A framework for the multimodal analysis of online news galleries: What makes a “good” picture gallery?

The development of digital technology in recent years has led to a revolution in news production and dissemination. In terms of production, we have witnessed a fundamental shift towards visual story-telling. Images dominate the verbal story space and have the potential to become the story themselves. Beyond this, they are also creating unique spaces for themselves (e.g. the online news gallery), with new multimodal genres posing challenges for practitioners and analysts alike. The potential effects of such fundamental shifts on the professional news story-telling practices of the legacy news media provide a rich research opportunity for understanding both how and whether news organisations fulfil their mandate of making sense of the plethora of information that is now available. In this paper, we concern ourselves with one particular innovation in visual news reporting – the online news gallery, or picture gallery in journalism terms. We report on a qualitative analysis of 35 galleries from 12 English-language newspapers with online presence from Europe, North America, Australia and Asia, and interrogate the choices made by institutions in composing this particular type of multimodal “text”, as it is situated in a professional, news story-telling context. In doing so, we explore how a systemic-functional semiotic approach to multimodal news discourse may help us to access the meaning potential of this emerging genre as a vehicle for multimodal digital news reporting, present a framework for the multimodal analysis of online news galleries and consider its implications for the education of media practitioners.     

Mapping the production of political communications: a model to assist in understanding the relationships between the production and consumption of political messages

High public interest today in political communications such as ‘spin’ and in political participation such as electoral turnout suggests that there may be value in exploring the processes by which political messages are produced and consumed, and their inter‐relationship with participation. It may be that what citizen‐voters think of message production influences how they consume political news and publicity (through observing and evaluating), and that the propensity to political participation is subsequently affected. This paper offers a model which traces the production of political communications, starting at their origins in the political class, and flowing via traditional political journalism or controlled media and new media to citizen‐voters who both observe and evaluate them (ie consume them) before, during and after making any political choices. It is hypothesised that the observation and evaluation of message production and content by political consumers influences both their types and levels of participation. Research of this nature into political organisations is relatively rare. Similarly, there is little evidence of investigations into other aspects highlighted in the model: attitudes of the political class towards political communications, the production of political communications before they reach the media and how they are received by the media, and their consumption by citizen‐voters in relation to the propensity to participate in politics. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications     

Amid Political Spin and Online Misinformation,Fact Checking Adapts

After more than a decade of rapid growth, the worldwide fact-checking movement has surged since 2016, fuelled by rising concern about the political and social influence of online misinformation. This movement is also changing in ways that deserve close attention, as understanding and mitigating the spread of false information across digital networks has become an urgent priority for governments, charitable foundations, academic researchers, and technology companies. This research brief presents a snapshot of the field based on a mid-2019 survey designed to reveal how fact-checking organisations understood their mission, where they were directing their resources, and how their focus had shifted in the last several years. We found evidence of diverging missions in the fact-checking world, as a focus on combatting online misinformation began to supersede one on checking rhetoric from public figures.     

Media evolution and public understanding of climate science

This paper employs public opinion data from a nationally representative probability sample to examine how information encounters and exposure to different media sources relate to individuals' beliefs about global warming. The analyses indicate that media source exposure (i.e., exposure to news and information about science presented through different media outlets), intentional information exposure (i.e., deliberate exposure to global warming news coverage), and inadvertent information exposure (i.e., unplanned exposure to news and information about science that is encountered online while searching for other forms of information) relate to beliefs about global warming, in significant and meaningful ways. Namely, the findings show that both intentional information exposure and inadvertent online information exposure associate with disbelief in human-made causes, catalysts, and consequences of global warming. Theoretical and social implications of the findings are discussed and contextualized in light of the rapidly evolving media environment.     

Social media echo chambers and satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections

There is widespread evidence that individuals select information that supports their convictions and worldviews. This behavior yields the formation of echo chambers – environments in which an individual’s own political beliefs are repeated and amplified and dissenting opinions are screened out. Recent research demonstrates that social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter can facilitate this selection into homogenous networks. Using data from a representative nation-wide online survey, we consider the degree to which respondents’ social media networks resemble virtual echo chambers. We then analyze the effect of these social media echo chambers on satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections. Our findings reveal that virtual echo chambers boost democratic satisfaction among Republicans but they do not have an effect on system support by self-identified Democrats. Our paper therefore adds to a growing literature linking online behaviors to mass attitudes about politics.     

