News on the Internet OXFORD STUDIES in DIGITAL POLITICS Series Editor: Andrew Chadwick, Royal Holloway, University of London
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News on the Internet OXFORD STUDIES IN DIGITAL POLITICS Series editor: Andrew Chadwick, Royal Holloway, University of London Th e Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam P h i l i p N . H o w a r d News on the Internet Information and Citizenship in the 21st Century David Tewksbury and Jason Rittenberg 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offi ces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Th ailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2012 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitt ed, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tewksbury, David. News on the internet : information and citizenship in the 21st century / David Tewksbury & Jason Ritt enberg. p. cm.—(Oxford studies in digital politics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-19-539196-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-19-539197-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Citizen journalism. 2. Online journalism. 3. Citizenship—Technological innovations. 4. Political participation—Technological innovations. I. Ritt enberg, Jason. II. Title. PN4784.C615T48 2012 070.4—dc23 2011032439 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii 1. Introduction 3 2 . S h i ft ing Audiences 18 3 . O ffl ine and Online News Content 41 4. News Specialization and Segmentation 63 5. Selecting News Online 83 6. Learning from Online News 105 7. Fragmentation and Polarization of the Audience 119 8. Information Democratization 144 9. Conclusion: Online News and Public Aff airs 160 Notes 179 R e f e r e n c e s 181 I n d e x 193 This page intentionally left blank ACKNOWLEDGMENTS David thanks Risa, Neil, and Maggie for their patience and encouragement. Th ey make everything possible. Jason would like to thank his wife, Lori, for all of her support and patience while working on this book. He would also like to thank his chil- dren, parents, friends, and colleagues for their encouragement during the p r o c e s s . This page intentionally left blank News on the Internet This page intentionally left blank C H A P T E R 1 Introduction magine, if you can or if you remember, the days before the internet. I Most people received the bulk of their news from local and national television news broadcasts. Th e number of news stories contained in 30 or even 60 minutes of news was relatively small, and most stories ran for a minute or two at most. What is more, television news stories were pro- grammed to run in a particular order. To get to information about sports or weather, people had to wait through lead stories on a variety of topics (mostly local, national, and international public aff airs). There was a thriving newspaper industry in those days—even as the number of people reading daily newspapers had been steadily falling for decades. Listening to radio news and reading magazine news accounted for some news con- sumption, but broadcast television news and newspapers were king. Much of the news that audiences received in the 20th century was based on a model of objective reporting. Th at model did not guarantee perfectly neutral or balanced news, as many critics and observers convincingly argued (e.g., Bennett 1996 ), but journalists and others in the business said that objectivity was both a format for news presentation and a goal for news content. Of course, the news business of the 20th century was largely built on profi t incentives, and those incentives led to the production of a relatively homogeneous product much of the time (Bennett 1 9 9 6 ) . Th e world of news that we are describing is very diff erent from the one we now inhabit. Indeed, the news business of the recent past is already coming to seem a litt le fantastical. Today, audiences for broadcast televi- sion news and newspapers are experiencing steep and steady declines. Th e audience for news on the internet has grown from nothing in 1993 to sec- ond behind only television (Pew Research Center 2010 ). Th ese and other changes in the media marketplace have been accompanied by a number of changes in the content and presentation of news. Cable television news has become segmented into topically and ideologically discrete channels, the number of print newspapers continues to dwindle, and the number of internet-based news sources has mushroomed. Perhaps most important for the future of the news business, the very meaning of news is shift ing. Large corporate news divisions based in New York and Washington still produce quite a bit of content about public aff airs, but the nature of that content is rapidly changing. Pressures on the news business have led news providers to expand the commentary they produce as they shrink their newsroom staff s. Journalists cover more top- ical ground than they did before, and they oft en are expected to interact with audiences in online discussion environments. Increasingly, news consumers are also the creators. Online and mobile technologies allow them to feed information into the news stream and the public conversa- tion. Almost anyone with internet access can break a story or even create the news, at least in principle. Changes in the news business are challenging the old defi nitions of press and audience. On the one hand, the dividing line between journalist and citizen is becoming particularly fuzzy, as more people become involved in the creation of news. On the other hand, the current technolo- gies have facilitated a change in the meaning of an audience. Th e domi- nant media of the 20th century operated within a system of centralized, largely one-way news dissemination. To consume the news was to ingest a diet of information selected by news professionals. What is more, the major media determined the fl ow of news. Even a newspaper, always the most customizable news format, contains a structure that largely organ- izes news for audiences. Today, the receivers of the news exert substantial control over their news diet. Th ey can choose among numerous outlets, preselect specifi c topics, and focus their time and att ention on the mes- sages they prefer. Twenty years ago, it would have been hard to predict the transforma- tions that have passed through the news business. Th ings look very diff er- ent today. Of course, some things remain the same. People are still people, wars are still wars, and much of what has reliably drawn audiences to the news continues to do so. Nonetheless, much about online news is novel and emergent. Researchers in communication and allied fi elds have been speculating about the political and social eff ects of all of the changes in the nature of news and audiences. Our goal in this book is to organize and review what is known and said about news on the internet. We look at news and audiences online, describ- ing how audiences approach the news and infl uence its content. We look at the kind of news that appears on the internet, compare it with what shows up elsewhere, and speculate about the meanings of these patt erns. [ 4 ] N e w s o n t h e I n t e r n e t We then return to the news audience, think about how people are gett ing and creating news online, and off er some conclusions about how current uses of the news may aff ect the quality of social and political life in mod- ern democracies. Th is introductory chapter serves two functions. First, it provides back- ground information for much of what we discuss in the book. Th e evolu- tion of the news business is directly related to the evolution of politics and public discourse in a democracy. Th erefore, we start with a short discus- sion of information and its relationship with citizenship. Th en we preview, in general terms, some of the att ributes of the internet that are most rele- vant for the creation, presentation, and consumption of news. We also foreshadow the connections between these characteristics and some of the consequential potential eff ects of online news. Finally, we briefl y describe the plan for the book and sketch the major emphases of each chapter. NEWS AUDIENCES AND CITIZENS In our review, we describe the content and presentation of news on the internet and how people are interacting with that news. Making up much of what is novel and important about online news are the developments that force us to think about the role of audiences. Th e shift from a top- down media system to one that features more horizontal interaction of people and news represents a change in the relationship that citizens and others in a nation have with information. For our discussion, it is useful to consider some of the ways that scholars have described the roles of citi- zens and information in democratic nations.