More Sources Create Greater Audience Engagement: An Investigation into the Relationship Between the Number of News Sources and Audience Responses

IF 4.9 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION Communication Research Pub Date : 2025-02-27 DOI:10.1177/00936502251324549

Youngkee Ju, Pureum Lee

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Abstract

Journalism quality has been examined primarily through a normative lens and investigated through descriptive methods that overlook news consumers’ actual responses to it. Taking a more empirical, media-effects approach, we explore how a particular index of journalism quality—the quantity of news sources—relates to audience engagement. The concept of multiple news sources inherently involves normative elements of quality journalism, such as being truthful, impartial, and complete. This study examines how responses by news consumers to COVID-19 news coverage varied based on the number of sources cited in each news story. We quantified the sources in pandemic news coverage from two South Korean newspapers and one broadcast television channel, comparing them with recipients’ responses in the form of comments, emotional expressions, and recommendations. Our findings reveal that the number of news sources used in COVID-19 health crisis coverage was associated with the number of comments made by news consumers. Similarly, audience clicks on emotional expressions increased as the number of news sources increased. Furthermore, there were more consumer recommendations for COVID-19 news coverage when the news media cited a greater number of sources. These findings underscore the implications of the multiple-source effect on audience engagement and suggest avenues for improving journalism quality.

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来源期刊

Communication Research COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

17.10

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Empirical research in communication began in the 20th century, and there are more researchers pursuing answers to communication questions today than at any other time. The editorial goal of Communication Research is to offer a special opportunity for reflection and change in the new millennium. To qualify for publication, research should, first, be explicitly tied to some form of communication; second, be theoretically driven with results that inform theory; third, use the most rigorous empirical methods; and fourth, be directly linked to the most important problems and issues facing humankind. Critieria do not privilege any particular context; indeed, we believe that the key problems facing humankind occur in close relationships, groups, organiations, and cultures.