Polarizing The Network: How Twitter Impacts Reporters’ Tidings Judgment

From the perspective of a mega-consumer of news, data, as well as information it appears that some journos stimulate got been rendered batshit crazy yesteryear Twitter. Fortunately a pocket-size subset.
Correlation ≠ Causation, Causality may menstruum the other direction, etc.

From NiemanLab, Nov 20:

Polarizing the network: The most interesting novel digital as well as social media research
Journalist’s Resource sifts through the academic journals as well as thus y'all don’t stimulate got to. Here’s their latest roundup, including query into how Twitter impacts reporters’ tidings judgment, how frequently nosotros shout out back where nosotros read something, as well as why Facebook makes y'all experience bad

Editor’s note: There’s a lot of interesting academic query going on inwards digital media — only who has fourth dimension to sift through all those journals as well as papers?

Our friends at Journalist’s Resource, that’s who. JR is a projection of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics as well as Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, as well as they pass their fourth dimension examining the novel academic literature inwards media, social science, as well as other fields, summarizing the high points as well as giving y'all a dot of entry.

Here, JR’s managing editor, Denise-Marie Ordway, sums upwards some of the most interesting papers inwards digital media as well as journalism published betwixt August as well as October. (You tin likewise banking enterprise gibe out her roundups from the first and second quarters of the year.)

Scholars inwards the digital media as well as journalism infinite stimulate got focused a lot of attending on Twitter inwards recent months, examining how the busy platform influences people’s demeanor — including reporters’ tidings judgment. Below, we’ve gathered 5 peer-reviewed papers nosotros idea you’d desire to know about, 3 of which expect at journalists’ relationships alongside social media. We likewise included a novel study from researchers at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford that has implications for tidings branding as well as efforts to educate world trust inwards journalism.

Happy reading! And remember, if y'all come upwards across a proficient study y'all think nosotros should spotlight, allow us know well-nigh it at @JournoResource.

“Exposure to opposing views on social media tin growth political polarization”: From Duke University, Brigham Young University as well as New York University, published in PNAS. By Christopher A. Bail, Lisa P. Argyle, Taylor W. Brown, John P. Bumpus, Haohan Chen, M. B. Fallin Hunzaker, Jaemin Lee, Marcus Mann, Friedolin Merhout, as well as Alexander Volfovsky.
Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 mutual criticism of social media platforms is they encourage like-minded people to shape social networks that boundary their exposure to dissimilar points of see as well as sources of information. There’s a growing concern that these so-called “echo chambers” are fueling political polarization inwards the U.S.
This study, however, demonstrates the contrary is truthful — at to the lowest degree for Republicans on Twitter. Researchers detect that Republicans larn more conservative when their Twitter feeds fill upwards alongside messages reflecting opposing political ideologies.

For this study, researchers asked regular Twitter users who identified every bit Republicans or Democrats to follow a Twitter concern human relationship that retweeted 24 messages each twenty-four hours for a month. Some people were unknowingly assigned to Twitter accounts that retweeted messages from elected officials, thought leaders as well as others promoting opposing views.

Scholars discovered that Republicans’ attitudes grew to a greater extent than conservative subsequently next a Twitter concern human relationship that retweeted liberal messages. Democrats who followed an concern human relationship that shared conservative messages became slightly to a greater extent than liberal, although that alter was non statistically significant.

 “Our study indicates that attempts to innovate people to a wide make of opposing political views on a social media site such every bit Twitter powerfulness non exclusively last ineffective only counterproductive — specially if such interventions are initiated yesteryear liberals,” the authors write.

“Twitter’s influence on tidings judgment: An experiment amid journalists”: From the University of Utah as well as Temple University, published in Journalism. From Shannon C. McGregor as well as Logan Molyneux.

This study likewise looks at how Twitter messages impact demeanor — namely, tidings judgment. The telephone substitution takeaway: Inexperienced journalists as well as journalists who routinely operate Twitter at piece of job considered anonymous, context-free tweets to last every bit newsworthy every bit headlines from the Associated Press.

In March 2016, 212 U.S. of America journalists were asked to charge per unit of measurement the newsworthiness of 2 sets of information. Some were shown 2 sets of headlines derived from headlines on the AP newswire. Other journalists were presented alongside a laid of anonymous tweets every bit good every bit headlines that appeared to last from AP. Journalists rated items inwards price of their newsworthiness as well as importance as well as how strongly they possessed tidings values such every bit timeliness as well as impact. Each journalist’s ratings were combined into a composite “newsworthiness” score.

The authors analyzed journalists’ responses, taking into consideration their Twitter usage. Journalists characterized every bit “high-frequency users” reported existence on Twitter several times a twenty-four hours or connected all twenty-four hours patch “low-frequency users” said they operate it less often....

...MUCH MORE