Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2019

Trust in the news media has re-emerged as an important research topic but scholarship often focuses on the narrow question of credibility and overlooks underserved communities. This study explores how people in marginalized communities define trust in their own words. Based on data from focus groups, this article identifies key dimensions of trust and proposes a folk theory of trust in the news media: Trust depends on responsibility, integrity and inclusiveness.

The proliferation of digital media has provided the public with an abundance of information and pathways to engage with that information. Alongside the opportunities offered by this wealth of content exist feelings of, and worries over, news and information overload. Research has indicated that to respond to this issue, some news consumers proactively scan the news. When such activity fails, or in some cases before it ever begins, other news consumers disconnect from the news altogether. Through a non-random online survey, this study advances empirical understandings of the news overload and individuals' responses to that overload by proposing a more holistic way to measure news overload. By examining the ways in which content characteristics and news topics influence individuals' feelings of overload and how scanning or avoidance of and from the news may result, this study finds that information overload, and news overload more specifically, can be connected to the characteristics of news content and the topic of coverage.

The news media is frequently criticized for ignoring, missing or overseeing important, socio-politically relevant news. Such journalistic blindspots are often part of the 'long' news agenda, requiring resources, in-depth knowledge and investigation. In this article, we analyse what news topics are most infrequently covered by the media – the micro-categories of content analysis. A content analysis of 70 news outlets in Norway (n=8182) reveals that the news topics receiving less than 1 per cent of coverage are social issues, international crime and the economy. This bottom-up perspective demonstrates that under-reported news constitutes predominantly 'eventless' issues, sustaining event-centredness as an agenda-setting news value. Finding that more than half of the content categories in the Norwegian corpus receive less than 1 per cent coverage, we propose, however, that the sum of these blindspots engenders a 'long tail' of journalistic coverage that together facilitates news diversity.

This study focuses on Twitter use among economic journalists working for print media in Belgium. By looking into their tweeting and following behaviour, the article examines how economic journalists use Twitter for promotional, conversational and sourcing purposes. Based on an automated content analysis of what they tweet and a social network analysis of whom they follow, the results show that economic journalists mainly use Twitter to promote themselves and their news organization rather than to engage in public conversation on the platform. In addition, the study looks into their following behaviour to investigate which actors they consider as 'potential sources'. Here, the findings are consistent with previous studies among political and health journalists, indicating that journalists are more likely to follow institutionally affiliated rather than non-affiliated sources on Twitter. Furthermore, the social network analysis gives additional evidence of the media-centered of journalists' Twitter use, as media-affiliated actors maintain a dominant position in the economic journalists' Twitter networks.

This study seeks to understand how American journalists integrate social media in news production by conducting semi-structured qualitative interviews. Thirteen journalists and editors from thirteen newsrooms of variety size, and multiple platforms (newspaper, radio, television, magazine to online-only news organizations) were interviewed. Based on the media richness theory, the study shed light on how journalists delve into the virtual world, build connections between virtuality and reality through finding sources, interacting with audiences, constructing communities in the virtuality and integrating virtuality with reality into the news production process. With its rich multimedia features that allow immediate interaction between journalists and audiences, social media has become a rich medium that connects virtuality to reality in social news and, in particular, immersive journalism.

This research examines coverage of refugees in an attempt to further understand how media frames are actively, and perhaps ideologically, constructed. Articles between 2010 and 2015 were analysed in accordance with their publication in sixteen different news publications from the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. The newspapers were selected from opposite ends of the ideological political spectrum. This research explores the consequences of these findings for the international community and for objective international newspaper reporting.

By means of a quantitative content analysis of two Belgian net-native health news websites, this article investigates the reliability and usability of the hyperlinks in various forms of online news. Hyperlinks in our sample overwhelmingly redirect readers to government websites and websites that contain scientific information such as websites of universities, scientific research groups and peer-reviewed academic journals. Hyperlinks to information generally perceived as less reliable and possibly biased such as user-generated content or pharmaceutical companies are used rarely. This suggests that online health journalists strongly share the preferences of their offline colleagues. However, in terms of the potential of hypertext to tailor health news to the needs of the audience, for instance by including multimedia content or even simply by hyperlinking to webpages in the same language as the original, there are clear indications that Belgian online net-native health news falls short. The practical hindrances and hurdles identified in this content analysis constitute an invitation for online health journalists to consider the possibilities of hypertext in the light of how users might appreciate this practice.