http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSTRE59014820091001
http://www.multichannel.com/article/339867-Nielsen_TV_Everywhere_Views_Could_Be_Added_To_Total_TV_Ratings.php
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Does Information Surplus Lead to Fragmentation?
"Information surplus in the digital age" seems very important topic in that this phenomenon raise lots of intriguing questions just as raised by the author.
I am particularily interested in New Questions on Media Effects section in this chapter. In particular, what I am interested in is something like this question, whether and how information surplus influence fragmentation of our society.
With the advent of the Internet, communication scholars have shown interest in and concern about the social impact of this explosion in new media. Among various debates over the role of the Internet in contemporary democratic process, “fragmentation” thesis has been prominent. Because of information surplus or increased media channel and choice, people increasingly tend to give their attention to what they want and what they want to see.
Some are suspicious of this increased control over communication on the Web. They see such power as enhancing selective exposure, and leading to the fragmentation of public opinion and the polarization of politics, all of which may hurts democracy (fragmentation).
This argument is very similar to what has been mentioned in the chapter, "as media content diversifies, the concept of "agenda" could be expanded to incorporate heterogeneous items, such as news as well as non-news items" (p. 102).
Then, does information surplus lead to fragmentation? What do you think?
Here's one of the answers:
Lee, J. (2008). The effect of the internet on homogeneity of the media agenda: A test of the fragmentation thesis, Journalism & Mass communication Quarterly, 84, 745-760.
H1: The rank order of the overall blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.
H2a: The rank order of the conservative blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.
H2a: The rank order of the liberal blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.
(This was what I was planning to talk about last class for my research critique. Sorry for late posting.)
I am particularily interested in New Questions on Media Effects section in this chapter. In particular, what I am interested in is something like this question, whether and how information surplus influence fragmentation of our society.
With the advent of the Internet, communication scholars have shown interest in and concern about the social impact of this explosion in new media. Among various debates over the role of the Internet in contemporary democratic process, “fragmentation” thesis has been prominent. Because of information surplus or increased media channel and choice, people increasingly tend to give their attention to what they want and what they want to see.
Some are suspicious of this increased control over communication on the Web. They see such power as enhancing selective exposure, and leading to the fragmentation of public opinion and the polarization of politics, all of which may hurts democracy (fragmentation).
This argument is very similar to what has been mentioned in the chapter, "as media content diversifies, the concept of "agenda" could be expanded to incorporate heterogeneous items, such as news as well as non-news items" (p. 102).
Then, does information surplus lead to fragmentation? What do you think?
Here's one of the answers:
Lee, J. (2008). The effect of the internet on homogeneity of the media agenda: A test of the fragmentation thesis, Journalism & Mass communication Quarterly, 84, 745-760.
H1: The rank order of the overall blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.
H2a: The rank order of the conservative blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.
H2a: The rank order of the liberal blog agenda will have a positive correlation with that of the mainstream media agenda.
(This was what I was planning to talk about last class for my research critique. Sorry for late posting.)
The questions on attention
The readings for this week dealt with the intriguing topic of “attention,” but it also prompted the following questions for me.
Q1. Where do people pay attention to? For media products, do they focus their attention on the information channel (medium) or the information itself? One may have a different concept than the other and ultimately produce different effects.
Q2. I wonder how people get attention. This piece mentioned the effect of attention on media use, exposure, etc., but it seems to ignore where people’s attention comes from. Also, what are the differences between attention, interest, and exposure? Is attention a psychological dimension or behavioral one?
Q3. It is not true that people have the same degree of attention, thus I am curious about how the levels of attention (low, medium, and high) exert different effects on media consumption.
Q4. The pieces mentioned that the attention economy represents the laws of supply and demand, and that as the amount of information increases, the demand for attention increases. However, does the amount matter only? What about the characteristics of information as opposed to its amount?
Q5. Is attention the first condition for media consumption or information access? What are the other factors prior to attention; what fosters that attention?
Q1. Where do people pay attention to? For media products, do they focus their attention on the information channel (medium) or the information itself? One may have a different concept than the other and ultimately produce different effects.
Q2. I wonder how people get attention. This piece mentioned the effect of attention on media use, exposure, etc., but it seems to ignore where people’s attention comes from. Also, what are the differences between attention, interest, and exposure? Is attention a psychological dimension or behavioral one?
Q3. It is not true that people have the same degree of attention, thus I am curious about how the levels of attention (low, medium, and high) exert different effects on media consumption.
Q4. The pieces mentioned that the attention economy represents the laws of supply and demand, and that as the amount of information increases, the demand for attention increases. However, does the amount matter only? What about the characteristics of information as opposed to its amount?
Q5. Is attention the first condition for media consumption or information access? What are the other factors prior to attention; what fosters that attention?
Why do people need journalist when information is over-supplied?
Sorry for being late again. (I begin to hate ACL now...)
