Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies - Online First

In recent decades, scholars have made great efforts to analyse and monitor audiences’ levels of trust in news and information. To capture these levels, research has primarily relied on concepts such as news (dis)trust, media scepticism or cynicism. While these concepts provide valuable insights, they also tend to oversimplify news consumers as either trusting or distrusting of the news, thereby ignoring the presence of uncertainty and variability in news evaluations. To fill this gap, this article explores variable experiences of news doubt, moments when people feel uncertain about the accuracy of a news story. Based on 31 semi-structured interviews with news consumers, this article first empirically explores how and when news doubt is experienced. Second, at a more theoretical level, it considers whether news doubt can truly be seen as a concept distinct from other related concepts such as news distrust or media scepticism. The results show that all participants experience moments of news doubt, but that it is interpreted in different ways and caused by a variety of triggers (e.g. sensationalism, partisanship). Conceptually, the findings suggest that news doubt may have explanatory value as a theoretical concept on its own.

Tabloids are still thriving in the United Kingdom, but few studies have specifically explored the issue of how British tabloids have been affected by the digital turn. To the best of authors’ knowledge, no study has addressed what changes have taken place in the characteristics of tabloids in this emergent environment. This research therefore compares the digital manifestation of British tabloid newspapers with their analogue counterparts in order to ascertain whether online tabloids are adapting technology to amplify their print siblings’ traditional character, creating new features or becoming a digital tabloid hybrid. We selected two highly successful and representative online tabloids, Sun online and MailOnline, and their paper counterparts. The sample period for this study spans from 20 December 2021 to 20 February 2022, encompassing two months. The analysis aims to demonstrate how tabloids are adapting to the logic of the internet in order to maintain and even increase their commercial success. Conceptually, therefore, this research applies a discussion of tabloidization and includes more contemporary discussions of the place of tabloid newspapers and websites within the broader tabloid culture. It explores the changes in online tabloids compared with print tabloid newspapers through quantitative content analysis and qualitative interviews.

This study analyses newspaper editorials (n = 146) on a specific public health issue, i.e., COVID-19, published in selected Bangladeshi Bengali and English dailies (n = 2). The researcher uses the content analysis method to explore key themes, foci, positions, suggestions and agendas in the editorials. Editorials published during March–June 2020, the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh, were chosen for analysis. The results show that the main themes and foci are the same, but secondary themes and foci differ. In addition, each newspaper has a different position, recommendation and agenda. The study found that several factors influence an editorial board’s decisions. These include editorial policy, the newspaper’s ideological stance, significant current events, societal context, the state system, government and political pressures, sociocultural issues and readers’ expectations. The theoretical framework for this research is grounded in agenda-setting theory, which posits that while the media may not control how the public thinks, it significantly shapes what the public thinks about by prioritizing specific issues. This study demonstrates how Bangladeshi newspapers used their editorials to set agendas during the pandemic, influencing public discourse and potentially shaping policy. The study’s outcomes address existing knowledge gaps and contribute to emerging discourses on crisis communication in the social sciences.

In the current disinformation era, where both people and generative AI systems can easily create content, concerns about the credibility of online content have come to the fore in public and policy debates. Audiences are faced with the challenge of determining which news messages are credible and which are not. It remains however unclear how audiences evaluate the credibility of social media posts. This study evaluates three key ingredients of the credibility cocktail on Instagram: the source, the presence of a verification label and the use of images. Using two between-subject designs (N = 963), participants were exposed to an Instagram message regarding climate change. The findings demonstrate that audiences primarily assess the credibility of messages based on the source, i.e. the person or organization sharing the information. Messages sent by both a news outlet and non-governmental organization are considered to be more credible than messages shared by dubious sources. Remarkably, a verification label next to this source has no impact. Hence, audiences do not trust so-called ‘blue check accounts’ more than accounts without a verification label. Moreover, AI-generated images are perceived as more credible than photoshopped ones.

This study examines visual framing of the Kashmir conflict after the revocation of Article 370 on 5 August 2019 that removed the autonomous status of Indian-occupied Kashmir. The study presents a quantitative content analysis of 5118 visuals from Associated Press (AP), Agence France-Presse (AFP), Reuters and newspapers from India and Pakistan. Consistent with the social identity theory (SIT) we found a difference in the visuals used by news sources. Indian newspapers framed the issue positively, emphasizing its legality, and ideological relevance, while downplaying the humanitarian crisis. The visual framing by AP, AFP and Reuters was critical in terms of the humanitarian crisis, global protests and economic slowdown in Kashmir. The findings align with theoretical assumptions of SIT and highlight the role visuals play in shaping public opinion of a geopolitical crisis.

Review of: Crisis Communication Strategies: Prepare, Respond and Recover Effectively in Unpredictable and Urgent Situations, Amanda Coleman (2023), 2nd ed.

New York: Kogan Page Inc, 249 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-39860-942-6, e-book, £29.99

The impacts and transformation of data journalism have been widely studied in the Global North but remain understudied in the Global South despite the growth of such practice in regions like Africa and Latin America. This study bridges that gap by exploring how adopting data, software and coding have redefined journalistic values and practices in top-tier units in Latin America. Drawing from the social construction of technology, this mixed-methods research combines insights from fourteen in-depth interviews with journalists from leading data teams and a content analysis of 210 of their pieces. Findings reveal that the primary motivation for adopting data journalism is a profound commitment to democracy in a historically challenging context, evidenced by an emphasis on transparency and collaboration that pushes the boundaries between reporting and activism. While journalists exhibit an alignment in values and motivation, the organizational influence of their media affects how those values manifest in their end products. This research contributes to the data journalism discourse and champions the need to incorporate perspectives from the Global South to enrich and de-westernize academic literature.

This article examines the discourse on the attribution of responsibility for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination in the Serbian daily press. The proliferation of the MMR debate in the media is concurrent with the gradual decline of the MMR childhood vaccination in post-socialist Serbia and represents a local response to the global MMR controversy. The aim was to discover how the responsibility of the MMR childhood vaccination is communicated by the Serbian daily press. Several discourse approaches were combined with the attribution of responsibility theory. Articles covering the MMR controversy in two major newspapers – the broadsheet Politika and the tabloid Kurir – were analysed from the periods corresponding to two measles outbreaks – 2014–15 and 2017–18. The results show that the media outlets identified the lack of individual responsibility as the major factor in the fall in MMR immunization and the rise of measles epidemics. At the same time, press coverage ignored other sociopolitical causes for this outcome; for example, a lack of public health education and proactive vaccination campaigns highlighting the benefits (but also the slight risks) of vaccination, or the absence of any official provision of compensation in individual cases of proven vaccine side effects.

Over the past few years, there has been a significant change in how news is reported and shared due to technological advancements and the popularity of social media platforms. This shift has enabled citizen journalism, which has strongly influenced media systems and public discourses. The purpose of this study is to discover the main themes, research paradigms and trends regarding citizen journalism in Africa. Data was drawn from Taylor & Francis, Google Scholar, Sage Publication and Emerald Insight databases. The researchers applied a systematic literature review method to the dataset, and after applying the protocol and the analysis model, a corpus of 27 articles was obtained in June 2023, covering a decade from 2013. The findings indicate that ethics in journalism, bureaucracy in journalistic reporting, objectivity in news reporting, professionalism in citizen journalism and social media are the main themes in citizen journalism discussed in the selected articles over the research period. The predominant research paradigm of the reviewed articles is qualitative. The review exposes various unexplored areas of citizen journalism in Africa and recommends further studies in the field.