide of an Arab woman outside the context of war.

The ease of access offered by the internet makes many people choose to turn to online media as a source of information and news. One of the notable news media portals in Indonesia is Kompas.com. In conveying online news, Kompas.com journalists must, of course, pay attention to the journalistic ethical codes that have been regulated in the Press Law Number 40 of 1999. This research uses a qualitative approach with document analysis and note-taking methods. This study aims to answer whether the publication experience on Kompas.com affects the ability to analyze the author&#39;s code of ethics, what forms of violation of the journalistic code of ethics are found in Kompas.com&#39;s reporting and whether violations of the journalistic code of ethics can affect readers psychologically. The results of this study found that publication experience on Kompas.com did not affect the ability to understand the journalistic code of ethics. There are five forms of violations of the journalistic co...

El consumo digital de las noticias y la interacción de los usuarios con el contenido periodístico digital son dos cuestiones de gran interés en el nuevo contexto en el que se busca alcanzar un periodismo solvente que responda a sus grandes valores tradicionales y a las exigencias de inmediatez e interactividad del actual ecosistema de medios. En este escenario, esta investigación presenta el comportamiento de las audiencias de los tres diarios más relevantes del Perú respecto al contenido publicado en sus portadas digitales y en su sección de los más vistos. Los resultados muestran que en la mayoría de casos no existe correspondencia entre las noticias en portada y las más leídas. Asimismo, se encontró que las noticias que generaron mayor interacción (comentarios) no se publicaron en la portada, sino que provenían de la sección las más vistas y se correspondían con temas variados.

Since 2016, online social networks (OSNs), especially their “big data” algorithms, have been intensively blamed in popular news discourse for acting as echo chambers. These chambers entrap like-minded voters in closed ideological circles that cause serious damage to democratic processes. This study examines this “echo chamber” argument through the rather divisive case of EU politics among EU citizens. Based on an exploratory secondary analysis of the Eurobarometer 86.2 survey dataset, we investigate whether the reliance on OSNs as a primary EU political news source can lead people to more polarisation in EU-related political beliefs and attitudes than a reliance on traditional media. We found little evidence for this polarisation, lending credence to a rejection of social media’s “echo chamber” effect.

User behavior patterns when consuming and sharing information on social networks are analyzed, paying special attention to the effects of the type of presentation and the type of social network. As is common when analyzing activity on social networks, we used the experience sampling method, in which a group of volunteer participants are asked, at different times, a set of questions about their recent activity or experience. The sample consisted of 279 subjects. The results show that news requiring a greater effort is usually shared through closed networks, while in open networks there is a tendency to share more superficial information. No significant differences are found between the degree of reading of the news and the type of social network where it is shared. Moreover, the level of consumption does not influence the degree of reading of the shared material. The level of enjoyment of the news is found to influence its degree of reading. The differences between networks highlight...

The Case of Online News and Information ... An Nguyen School of English, Media Studies and Art History ... Mark Western The University of Queensland Social Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia ... Background. The question whether old media are ...

News media coverage, regardless of the platform being used, can shape people’s opinions, perceptions, behaviors, and preferences about policy, security, and civil liberties in times of crisis. This study examines the possible cultivation impact of news post exposure on Facebook on shaping threat perception. Furthermore, it aims at exploring the correlation between Facebook news exposure, preferring high security levels, and curbing some civil liberties during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this, we used the survey method ( N = 1309 ) with youths aged 18-35 in the U.S., Spain, and Egypt. Our results showed that heavy news exposure on Facebook cultivated fear and terror perceptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it shaped people’s preference for a tightened security environment and willingness to trade off some civil liberties. In other words, despite the different media and political systems, heavy news post consumption on Facebook can increase the tendency to give up civil libe...

The rise of news content on social media has been accompanied by a hope that people with lower socioeconomic status and less interest in political affairs would be “accidentally” exposed to news. By combining tracking and survey data from a Dutch online panel (N = 413), we analyze how political interest, income, and education influence social media news exposure and consumption. Higher levels of political interest are associated with higher amounts of news exposure on Facebook and more news items consumed via social media. Users engage less often in news-related follow-up behavior after consuming news items via social media than after consuming news items referred via news websites. If social

News media coverage, regardless of the platform being used, can shape people's opinions, perceptions, behaviors, and preferences about policy, security, and civil liberties in times of crisis. This study examines the possible cultivation impact of news post exposure on Facebook on shaping threat perception. Furthermore, it aims at exploring the correlation between Facebook news exposure, preferring high security levels, and curbing some civil liberties during the COVID-19 pandemic. For this, we used the survey method (N = 1309) with youths aged 18-35 in the U.S., Spain, and Egypt. Our results showed that heavy news exposure on Facebook cultivated fear and terror perceptions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, it shaped people's preference for a tightened security environment and willingness to trade off some civil liberties. In other words, despite the different media and political systems, heavy news post consumption on Facebook can increase the tendency to give up civil liberty rights and prefer a more stringent security environment.

This article comparatively examines news avoidance in a rapidly changing media environment. We utilize findings from a large dataset of 488 in-depth interviews with media consumers, conducted in Argentina, Finland, Israel, Japan, and the US. We aim to make a contribution to the study of news avoidance by providing a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the drivers, practices, and patterns of news avoidance as they occur in and are shaped by a variety of national contexts. We argue that news avoidance is shaped not only by individual characteristics, but is also manifested and performed as part of specific time frames and socio-cultural factors. We distinguish two drivers of intentional news avoidance: cognitive and emotional. The cognitive drivers are accentuated by distinct country-level contextual factors, whereas the emotional drivers for news avoidance are shared across diverse national contexts.

