Pub Date : 2023-05-28DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2214791
L. Frischlich, Scott A. Eldridge, T. U. Figenschou, K. A. Ihlebæk, Kristoffer Holt, Stephen Cushion
Abstract In order to better understand alternative news media, we need to focus more centrally on the audiences that regularly consume them. This special issue, entitled “Contesting the Mainstream: Understanding Alternative News Media,” advances such an audience turn. In the introduction, we outline how scholars have understood and characterized alternative news audiences. These have ranged from seeing them as (i) ideal participants and activists; as (ii) being misinformed and manipulated; and as (iii) being critical users. Drawing on studies published in this special issue, we highlight how these studies provide new and revealing empirical insights that advance all three perspectives. Taken together, the articles make a strong argument to move beyond binary ideations of normatively “good” or “bad” alternative news audiences. In our view, they signal the need to better understand the complexity behind audience engagement not just with alternative news media but mainstream journalism more generally. Based on this argument, we identify several starting points for moving the field forward with such an audience turn in mind.
{"title":"Contesting the Mainstream: Towards an Audience-Centered Agenda of Alternative News Research","authors":"L. Frischlich, Scott A. Eldridge, T. U. Figenschou, K. A. Ihlebæk, Kristoffer Holt, Stephen Cushion","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2214791","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2214791","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In order to better understand alternative news media, we need to focus more centrally on the audiences that regularly consume them. This special issue, entitled “Contesting the Mainstream: Understanding Alternative News Media,” advances such an audience turn. In the introduction, we outline how scholars have understood and characterized alternative news audiences. These have ranged from seeing them as (i) ideal participants and activists; as (ii) being misinformed and manipulated; and as (iii) being critical users. Drawing on studies published in this special issue, we highlight how these studies provide new and revealing empirical insights that advance all three perspectives. Taken together, the articles make a strong argument to move beyond binary ideations of normatively “good” or “bad” alternative news audiences. In our view, they signal the need to better understand the complexity behind audience engagement not just with alternative news media but mainstream journalism more generally. Based on this argument, we identify several starting points for moving the field forward with such an audience turn in mind.","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":"11 1","pages":"727 - 740"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48526444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-25DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2211635
Luise Anter, A. Kümpel
The use of information has changed in recent years—particularly among young adults, for whom social media are now the most important gateway to engage with news and various other types of information. Focusing on Instagram, this multi-method research project takes an audience-centered approach and investigates how young adults use the platform for (which kind of) information, the information needs that guide their use, and the contextual dynamics that shape their understandings of ‘information (use).’ Empirically, the study builds on a combination of a seven-day diary study with semi-structured qualitative interviews with 48 German Instagram users aged 18 to 24. Analyzing the diaries in conjunction with the interview transcripts allowed us to gain rich insights into information usage practices and how these are influenced by the characteristics of (audiovisual) social media platforms as well as the motives and needs of using them. The findings suggest that Instagram is an integral part of young adults’ information repertoires, although information is usually not actively sought. Moreover, platform characteristics and affordances not only shape possible and actual information behaviors but also matter for whether participants understand their Instagram use as information use.
{"title":"Young Adults’ Information Needs, Use, and Understanding in the Context of Instagram: A Multi-Method Study","authors":"Luise Anter, A. Kümpel","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2211635","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2211635","url":null,"abstract":"The use of information has changed in recent years—particularly among young adults, for whom social media are now the most important gateway to engage with news and various other types of information. Focusing on Instagram, this multi-method research project takes an audience-centered approach and investigates how young adults use the platform for (which kind of) information, the information needs that guide their use, and the contextual dynamics that shape their understandings of ‘information (use).’ Empirically, the study builds on a combination of a seven-day diary study with semi-structured qualitative interviews with 48 German Instagram users aged 18 to 24. Analyzing the diaries in conjunction with the interview transcripts allowed us to gain rich insights into information usage practices and how these are influenced by the characteristics of (audiovisual) social media platforms as well as the motives and needs of using them. The findings suggest that Instagram is an integral part of young adults’ information repertoires, although information is usually not actively sought. Moreover, platform characteristics and affordances not only shape possible and actual information behaviors but also matter for whether participants understand their Instagram use as information use.","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48468362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-25DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2209153
Roan Schellingerhout, Davide Beraldo, M. Marx
This article investigates under which video watch conditions YouTube’s recommender system tends to develop a preference for conspiracy-classified videos. Whereas existing research on so-called filter bubbles and rabbit holes tends to rely on non-personalized recommendations and on standard watch patterns, this study puts personalization and diversified user strategies at the center of its design. 20 authenticated bots have been instructed to watch YouTube content based on four distinct watch strategies. In a baseline strategy, bots watched non-conspiracy videos only. Treatment strategies involved watching conspiracy-classified content, selected based on either non-personalized, partly-personalized, or fully-personalized input. Bots watched a total of 15 videos, and after each video their top 20 homepage recommendations were collected and classified as either conspiracy-related or not. This allowed us to measure the impact of each video watched and of each watch strategy on the proportion of conspiracy-classified content recommended at each step. The same experiment has been reverted, exposing the treatment groups to non-conspiracy videos only, to assess the persistence of this pattern. Our results show that users primed with conspiracy-classified content tend to quickly receive a much larger proportion of conspiracy-classified recommendations. Inverting this pattern proves significantly more difficult than generating it. There are also indications that watch strategies relying on personalized content as input might produce stronger effects. This article contributes evidence to the argument that YouTube’s recommendation system is prone to generating strong, potentially pernicious recommendation patterns. Moreover, it contributes a replicable methodology that puts personalization at the center of the stage in the study of content personalization algorithms.