The idea of information surplus is really frustrating. I feel like no one likes it. While people enjoy the free content online, they also complain about the declination of quality. Journalism practitioners, of course, are always whining about the difficulty of producing "good" content with limited budget.
Nobody likes it, and nobody has the control to stop the trend.
I don't think the information scarcity will ever come back.
Then, what's the journalism value now? For example, can we still hold the idea that we're going to "educate" our audience, when they already hold all the information that we have?
Last year the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan began putting all the meeting video tape online. My boyfriend thus asked me, then why do people need to read news since they have the access now.
I said, I think in the future journalists should serve as secretary. I think there are too many information that normal people can access. (Of course the accessibility is still limited.) No one can really digest all the information. I think journalists should serve as re-organize information and present in friendly format.
If friendly format for the audience is video, then we should do video. If the audience prefer other format, then we can do, too.
So I want to defense for Apple Daily here. I know a lot of people criticize Apple Daily for its fewer text and more pictures. However, this is what we need now. Who will have the leisure to spend one hour reading one newspaper now? Give audience some infograph, tables, and charts. A juicy story doesn't necessarily need to be told in words.
And, last part. I think the reason that newspaper circulation is still high in Asia lies in different life style. Take Tokyo in Japan for example. Most of the people work in Japan lives in suburban. They spend two hours to four hours everyday on subway. Many of them thus read newspaper on the train. (I wonder if this is the reason that the newspapers in Japan are still very intense. Because it needs to offer content for readers to read longer than one hour?)
Hong Kong and Taipei are also cities that mass transportation is widely used. I only buy Apple Daily when I need to spend several hours on the train.
And here in the U.S., people spend a lot of time on driving, which is impossible to read newspaper. That's why NPR is popular, I guess?
The idea of information surplus is really frustrating. I feel like no one likes it. While people enjoy the free content online, they also complain about the declination of quality. Journalism practitioners, of course, are always whining about the difficulty of producing "good" content with limited budget.
Nobody likes it, and nobody has the control to stop the trend.
I don't think the information scarcity will ever come back.
Then, what's the journalism value now? For example, can we still hold the idea that we're going to "educate" our audience, when they already hold all the information that we have?
Last year the Legislative Yuan in Taiwan began putting all the meeting video tape online. My boyfriend thus asked me, then why do people need to read news since they have the access now.
I said, I think in the future journalists should serve as secretary. I think there are too many information that normal people can access. (Of course the accessibility is still limited.) No one can really digest all the information. I think journalists should serve as re-organize information and present in friendly format.
If friendly format for the audience is video, then we should do video. If the audience prefer other format, then we can do, too.
So I want to defense for Apple Daily here. I know a lot of people criticize Apple Daily for its fewer text and more pictures. However, this is what we need now. Who will have the leisure to spend one hour reading one newspaper now? Give audience some infograph, tables, and charts. A juicy story doesn't necessarily need to be told in words.
And, last part. I think the reason that newspaper circulation is still high in Asia lies in different life style. Take Tokyo in Japan for example. Most of the people work in Japan lives in suburban. They spend two hours to four hours everyday on subway. Many of them thus read newspaper on the train. (I wonder if this is the reason that the newspapers in Japan are still very intense. Because it needs to offer content for readers to read longer than one hour?)
Hong Kong and Taipei are also cities that mass transportation is widely used. I only buy Apple Daily when I need to spend several hours on the train.
And here in the U.S., people spend a lot of time on driving, which is impossible to read newspaper. That's why NPR is popular, I guess?
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Information surplus questions
Information surplus concept is intriguing. I think it is a parsimonious way to explain the new media environment. Opinionization of media we witness in cable TV or online newswebsite could be the result of product differentiation. This concept will arouse many questions.
1. Wither equilibrium?
-A surplus is a state of inequilibrium. Law of demand and supply suggests that the market will try to recover equilibrium. But supply will not decrease. As the chapter said, the curve may not stop shifting to the right. The demand will not increase either. On the contrary, it may move to the left, because of the young adults. How should we explain the perpetuation of inequilibrium?
2. Our goal?
-After reading diverse materials ranging from academic work to blogs, I am a little confused about our perspective. Is the Media Economics about maximizing the profit of media firms? Is it about explanation and prediction? Or, it about enhancing the civic quality? Personally, I agree with the argument that "we may want to shift our attention away from media-centric concerns and focus more on people centric concerns" (Chyi, 99).
3. Demand side explanation?
-I think one of the key concepts of the information surplus is that news and non-news information are substitute goods. Based on that assumption, incidental exposure Ting described in last class can be an explantion of 'surplus' from the demand side. Many news were in the past byproducts of other activities, for example when you had little choice of TV channels. With increased media choice, that forced demand is gone.
1. Wither equilibrium?
-A surplus is a state of inequilibrium. Law of demand and supply suggests that the market will try to recover equilibrium. But supply will not decrease. As the chapter said, the curve may not stop shifting to the right. The demand will not increase either. On the contrary, it may move to the left, because of the young adults. How should we explain the perpetuation of inequilibrium?