News vs. Entertainment: How Increasing Media Choice Widens Gaps in Political Knowledge and Turnout

Despite dramatic increases in available political information through cable television and the Internet, political knowledge and turnout have not changed noticeably. To explain this seeming paradox, I argue that greater media choice makes it easier for people to find their preferred content. People who like news take advantage of abundant political information to become more knowledgeable and more likely to turn out. In contrast, people who prefer entertainment abandon the news and become less likely to learn about politics and go to the polls. To test this proposition, I develop a measure of people's media content preference and include it in a representative opinion survey of 2,358 U.S. residents. Results show that content preference indeed becomes a better predictor of political knowledge and turnout as media choice increases. Cable TV and the Internet increase gaps in knowledge and turnout between people who prefer news and people who prefer entertainment.     

How party‒issue linkages vary between election manifestos and media debates

Abstract

Existing research on party behaviour has largely focused on the drivers of issue salience in direct party communication. However, less is known about party?issue linkages in election campaigns covered by the mass media, from which most voters get their information about party positions. Against this background, this article explores how two important drivers of issue salience in direct party communication – issue ownership and systemic salience – play out in the media. Based on considerations about the news value of specific party?issue associations, one would expect both relationships to be particularly important in the media. Despite substantial similarities in party?issue linkages across platforms, a comparison of manifestos and newspaper content reveals evidence for this claim. In particular, smaller parties are hardly covered in the news on issues they do not own, while large parties are especially covered on salient topics. These findings contribute to our understanding of issue competition in mediated environments.     

The World Wide Web and the U.S. Political News Market

We propose a framework for understanding how the Internet has affected the U.S. political news market. The framework is driven by the lower cost of production for online news and consumers' tendency to seek out media that conform to their own beliefs. The framework predicts that consumers of Internet news sources should hold more extreme political views and be interested in more diverse political issues than those who solely consume mainstream television news. We test these predictions using two large datasets with questions about news exposure and political views. Generally speaking, we find that consumers of generally left‐of‐center (right‐of‐center) cable news sources who combine their cable news viewing with online sources are more liberal (conservative) than those who do not. We also find that those who use online news content are more likely than those who consume only television news content to be interested in niche political issues.     

It’s Not the Media,Stupid

It is commonly believed that the general public is heavily dependent on the media for its political news and views and that, as a consequence, the media exercise a strong influence over public opinion and behaviour. However, many millions in the Western world strongly believe things that are barely ever mentioned in the mainstream media, just as many millions also firmly reject or ignore some of the messages that are repeated incessantly by them. This confirms sixty years of experimental psychology research showing that most individuals are capable of preserving their beliefs, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, argument and logic to the contrary. Consistent with this, political science research finds little evidence of strong media influence on the party voting, political attitudes and election agendas of citizens. They have their own ways of gathering political information about the world around them, and they do not necessarily believe what they read in the papers, unless they are so inclined to start with. Consequently, media influences on mass opinion and behaviour are weaker than commonly assumed and, such as they are, their effects are more beneficial than harmful for democracy.     

Partisan Differences in Opinionated News Perceptions: A Test of the Hostile Media Effect

The proliferation of opinion and overt partisanship in cable news raises questions about how audiences perceive this content. Of particular interest is whether audiences effectively perceive bias in opinionated news programs, and the extent to which there are partisan differences in these perceptions. Results from a series of three online experiments produce evidence for a relative hostile media phenomenon in the context of opinionated news. Although, overall, audiences perceive more story and host bias in opinionated news than in non-opinionated news, these perceptions—particularly perceptions of the host—vary as a function of partisan agreement with the news content. Specifically, issue partisans appear to have a “bias against bias,” whereby they perceive less bias in opinionated news with which they are predisposed to agree than non-partisans and especially partisans on the other side of the issue.     

