Juliane A. Lischka

Examining the benefits of audience integration

This study investigates whether sharing of or commenting on online news enhances loyalty toward online news outlets. We identify two mediators of audience integration and loyalty: satisfaction and trust, which are measured by attitudinal attributions toward a news outlet. Loyalty is measured by frequently and exclusively using an online news outlet and an absent willingness to change to another online news outlet in the future. The relations between audience integration, satisfaction, trust, and loyalty are estimated with a mediation model. Results from an online survey with N = 1825 Swiss online news users reveal small but significant effects of sharing and commenting quantities on loyalty. Sharing tends to increase satisfaction, which in turn enhances loyalty. In contrast, commenting deteriorates satisfaction and trust, but directly improves loyalty. Overall, sharing and commenting slightly increase loyalty. In conclusion, sharing has a small, positive attitudinal relationship-building capacity for online news outlets, whereas commenting does not. Nonetheless, commenting features should not be abandoned by news outlets.

How structural multi-platform newsroom features and innovative values alter journalistic cross-channel and cross-sectional working procedures

This study explores the influence of multi-platform structural newsroom features and individual innovative values on journalistic cross-channel and cross-sectional working procedures. According to results of an online survey of print and online business journalists associated with multi-platform news outlets in the German-speaking area of Switzerland: (1) multi-platform reporting is strongly connected to innovative values of journalists, and (2) enhances output- and process-related cross-channel – (3) but not cross-sectional – working procedures. A multi-platform strategy is effective in overcoming procedural inertia, which is essential to maximising innovative capacities of a news organisation.

Different revenue incentives, different content? Comparing economic news before and during the financial crisis in German public and commercial news outlets over time

This study argues that revenue model incentives determine news content. The goal to make profits and the need to sell audiences to advertisers guide journalists’ selection and interpretation of newsworthy material and result in commercialised news. We compare the volume, tone, and the obtrusiveness of topics in all economic news stories for the evening TV news of the public broadcasters ARD and ZDF, the commercial broadcaster RTL, and the tabloid newspaper BILD from 2002 to 2010 in Germany (n = 26,467). Results indicate that news selection is guided by revenue model incentives since economic news differs by volume and topic between public and commercial outlets. News interpretation, i.e., news tone, stronger varies across the media types TV and print. We conclude that advertising income dependency and observation of competitor behaviour transmits to operative journalistic practices and decisions, which in turn determine journalistic outcome.

Explicit terror prevention versus vague civil liberty: How the UK broadcasting news (de)legitimatise online mass surveillance since Edward Snowden's revelations

ABSTRACT Snowden’s initial revelations aimed at establishing a public debate on online surveillance informed through the media. Media should serve the public’s need for information and offer various viewpoints and sources to enhance public debates. This study assesses how online surveillance is justified or countered in British broadcast news since the 2013 Snowden revelations for five selected major events in news coverage ending with the Charlie Hebdo aftermath in Paris in early 2015. The critical discourse analysis shows that UK broadcasts cover justification and delegitimation arguments of online surveillance. Online surveillance legitimation combines rationalisation (terror prevention) and moral evaluation (public security) arguments, which are often expressed by governmental actors. The broadcast discourse tends to give governmental, pro-surveillance actors a voice by default. The detailedness of terror threat descriptions increases over time. In 2013, ‘terrorist attacks’ are rather factually mentioned. In 2015, several ways leading to a loss of lives through terror are explicitly stated, which strengthens the instrumental rationality legitimation arguments. Delegitimising arguments predominantly use moralising and mythopoetic arguments (civil liberties) that are expressed by Snowden himself or politicians, yet rarely by non-governmental organisations, and very rarely by citizens. It is harder for non-governmental actors to continuously interpret the broadcast discourse. Therefore, what exactly is at stake when online mass surveillance increases remains obscure in the news discourse. The surveillance discourse should be richer in order to give the audience a chance to understand the vague and less tangible contra-surveillance arguments better.

What Follows What? Relations between Economic Indicators, Economic Expectations of the Public, and News on the General Economy and Unemployment in Germany, 2002-2011

This study aims to understand dynamic agenda-building and agenda-setting processes between real-world indicators, public expectations (PEs), and aggregated news on the general economy and unemployment for the four most popular general news outlets in Germany from 2002 to 2011: two public service, a commercial news show, and a tabloid newspaper. Vector autoregression models and Granger causality tests reveal that (1) news tone (NT) relates to real-world indicators; (2) PEs for the general economy and unemployment are partly set by the tone of news on the general economy, especially during recession times; and (3) PEs can forecast the future real-world economy.

