Mark Tremayne

Issue Publics on the Web: Applying Network Theory to the War Blogosphere

This study had two primary objectives. The first was to examine the predictors of preferential attachment in the war blog network. A multiple regression analysis revealed use of links to blogs and original reporting content as significant predictors of incoming links. Second, the war blogosphere was mapped to reveal two distinct halves, the liberal and the conservative. Measures of network centrality identified key blogs, some of which served as conduits between the two spheres. Other differences between the sides were examined.

Anatomy of Protest in the Digital Era: A Network Analysis of Twitter and Occupy Wall Street

Two months before the first Occupy Wall Street (OWS) protest in September 2011, activists were using Twitter to organize and spread the movement. In this study, the earliest Twitter messages regarding #OccupyWallStreet were subjected to network analysis to answer these questions: What were the central hubs in the OWS discourse on Twitter in the summer of 2011? How did OWS emerge from among several social movement organizations to lead a nationwide series of demonstrations? What were the key points in the Twitter dialogue that aided the process of scale shift? By addressing these questions, this research connects social movement concepts with network centrality measures to provide a clearer picture of movements in the digital era.

From Product to Service: The Diffusion of Dynamic Content in Online Newspapers

This study documents a steady increase in dynamic journalism on the Web sites of twenty-four U.S. newspapers, including a sharp rise in 2006 of multimedia elements, particularly video. This trend was particularly apparent for newspapers in our sample with print circulation between 100,000 and 120,000. While traditional news categories are the most common source of dynamic content, the growth over time is coming from coverage of weather, sports, crime, and accidents. There also appears to be a rise in hourly updating of softer news.

The Web of Context: Applying Network Theory to the Use of Hyperlinks in Journalism on the Web

This study applies emerging network theory to the use of hyperlinks in journalism stories on the Web. A five-year data set, including almost 1,500 Web news stories, is examined. The study concludes that the use of links in Web news stories is increasing in ways predicted by network theory. Stories may become both more event-driven and more contextual on the flexible platform of the Web.

Lessons Learned from Experiments with Interactivity on the Web

ABSTRACT This article reviews the empirical literature on interactivity, primarily studies based on experimental designs, and concludes that two conceptualizations of interactivity are beginning to dominate: the functional and the perceptual. Suggestions concerning future experiments with interactivity are offered.

News Websites as Gated Cybercommunities

This study tested emerging network theory against a sub-sample of the web: stories on USA national news websites. It found that news web stories contain links to external sites less frequently than just a few years ago. As each organisation builds up its own archive of web content, this material appears to be favoured over content that is off-site.

Toward Automated Fact-Checking: Detecting Check-worthy Factual Claims by ClaimBuster

This paper introduces how ClaimBuster, a fact-checking platform, uses natural language processing and supervised learning to detect important factual claims in political discourses. The claim spotting model is built using a human-labeled dataset of check-worthy factual claims from the U.S. general election debate transcripts. The paper explains the architecture and the components of the system and the evaluation of the model. It presents a case study of how ClaimBuster live covers the 2016 U.S. presidential election debates and monitors social media and Australian Hansard for factual claims. It also describes the current status and the long-term goals of ClaimBuster as we keep developing and expanding it.

New Perspectives from The Sky

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are a technology now impacting on many fields, including journalism and mass communication. Also referred to as drones, these small remotely-guided aircraft have gained prominence through their increased use in the hunt for Al Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan. With increasingly sophisticated navigation systems and dramatically decreased costs, drones are now being purchased and put to use by commercial organizations and private citizens. Traditional journalists and citizen journalists alike are using drones to obtain aerial footage in a variety of locations around the world. The implications for the field of journalism and mass communication are numerous, with practical, theoretical and ethical dimensions. This paper explores these dimensions using an inductive, qualitative approach. This research paper offers a brief history of UAVs, the results of our canvass of cases that could be categorized as drone journalism, the themes that emerge from this case analysis, and an in-depth look at how this technology impacts on journalism and mass communication. Where this new technology fits within surveillance scholarship is also considered.

Perceived Authority and Communication Channel

The effects of diminished social context cues in computer-mediated communication between students and instructors are examined using instant-messaging (IM) technology. Two experiments verified such effects, students perceived informal surroundings in IM and, in one experiment, decreased presence of the instructor, but results of hypothesized effects on the perceived authority of the instructor were mixed. Students did show more self-centered behavior in IM but experienced increased feelings of regulation.

Partisan Media and Political Poll Coverage

ABSTRACT Research on selective exposure and cognitive dissonance centers on receivers of content, but message crafters can influence the process by preselecting content with an ideological fit for an audience. This study examines partisan media producers with a focus on poll reporting during the 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. A content analysis of 323 stories from leading partisan sites indicates that authors were more likely to write about polls that showed their preferred electoral outcomes. Headlines and lead paragraphs also showed partisan bias. Results also provided partial support for cognitive dissonance theory; conservative writers were more likely to raise poll criticism in stories when President Obama’s lead was greater. Implications for trust in government and media are discussed.