Reviewed article

News Editors’ Attitudes toward Online Advertising

American news consumption patterns have been shifting as the Internet has redefined the news media industry. With a continuously growing user population, the Internet has emerged as the most important source of everyday information and one of the primary news media. According to the latest statistics from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, among the various activities Internet users enjoy, getting news is the third most popular, with about 38% of all users checking the news online on a typical day.

Research Critique

This is the article that I chose for the research critique. Here is the abstract: 

RUMORS ON SOCIAL MEDIA IN DISASTERS: EXTENDING TRANSMISSION TO RETRANSMISSION - Liu, Fang; Burton-Jones, Andrew; and Xu, Dongming

http://pacis2014.org/data/PACIS_mainconference/pdf/pacis2014_submission_165.pdf


Abstract
In recent years, the widespread use of social media has facilitated the propagation of messages after disasters. Unfortunately, because the veracity of messages is often difficult to determine in a disaster situation, social media also facilitates the rapid diffusion of rumors. Current studies have examined why individuals post or transmit rumors on social media. However, investigating factors affecting the initial rumor transmission is just the first step for rumor control after disasters. After rumors havebeen transmitted, understanding what accounts for message retransmission in disasters is especially vital. To address this gap, we develop a model of rumor retransmission on social media during disasters based on rumor theory and the elaboration likelihood model. We also discuss the differences between our model and the model of rumor transmission. We believe that our model can contribute toresearch on social media use in disasters, and the practice of disaster management.

Research Article Abstract

Here I post the title and abstract of the research article that I'll critique.

Coffey, A. J. (2012). Advertiser Attitudes Regarding the Substitutability of English-Language Television to Reach Foreign Language Target Audiences. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 89(4), 710-730.

Advertiser Attitudes Regarding the  Substitutability of  English-Language  Television to Reach  Foreign Language  Target Audiences

by Amy Jo Coffey

Abstract Scholars have examined media substitutability from many angles, but few, if any, studies have examined substitutability of advertising on the basis of language. Using a price sensitivity test, this exploratory study examines advertisers’ attitudes toward the substitutability of English-language advertising among U.S. foreign language television advertisers to reach their target audiences. Advertisers overwhelmingly (90%) indicated that they did not consider English-language television as an acceptable substitute for reaching their target audiences. This finding has implications for media ownership and mergers, providing evidence that foreign-language television and English-language television exist in separate product markets, and should aid future policy discussions.

"The Twitterization of News Making: Transparency and Journalistic Professionalism"

This is the article that I chose for the research critique. Here is the abstract: 

"Twitter makes visible some of the most fundamental divides in professional journalism today. It reveals tensions about what constitutes news, the norms guiding journalists providing it, professional identity, and public service. This article argues that these tensions result from a clash between the institutional logic of professional control (Lewis, 2012)) and an ethic of transparency. Drawing from extensive research on a political press corps, involving observation, interviews, and analysis of tweets, this study witnesses the adoption of Twitter in the everyday working practices of reporters. It thereby also provides reasons why Twitter has been so successful in journalism. Tensions between professional control and transparency in journalism may, furthermore, be emblematic for divides in other professions today."

Revers, M. (2014), The Twitterization of News Making: Transparency and Journalistic Professionalism. Journal of Communication, 64: 806–826. doi: 10.1111/jcom.12111

"Print Readers Recall More Than Do Online Readers"

The following is the abstract from the article I'll be critiquing:

"From the arrival of the penny papers, print newspapers were around for more than 100 years when in the 1930s they saw their heyday as the media most used in the United States for news. But the Internet took less than 15 years to claim that mantle when, at the end of 2010, more people got their news from the Internet than from newspapers. This transformation raises questions anew about the effect that the Web is having on news readers. This study seeks to update past research by examining the difference in users' experience in both media—including recall, credibility and amount of story read—at a time when online news consumption has reached a tipping point."

Santana, A. D., Livingstone, R. M., & Cho, Y. Y. (2013). Print Readers Recall More Than Do Online Readers. Newspaper Research Journal, 34(2).

Revised Preliminary Research Topic

Looking at the news photographs, how much does the evaluation of a news event by the audience change depending on whether the images were produced by professional photojournalists or non-visual journalist and citizen journalists?

In today’s media environment, with the increase of citizen journalism practice and mobile devices with highly decent cameras, professional visual journalists, specifically photojournalists loose their jobs more often than ever before. Many media organizations started using pieces produced by the citizen journalists at free costs or started expecting their non-visual reporters to produce imagery along with their regular reporting.

In May 2013, Chicago Sun Times laid off its entire visual department within the span of a few seconds, which meant there were 30 plus highly accomplished visual journalists unemployed, left to their own destiny, adding up to the freelance market saturation all of a sudden.  On the same note, this also meant the readers of one of the major newspapers in a city like Chicago were bound to evaluate each story based on visuals that come from untrained eyes.

On a second occasion this past summer, when the Ferguson, Mo protests hit the streets, there were photojournalists covering it, and non-visual journalists and citizen journalists live covering it through social media. The drastic visual and news quality difference between the three sources were notable to observe.

I believe it is very important to explore the answers to these questions. Whether a visual was produced by a professional or not and how it affects the audience perception of a news event might change how and by whom the future events would be covered. Moreover, the answers can have further implications on the visual journalism market, particularly saturation of the freelance market.

My Research Topic - Revised

How do journalists use Twitter in a time of war?

Twitter has become a key means of disseminating news and information during major events. One of them, for example, is the 2014 Gaza War between Israel and Hamas. During the 50 days of war from July 8^th to August 26^th journalists were highly active on this social networking site, reporting and offering their take on the unfolding events. According to Galtung (2006), while peace journalism is people-oriented, war journalism is elite-oriented. The latter focuses on leaders and elites as actors and sources of information. To what extent, if any, does Twitter challenge that, as it enables journalists from mainstream news organizations to communicate with other users and to disseminate messages from different sources? While previous research addressed the role of non-elite sources on Twitter during the civil uprisings in the Arab world, scholarly attention has not been paid to the journalistic use of sources on this platform in the context of war, which poses unique dilemmas and concerns to journalists. For instance, journalists whose nation is in a state of war tend to confront a dual allegiance as they are “caught between nation and profession” (Zandberg & Neiger, 2005: 131). The proposed study will examine what types of sources did mainstream media journalists use on Twitter during the Gaza war, what actors did they focus on, and how did they express themselves. Though the study still needs to be developed, my hope is that it will shed new light on “the ways in which the Internet is influencing journalism practices and, furthermore, changing how journalism itself is defined” (Hermida, 2009: 4).

Galtung, J. (2006). Peace journalism as an ethical challenge. Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition, 1(2), 1-5.

Hermida, A. (2009). The blogging BBC: Journalism blogs at ‘the world’s most trusted news organization’. Journalism Practice, 3(3), 1-17.

Zandberg, E. & Neiger, M. (2005). Between the nation and the profession: Journalists as members of contradicting communities. Media Culture & Society, 27(1), 131-141.

Revised Preliminary Topic

Do users who read traditional media as their primary news source recall news events better than users who use social media as their primary news source?

The reason I want to look further into this is because I think it's important to see if the ease of accessing information correlates with being more knowledgable about news events. I want to measure and see how much information is being retained correctly from heavy users of traditional media and compare it to the information that is retained from heavy users of social media. I could potentially measure the types of news articles that are recalled better between these two groups, and I can also measure and see how accurately the recollection of the news stories are between these two groups as well.