Is audience engagement worth the buzz? The value of audience engagement, comment reading, and content for online news brands:

Online audience engagement, such as rating or sharing news, commenting or creating content, can enhance users’ loyalty toward online news brands. Yet recently, uncertainties have been discussed within journalism research and practice concerning the handling of online comment sections and potential negative influences – caused through comment reading – on news brands. From a brand management perspective, audience engagement and comment reading can affect a brand’s equity. This study investigates the value of audience engagement and comment reading for the customer-based brand equity of online news outlets. An online survey with n = 313 users of the digital native cohort revealed that comment reading is neither directly beneficial nor harmful for online news brands. However, for brands providing hard news comment reading seems more likely to have negative than positive relations with CBBE than for brands with other content. Sharing and liking news are associated with a stronger perceived brand quality, loyalty, and associations. User-generated content creation including commenting does not enhance customer-based brand equity. Overall, serious content proved to be a stronger driver of news brand value than any form of audience engagement.

A Badge of Honor

News organizations in many Western democracies face decreasing trust amid fake news accusations. In this situation, news organizations risk losing their license to operate and need to defend their legitimacy. This study analyzes how The New York Times (NYT) discredits fake news accusations, which are prominently expressed by US President Trump. A critical discourse analysis of the NYT’s news articles about fake news accusations in the first 70 days following President Trump’s inauguration reveals four delegitimizing strategies. First, the accusations are taken as a “badge of honor” for professional journalism but are morally evaluated to damage journalism’s role as the fourth estate in democracy. Second, using sarcasm, the articles criticize President Trump’s capacity to govern and thus question his legitimacy. Third, reporting implies that fake news accusations aim at suppressing critical thinking as in authoritarian regimes. Fourth, accusations are described as irrational responses to professional reporting or proven to be factually wrong, when possible. Overall, reporting in the NYT portrays President Trump as an irresponsible leader risking the well-being of the country’s citizens, its journalism, and its democracy, as well as journalism in foreign countries.

Overall summary and conclusions

This study measures the relations between objective reality, media-based reality, and social reality including behavior for the economy in aggregate. Therefore, it broadens the classical mass communication research focus on the relationship between objective and media reality or the relationship between media and social reality, but focuses on the whole cycle between objective, media-based, and social realities.

Media Brand Loyalty Through Online Audience Integration

This chapter discusses the question of whether audience members become loyal toward a media brand when sharing, liking or commenting on online media content—or are loyal readers more inclined to write comments on online articles or to like and share them? The aim is to answer this chicken-egg causality dilemma of the audience integration-loyalty relationship on a theoretical basis. Therefore, the concept of attitude-behavior consistency, the theories of reasoned action and planned behavior, involvement theory, uses and gratifications theory, and current research are reviewed. In conclusion, audience integration can be defined as behavioral dimension of loyalty and affects gratifications obtained that determine satisfaction, which in turn determines loyalty and future gratifications sought.

Nachrichtenorganisation: Umbrüche durch Konvergenz, Crossmedialiät und Multikanal- und Innovationsfähigkeit.

Dieser Beitrag gibt einen Uberblick uber den aktuellen Stand der Forschung zu Folgen soziotechnischer und okonomischer Veranderungen fur den Journalismus aus organisationaler Perspektive. Fokussiert wird dabei einerseits auf Studien auf der Mesoebene, welche die paradoxe Situation von Nachrichtenorganisationen zwischen Tradition und Wandel analysieren .Andererseits wird die Mikroebene der Mitarbeitenden beleuchtet, wobei das Ausbilden von neuen Fahigkeiten sowie die Auswirkungen vom und Einstellungen zum Wandel untersucht werden. Herausforderungen von Nachrichtenorganisationen im digitalen Zeitalter bleiben ein spannendes Forschungsfeld. Dabei bieten organisationstheoretische Ansatze weiteres Potenzial. Als zukunftige Forschungsthemen werden (1) nachhaltige Geschaftsmodelle fur den Internetjournalismus, (2) Veranderungen der Angebotsvielfalt im Medienmarkt, (3) die Entwicklung und Hurden von Innovationsfahigkeit sowie (4) das Erreichen von Ambidextrie fur das langfristige Uberleben von Nachrichtenorganisationen identifiziert.