Despite widespread concerns that misinformation is rampant on social media, little systematic and empirical research has been conducted on whether and how news consumption via social media affects ...people's accurate knowledge about COVID-19. Against this background, this study examines the causal effects of social media use on COVID-19 knowledge (i.e., both in the form of factual knowledge and misinformation detection) as well as the underlying mechanisms through which such effects occur. Based on original panel survey data across six weeks (W1 N = 1,363, W2 N = 752) in the U.S., we found that consuming news from social media fostered the perception that one need not actively seek news anymore because it would reach them anyway through their social connections (i.e., “news-finds-me” perception). This, in turn, can make one both uninformed and misinformed about COVID-19 issues. Furthermore, this mediated relationship is stronger among those who experience higher levels of information overload while on social media.
•Consuming news from social media fostered the “news-finds-me” perception (NFMP).•NFMP made people both uninformed and misinformed about COVID-19 issues.•Information overload amplified the NFMP's negative effect on learning about COVID-19.
Countries worldwide faced the same public health crisis that required promoting the same health behavior-vaccinations-during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, scholars have a unique opportunity to test ...behavioral change theories across countries with different cultural backgrounds.
Employing the extended theory of social normative behavior, this study examines the influence of individual and collective norms on COVID-19 vaccination intention across eight Asian countries. We examine how cultural tightness-looseness, defined as the degree of a culture's emphasis on norms and tolerance of deviant behavior, shapes normative social influence on COVID-19 vaccination intention.
We conducted a multicountry online survey (N = 2676) of unvaccinated individuals in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam in May and June 2021, when COVID-19 vaccination mandates had not yet been implemented in those countries. We conducted hierarchical regression analyses with interaction terms for the total sample and then re-categorizied the eight countries as either "tight" (n = 1102) or "loose" (n = 1574) to examine three-way interactions between individual norms, collective norms, and cultural tightness-looseness.
Perceived injunctive norms exerted the strongest impact of all normative factors on vaccination intention. Collective injunctive norms' influence depended on both perceived injunctive and descriptive norms, which was larger when norms were lower (vs. higher). The interactive pattern between perceived and collective norms was more pronounced in countries with greater cultural tightness.
Our findings reveal nuanced patterns of how individual and collective social norms influence health behavioral decisions, depending on the degree of cultural tightness-looseness.
This edited collection examines critical incidents journalists have faced across different media contexts, exploring how journalists and other key actors negotiate various aspects of their work.
...Ranging from the Rwandan genocide to the News of the World hacking scandal in the UK, this book defines a critical incident as an event that has led journalists to reconsider their routines, roles, and rules. Combining theoretical and practical analysis, the contributors offer a discussion of the key events that journalists cover, such as political turmoil or natural disasters, as well as events that directly involve and affect journalists. Featuring case studies from countries including Australia, Germany, Brazil, Kenya, and the Philippines, the book explores the discourses that critical events have generated, how journalists and other stakeholders have responded to them, and how they have reshaped (or are reshaping) journalistic norms and practices. The book also proposes a roadmap for studying such pivotal moments in journalism.
This one-of-a-kind collection is a valuable resource for students and scholars across journalism studies disciplines, from journalism history, to sociology of news, to digital journalism and political communication.
On January 20, 2020, the CDC reported its first case of the novel coronavirus in the United States. Almost a year and a half after the first COVID-19 vaccine was given in the U.S., efforts to ...vaccinate individuals in the hopes of achieving herd immunity continue. Despite the amounts of scientific breakthroughs to create and disseminate the vaccines, people continue to express hesitancy. Existing research has explored vaccine hesitancy through survey data, restricting an in-depth understanding for why people remain hesitant. As a result, this research aimed to understand in-depth reasons for vaccine hesitancy as well as what finally got those who, although hesitant, went through with getting inoculated. In addition, we also wanted to know how the vaccine hesitant received information about the vaccine. Using in-depth interviews, we identified key elements that influenced vaccine hesitancy which include social pressure to not get vaccinated and lack of trust in the healthcare system. We also identified reasons why vaccine hesitant individuals ultimately decided to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. These reasons included becoming informed, getting back to normal, and societal pressure. Finally, we sought to understand what served as venues for COVID-19 information and those were media sources like traditional news outlets/legacy media (e.g., TV) and digital/social media, and interpersonal sources like family, friends, and co-workers. In revealing these factors through in-depth interviews, we show how complex vaccine hesitancy is and the elements public health practitioners need to take into consideration when constructing vaccine-related information/messages.
•In-depth interviews allowed the exploration of reasons for vaccine hesitancy.•Social groups play a role in fostering, reinforcing and breaking vaccine hesitancy.•Lack of trust in the U.S. government and doubt in vaccine safety promote hesitancy.•Social pressure was cited as reason for some to get the vaccine even when hesitant.•Vaccine hesitant individuals seek COVID-19 information through media sources.