{"title":"Accounting for Personalization in Personalization Algorithms: YouTube’s Treatment of Conspiracy Content","authors":"Roan Schellingerhout, Davide Beraldo, M. Marx","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2209153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2209153","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates under which video watch conditions YouTube’s recommender system tends to develop a preference for conspiracy-classified videos. Whereas existing research on so-called filter bubbles and rabbit holes tends to rely on non-personalized recommendations and on standard watch patterns, this study puts personalization and diversified user strategies at the center of its design. 20 authenticated bots have been instructed to watch YouTube content based on four distinct watch strategies. In a baseline strategy, bots watched non-conspiracy videos only. Treatment strategies involved watching conspiracy-classified content, selected based on either non-personalized, partly-personalized, or fully-personalized input. Bots watched a total of 15 videos, and after each video their top 20 homepage recommendations were collected and classified as either conspiracy-related or not. This allowed us to measure the impact of each video watched and of each watch strategy on the proportion of conspiracy-classified content recommended at each step. The same experiment has been reverted, exposing the treatment groups to non-conspiracy videos only, to assess the persistence of this pattern. Our results show that users primed with conspiracy-classified content tend to quickly receive a much larger proportion of conspiracy-classified recommendations. Inverting this pattern proves significantly more difficult than generating it. There are also indications that watch strategies relying on personalized content as input might produce stronger effects. This article contributes evidence to the argument that YouTube’s recommendation system is prone to generating strong, potentially pernicious recommendation patterns. Moreover, it contributes a replicable methodology that puts personalization at the center of the stage in the study of content personalization algorithms.","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44576372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-24DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2213731
Pranav Malhotra
{"title":"Misinformation in WhatsApp Family Groups: Generational Perceptions and Correction Considerations in a Meso-News Space","authors":"Pranav Malhotra","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2213731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2213731","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44427972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-23DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2210616
M. Hameleers, Darian Harff, D. Schmuck
{"title":"The Alternative Truth Kept Hidden From Us: The Effects of Multimodal Disinformation Disseminated by Ordinary Citizens and Alternative Hyper-Partisan Media","authors":"M. Hameleers, Darian Harff, D. Schmuck","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2210616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2210616","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43395975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-22DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2206039
Alice Beazer, Stefanie Walter, Scott A. Eldridge, Sean-Kelly Palicki
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately negative affect on women, especially women from minoritized groups. Minority news media are an important information source for these groups, when it comes to providing alternative views, and health related information. Whilst the poor representation of women in COVID-19 related mainstream news coverage is acknowledged, little is known regarding the representation of women in digital minority news content, during the pandemic and beyond. Considering this gap, we examine how women have been represented within a diverse corpus of minority news, and explore how these representations serve to bridge between different social groups. Critically analyzing the representation of these marginalized groups offers a lens through which we can better understand the function of minority news media in a democracy. Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines three online minority newspapers and one podcast from the US. Findings show that women are covered in an inclusive and empowering way, containing perspectives and concerns unique to the minority group, strengthening identities, platforming community-specific issues, communicating a call to action, and promoting intersectional solidarity. These representations also reveal the complex tensions between counterhegemonic and dominant publics which minority news media sources constantly negotiate through their content.
{"title":"On the Margins: Exploring Minority News Media Representations of Women during the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Alice Beazer, Stefanie Walter, Scott A. Eldridge, Sean-Kelly Palicki","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2206039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2206039","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately negative affect on women, especially women from minoritized groups. Minority news media are an important information source for these groups, when it comes to providing alternative views, and health related information. Whilst the poor representation of women in COVID-19 related mainstream news coverage is acknowledged, little is known regarding the representation of women in digital minority news content, during the pandemic and beyond. Considering this gap, we examine how women have been represented within a diverse corpus of minority news, and explore how these representations serve to bridge between different social groups. Critically analyzing the representation of these marginalized groups offers a lens through which we can better understand the function of minority news media in a democracy. Using critical discourse analysis, this study examines three online minority newspapers and one podcast from the US. Findings show that women are covered in an inclusive and empowering way, containing perspectives and concerns unique to the minority group, strengthening identities, platforming community-specific issues, communicating a call to action, and promoting intersectional solidarity. These representations also reveal the complex tensions between counterhegemonic and dominant publics which minority news media sources constantly negotiate through their content.","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49035089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-10DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2206038
A. Chadwick, Cristian Vaccari, N. Hall
{"title":"What Explains the Spread of Misinformation in Online Personal Messaging Networks? Exploring the Role of Conflict Avoidance","authors":"A. Chadwick, Cristian Vaccari, N. Hall","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2206038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2206038","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43212733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-10DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2023.2195115
H. Cools, B. Van Gorp, M. Opgenhaffen
{"title":"Newsroom Engineering Teams as “Survival Entities” for Journalism? Mapping the Process of Institutionalization at The Washington Post","authors":"H. Cools, B. Van Gorp, M. Opgenhaffen","doi":"10.1080/21670811.2023.2195115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2023.2195115","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":11166,"journal":{"name":"Digital Journalism","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47131897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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