US Media and Post-9/11 Human Rights Violations in the Name of Counterterrorism

This article adds to earlier research revealing that the American news media did not discharge their responsibility as a watchdog press in the post-9/11 years by failing to scrutinize extreme and unlawful government policies and actions, most of all the decision to invade Iraq based on false information about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction arsenal. The content analyses presented here demonstrate that leading US news organizations, both television and print, did not expressly refer to human rights violations when they reported on the torturing of foreign detainees during “enhanced interrogations” in US-run prison facilities abroad and the killing of civilians, including children, in US drone strikes overseas and outside theaters of war. Moreover, by framing torture and the “collateral damage” caused by drone-launched missile attacks episodically rather than in the context of human rights, the news media failed to alert the American public to the grave humanitarian violations in the so-called war on terrorism during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.     

Values,imaginaries and templates of journalistic practice: a Critical Discourse Analysis

This article shows that templates are not only crucial for the ways in which journalists construct or structure the media discourse but also for how they perceive themselves and others in the process of journalistic practice. A Critical Discourse Analysis of interviews with Polish journalists on their practices related to reporting migration – a topic largely discarded and ignored by the Polish media – shows that the construction of practice in the journalistic field constantly negotiates the contradiction between “knowing-it-all”, a key element of the template of journalistic habitus/identity, and the frequent lack of experience or limited knowledge of practice and of journalistic work. The analysis reveals that, while often using a discursive strategy of pre-legitimation, journalists enact templates that blur the boundaries between discourses about experiences of journalistic work and imaginaries or scenarios of actions they would only potentially undertake. Journalistic discourses of practice thereby become increasingly displaced, that is, they run along similar templates of discourse of/about quasi-universalised ethics and values of journalism almost irrespective of media organisations of the informants. By the same token, it is emphasised that, rather than being limited by the ideologies and powers of media organisations, agency seems to be often self-constrained by journalists in their self-entrapment in values, templates and imaginaries of journalism.     

The effects of national cultures on two technologically advanced countries: The case of e-leadership in South Korea and the United States

The increased use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has triggered enormous innovation in the public sector and created positive public value at the managerial, delivery of services, and policy levels. However, these positive outcomes do not automatically accrue simply by adoption of ICTs as public leaders can fail to adopt relevant new ICTs, use them poorly, or use them in ways that actually diminish public value, which raises the question of the importance of e-leadership. This article examines e-leadership and innovation capacity at the individual public manager level and fills in some gaps about the practice and implementation of ICTs in the public sector. We explore eight research questions useful in theorizing about e-leadership, develop constructs of e-leadership, and describe the current development of e-leadership. By comparing e-leadership in two country settings (South Korea and the United States), we also overcome the limitations of the existing Western-oriented studies about innovations in the public sector. In addition to the growth of e-leadership use and requirements for a variety of competencies equivalent to, but separate from, traditional communication competences, we find that national cultures exert significant influence on the major constructs of e-leadership, which implies that an effective e-leadership strategy should consider cultural contexts seriously.     

Australian MPs and the Internet: Avoiding the Digital Age?1

New media technologies, such as the internet and email, have been seen as providing opportunities to reinvigorate representative democracy and parliamentary institutions. This article examines the use of new technologies by Australian Members of Parliament (MPs). It looks at the growth and function of MPs' websites and assesses how far such technologies might facilitate changes in their electorate, party and parliamentary roles. We analyse what factors persuade MPs to move online and how they then use the technologies. The results indicate that while websites amongst legislators are growing, they are used primarily as supplementary, administrative tools. Overall, technological innovation in the Australian Parliament is still relatively rare and it appears there are systemic barriers that limit the potential of information communication technologies (ICTs) in the representative process.     

网络学术打假与学术共同体建设

方舟子遇袭与肖传国的被捕将学术界反腐推到了一个新的高度，这是网络学术打假的功劳。网络克服了传统媒体与举报制度的诸多障碍，以“新闻事件”的形式将学术造假行为公之于众，并借助当事人及其支持者的积极互动，进行“虚拟审判”，形成强大的网上舆论，直接或间接地影响了对学术造假者的处理。在此过程中，作为对学术成果负有审查与评价责任的学术共同体，暴露出的腐败与失职行为，严重损害了其在公众心目中的形象。作为“社会的良心”，学术共同体如何加强自身建设，重塑自我，渡过信任危机？网络学术打假给我们的启示是：建立一个基于信息公开与公众广泛参与基础上的监督机制。     