An interdisciplinary approach explores how journalists embrace the unexpected as part of their reporting routines using Erdelez’s framework of information encountering from the study of human information behavior and the concepts of news routines and story ideation from journalism studies. This paper provides a fresh perspective on the sociology of news in finding that the participating journalists embraced the unexpected by routinizing encountering of story leads and opening themselves to the opportunities they provide.

Legacy news consumption was found to be a predictor of getting news from social media influencers (SMIs) among respondents in seven nationally representative samples in Arab countries (N = 5,166). Getting news from SMIs does not seem to be an "alternative" for persons disenchanted with legacy media; SMI news use may, Martin is associate professor of journalism, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. Coauthor of Media Use in the Middle East.

New democratic participation forms and collaborative productions of diverse audiences have emerged as a result of digital innovations in the online access to and consumption of news. The aim of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework based on the possibilities of Web 2.0. Outlining the construction of a “social logic”, which combines computer and communicative logics, the conceptual framework is theoretically built to explore the evolution of news consumption from a pure circulation of designed products towards a global conversation of proactive news designers. Then, the framework was tested using an empirical database built by the Pew Research Centre, which investigates the future of the news industry, through a large-scale survey with adults. Results show significant differences (by age, gender and educational level) in the forms of participation, access and consumption of news. However, whilst immersed in the culture of Web 2.0 there is a low-level of user participation i...

The present edition includes the presentation and analysis of the relevant research conducted by Eteron-Institute for Research and Social Change, in collaboration with aboutpeople, between 10-18 December 2021, regarding Gen Z in Greece. Generation Z / Gen Z (we'll be using the short term Gen Z in this report) is the generation that succeeds the Millennials and it includes people born between mid to late 90's and early 2010.

To examine whether selective exposure occurs when people read news attributed to an algorithm author, this study conducted a 2 (author attribution: human or algorithm) × 3 (article attitude: attitude-consistent news, attitude-challenging news, or neutral story) × 2 (article topic: gun control or abortion) mixed-design online experiment (N = 351). By experimentally manipulating the attribution of authorship, this study found that selective exposure and selective avoidance were practiced when the news article was declared to be written by algorithms. Results revealed that people were more likely to select attitudeconsistent news rather than attitude-challenging news and rated attitude consistent news stories as more credible than attitude challenging news for stories purportedly written by both algorithms and human journalists. For attitude-consistent gun-rights stories, people were more likely to expose themselves to human attribution stories rather than algorithmic attribution stori...

This article examines perceptions of social media use (e.g. the WhatsApp application), in particular looking at how Bahraini women use such technology and how mobile communication is used by such a segment of the population. Mobile devices are very accessible to Bahraini women and this needs even further study to learn ways of using applications for information and other things. This analysis is based on an online survey, conducted among 1137 Bahraini women, using a nonrepresentative sample (snowball). Such data were analyzed using a deep learning approach which utilizes, in particular, the Fuzzy Proximity Knowledge Mining technique to examine the provided answers. The study found that WhatsApp has enabled Bahraini women to communicate and share information with others. They spent 2–3 h daily sending and enjoying comics and entertainment clips and important and rare news stories. Social interaction, communication, and escapism featured strongly as the most popular reasons for using ...

Research on political misinformation is booming. The field is continually gaining more key insights about this important and complex social problem. Academic interest on misinformation has consistently been a multidisciplinary effort. But perhaps political communication researchers are particularly well situated to be the leading voices on the public’s understanding of misinformation and many are heeding the call. With that responsibility in mind, in this brief article we offer six observations for the future of political misinformation research that we believe can help focus this line of inquiry to better ensure we address some of the most pressing problems. Our list is not exhaustive, nor do we suggest that areas we do not cover are not important. Rather, we make these observations with the goal of spurring a conversation about the future of political misinformation research.

The study is based on data from a representative survey conducted in Hungary in 2020, which examined the public's consumption of political and public information. Using the survey data, the authors attempt to map the consumption patterns of the Hungarian audience, with a special focus on the relationship between party preferences and the consumption of the various news sources with different ideological backgrounds. The research aims to better understand the phenomenon of polarisation, which is increasingly observed on both the supply and demand sides of the Hungarian news media. The focus of the study is to examine news consumption patterns in Hungary and the relationship between political polarisation and news consumption. The authors analysed the prevalence of information bubbles in the Hungarian public sphere, where consumers are only exposed to the views of one political side without being confronted with information or opinions that differ. Particular attention is paid to a special category of the Hungarian media system, the grey-zone media; they might seem to contribute greatly to the pluralism of the media system, but they are, in fact, strongly politically dependent. In addition to the identified news consumption patterns, the study aims to shed light on the importance and problematic nature of this grey-zone media category and to reveal how deeply the Hungarian public is actually dependent on the government.

Snapchat is a camera and ephemeral messaging application popular among young adults. Due to its self-destructing content and playful features, Snapchat is often associated with more trivial uses. However, the platform has added functionality to support consumption of news. To understand how users perceive and interact with news content on Snapchat, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 19 users of the platform, focusing on their use of Snapchat during breaking news events, including the 2016/2017 US presidential election and inauguration. Through the lens of Network Gatekeeping, our research explains how users consume breaking news content on Snapchat. We unpack users' ambiguous perceptions of news reliability on Snapchat, and demonstrate how this contrasts with traditional news consumption. Our research also describes how users' mental models of how Snapchat works-specifically their theories about how the platform curates news content-shape their judgments of reliability, media bias and authenticity.