Journalism research frequently takes the form of ethnographic case studies. Because ethnographic data collection tends to be limited to months or even weeks, these studies are often unable to uncover ...how journalism changes over time. Our study addresses this gap by drawing on ethnographic data collected from a large, metropolitan newspaper in 2013 and again in 2016. In doing so, it answers the question: How has a newspaper's relationship with online audience analytics changed? Our findings show that audience metrics continue to play an important role in the news production process. However, the adoption of online metrics has been less universal and deliberate than the paper's staff originally assumed it would be. Drawing on market information regime and normalization literature, we conclude that ambivalence about these analytics has made explicit the idea that journalists face two goals they perceive as mutually exclusive: the pursuit of a mass audience and the aspiration to provide mission-driven reporting.
Facing budget constraints, many traditional news organizations are turning their eyes on automation to streamline manpower, cut down on costs, and improve efficiency. But how does automation fit into ...traditional values of journalism and how does it affect perceptions of credibility, an important currency valued by the journalistic field? This study explores this question using a 3 (declared author: human vs. machine vs. combined) × 2 (objectivity: objective vs. not objective) between-subjects experimental design involving 420 participants drawn from the national population of Singapore. The analysis found no main differences in perceived source credibility between algorithm, human, and mixed authors. Similarly, news articles attributed to an algorithm, a human journalist, and a combination of both showed no differences in message credibility. However, the study found an interaction effect between type of declared author and news objectivity. When the article is presented to be written by a human journalist, source and message credibility remain stable regardless of whether the article was objective or not objective. However, when the article is presented to be written by an algorithm, source and message credibility are higher when the article is objective than when the article is not objective. Findings for combined authorship are split: there were no differences between objective and non-objective articles when it comes to message credibility. However, combined authorship is rated higher in source credibility when the article is not objective than when the article is objective.
Journalism at the Periphery Tandoc, Edson C
Media and communication (Lisboa),
08/2019, Letnik:
7, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The increasing influence of actors who might not fit into traditional definitions of a journalist but are taking part in processes that produce journalism has attracted scholarly attention. They have ...been called interlopers, strangers, new entrants, peripheral, and emergent actors, among others. As journalism scholars grapple with how to refer to these actors, it is important to reflect on the assumptions that underlie emerging labels. These include: 1) what journalistic tasks are involved; 2) how and why these journalistic tasks are performed; 3) who is making the definition; and 4) where and when these actors are located. However, journalism being the centre of our investigation should not automatically assume that it is at the centre of social life. So, it might also be that for the technological field, journalism is at the periphery; that for these technology-oriented actors whose influence across fields is increasing, journalists and what they do are at the periphery. For a field that supposedly plays an important role in public life, this has important implications.
‘Fake news’ has been a topic of controversy during and following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Much of the scholarship on it to date has focused on the ‘fakeness’ of fake news, illuminating ...the kinds of deception involved and the motivations of those who deceive. This study looks at the ‘newsness’ of fake news by examining the extent to which it imitates the characteristics and conventions of traditional journalism. Through a content analysis of 886 fake news articles, we find that in terms of news values, topic, and formats, articles published by fake news sites look very much like traditional—and real—news. Most of their articles included the news values of timeliness, negativity, and prominence; were about government and politics; and were written in an inverted pyramid format. However, one point of departure is in terms of objectivity, operationalized as the absence of the author’s personal opinion. The analysis found that the majority of articles analyzed included the opinion of their author or authors.
This study examined how exposure to government health advisories on face mask-wearing and trust in government influenced people's compliance with the advisory overtime. We conducted a three-wave ...panel survey (N = 1,024; T1 in February, T2 in March, T3 in April 2020) in Singapore, where the government initially enforced wearing a face mask conditional on feeling sick, and then later revised its advisory to make mask-wearing mandatory regardless of sickness. Exposure to the initial advisory at T1 had cross-lagged effects on forming positive expectancy, normative, and self-efficacy beliefs on conditional face mask-wearing at T2. Government trust at T1 also had a cross-lagged effect on increasing supportive perceived norm for conditional mask-wearing, while reducing positive expectancy of nonconditional mask-wearing at T2. Exposure to the revised advisory and government trust at T3 were positively associated with outcome expectancy, perceived norm, and self-efficacy regardless of behavior type. Regarding nonconditional mask-wearing, the autoregressive links from T2 to T3 were insignificant for perceived norm and self-efficacy and even negatively significant for intention and behavior. This study offers theoretical and practical insights by documenting the complex and dynamic processes involved in health decision-making during a novel disease pandemic.
Through an analysis of relevant literature and open-ended survey responses from 2501 Singaporeans, this article proposes a conceptual framework to understand how individuals authenticate the ...information they encounter on social media. In broad strokes, we find that individuals rely on both their own judgment of the source and the message, and when this does not adequately provide a definitive answer, they turn to external resources to authenticate news items.
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