‘New managerialism’ in the news: media coverage of quangos in Britain

This paper presents findings from the first systematic appraisal of mainstream news reporting of the appointive government in Britain. Such a perspective is urgently needed in the light of the expanded role and influence of ‘Quasi‐Autonomous Non Governmental Organisations’ in public affairs. This paper provides an overview of long‐term trends in media reporting of general principles of quasi‐government and an examination of the routine coverage of public bodies that can be classified as quangos. These related exercises show that the ‘new managerialist’ ethos that fuelled the recent expansion of the appointive state finds little endorsement in general media discourses about the quango state, but is often implicitly reflected in journalists' treatment of specific organisations and their work. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

News Media and Peace Building in Asymmetrical Conflicts: The Flow of News between Jordan and Israel

This study explores the role of the news media in asymmetrical conflicts after countries have signed a peace agreement. While most research has focused on the inherently negative role the press plays in attempts to bring peace, this study attempts to look at this issue using a more dynamic perspective. The theoretical argument focuses on how political factors affect the quantity and quality of the news flow and some of the ways in which leaders can sometimes overcome the obstacles they face in promoting encouraging news about peace. The model considers two political factors that have a major impact on media performance: the relative level of political power of the two sides and the varying amount of hostility. To illustrate the importance of these factors we focus on the flow of news between Jordan and Israel between 1999 and 2002. The major findings from content analyses of news articles ( N  = 859) appearing in both countries show that while Jordanians are exposed to massive amounts of mostly negative information about Israel, the Israeli public reads almost nothing about Jordan. Despite all this, it was also found that the initiation of diplomatic relations between the former enemies allowed for the creation of important 'news slots' that were previously unavailable. This development created space for less threatening types of news and also allowed leaders from both Jordan and Israel to initiate some positive stories about peace, even during some of the darkest periods.     

Does Television Personalise Voting Behaviour? Studying the Effects of Media Exposure on Voting for Candidates or Parties

Scholars have long argued that politics has become personalised throughout the post Second World War era. Increasingly, focus shifts from policy to politicians' personal traits. The media – particularly television, it is argued – is the driving force in the process by focusing more on individual politicians and their personal traits than parties and their policy proposals. Empirically, it is not known whether the personalisation of media content affects the political behaviour of voters. Based on survey data from the 2009 Danish local elections (N = 3,336), this article explores the determinants of preferential voting – that is, voting for a specific candidate rather than a party. The findings show that institutional factors and individual characteristics are far better predictors of personalised voting behaviour than any measure of media exposure – and that viewing the main national news bulletins, as well as reading regional newspapers, have a similar positive effect. Thus, the study provides answers to the highly debated but rarely studied question of whether and how the media possibly personalise politics with regard to voting behaviour.     

Not All Bad News After All? Exploring the Relationship Between Citizens’ Use of Online Mass Media for Government Information and Trust in Government

Mass media coverage of government is often blamed for inciting anti-public sector sentiment. Yet there have been few empirical assessments of these claims. To address this gap in the literature, this study examines whether relationships between citizens’ expectations of public sector performance, satisfaction with public services, and levels of trust in government vary according to their use of online mass media for information about government. Using data collected in 2012 from a survey of 1,100 Seoul citizens, we find that greater use of online mass media to obtain information about government reinforces negative relationships between (1) expectations of public sector performance and satisfaction with public services, and (2) expectations of public sector performance and trust in government. Moreover, the size and strength of the negative indirect relationship between expectations of public sector performance and trust in government increase as respondents use online mass media more frequently for information about government.     

Businesses and the Internet: Implications for Firm Location and Clustering

This article discusses the economic and geographical implications of the growing use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in the production process. In short, ICTs make internal and external communications more efficient and allow faster and more flexible interaction among different agents. These improvements correlate with changes in the internal organization of the business and in its strategic behavior. Those changes have implications for regional economic development.The four sections of the article include a typology of information and communications technologies and a discussion of how they diffuse; an elaboration of the concept of economic clusters and economic space in the context of ICTs; and a review of the methodological issues surrounding the development of virtual (rather than physical) clusters of economic activity.The article's, major insights include the following. Information-based, younger, and smaller businesses, and the service sector, benefit most from the Internet. Many of those businesses are integrated in networks and economic clusters; historically, they are often located in close spatial proximity to each other and/or to their customers. At the same time, a new type of virtual agglomeration is created for some type of activities through Internet interaction, which does not require physical proximity. The article stresses the need for a new paradigm to think about the relationship of business and space.