2. Our goal?
-After reading diverse materials ranging from academic work to blogs, I am a little confused about our perspective. Is the Media Economics about maximizing the profit of media firms? Is it about explanation and prediction? Or, it about enhancing the civic quality? Personally, I agree with the argument that "we may want to shift our attention away from media-centric concerns and focus more on people centric concerns" (Chyi, 99).
3. Demand side explanation?
-I think one of the key concepts of the information surplus is that news and non-news information are substitute goods. Based on that assumption, incidental exposure Ting described in last class can be an explantion of 'surplus' from the demand side. Many news were in the past byproducts of other activities, for example when you had little choice of TV channels. With increased media choice, that forced demand is gone.
Panic again?
It is possible when we spend time on the content, probably we don’t pay much attention on it. In addition, when people are multitasking, how much attention can they pay on the variety of content from different technology applications? From the perspective of media companies, do they care about the time you spend on their products or your attention on them? It seems hard to measure when distinguishing these two elements.
Online news industry has found it difficult to charge for access to online content. For me, the time when I need to pay for access to online news is the time when I have to access their archive for reading old news (I paid for an online news archive in Taiwan for doing content analysis). It is ironic for me that we pay for old instead of new in the news market.
The article, “Better than Free,” proposes eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we pay for something that could be free. I wonder if it is possible to apply to the news environment (still seems hard for me).
- Immediacy
- Personalization
- Interpretation
- Authenticity
- Accessibility
- Embodiment
- Patronage
- Findability
P.S. An interesting video clip about Web 2.0
The Internet...news you can count on 24/7
Are our attention spans getting shorter or are we changing the way we communicate? I look at the students that I lecture to in the journalism department as an example of the changing times. I can give a lecture while they are texting, Facebooking, or e-mailing but at the same time they are able to listen to what I’m saying and still participate in the discussion. While many adults would not be able to do two things at once well, there is a new generation that may argue it’s not a shorter attention span, it’s a different attention span.
I think whenever we discuss change in our society, whether it be more people turning to the web instead of the newspaper for their daily news content, change is difficult in our society. We get used to life one way and then when something is introduced that will cause some flux to the norm we freak out and start writing articles that this could be the end of blah, blah, blah. It seems that we automatically assume that whatever the change is, it can’t be good for ourselves. That may not be the case for one segment of the population that knows no different. It’s us older folks that have to learn to adapt and that’s hard.
On the other hand, I do have to agree there is an overabundance of information out there. Where do you get your news from? Which sites do you trust? How many can one look at in one day? I haven’t read any research on the topic but I would be interested to know how many sites the average person visits on a given day. I’m talking about checking out random sites, I’m thinking of sites they check on a daily basis - such as e-mail, DrudgeReport, Facebook, Statesman, KXAN (of course!), etc. While there is a lot out there I think we find ways to filter it by going to the same websites day after day, while still exploring other locations that we find through links. It’s like grocery shopping, we go to the same HEB every week for our big food purchase but during the week you may run to Whole Foods or Wheatsville for one or two products. The web is kind of the same way in my opinion.
I think whenever we discuss change in our society, whether it be more people turning to the web instead of the newspaper for their daily news content, change is difficult in our society. We get used to life one way and then when something is introduced that will cause some flux to the norm we freak out and start writing articles that this could be the end of blah, blah, blah. It seems that we automatically assume that whatever the change is, it can’t be good for ourselves. That may not be the case for one segment of the population that knows no different. It’s us older folks that have to learn to adapt and that’s hard.
On the other hand, I do have to agree there is an overabundance of information out there. Where do you get your news from? Which sites do you trust? How many can one look at in one day? I haven’t read any research on the topic but I would be interested to know how many sites the average person visits on a given day. I’m talking about checking out random sites, I’m thinking of sites they check on a daily basis - such as e-mail, DrudgeReport, Facebook, Statesman, KXAN (of course!), etc. While there is a lot out there I think we find ways to filter it by going to the same websites day after day, while still exploring other locations that we find through links. It’s like grocery shopping, we go to the same HEB every week for our big food purchase but during the week you may run to Whole Foods or Wheatsville for one or two products. The web is kind of the same way in my opinion.
too many to choose
Using information surplus to predict the online news media would be always free or can't deny the trend of over supply is insightful. In addition, how can we use the economic models or ideas, such as information surplus, to do a empirical study? Or is it a macro-level explanation that overall media will go to this direction? How do you think about the major media decide to charge the audience altogether, will it make a difference? (from the long tail theory, even the paper about citation of journal distribution, people still focus on certain major, well-known journals/products/media)
Both articles look at the bright side of the Internet, but Iris also touches the consequence brought from sensational or sexual information from media and suggests us to redirect our eyes from media-centric to people-centric issues. I'm more interested in this part rather than saying I have no idea and just fully submit to the sensational trend in media contents, which still have great influence on the soceity. Is there any new ideas to study the media literary or media education in the new media era?
Just chatting:
I was so attracted by the Apple daily for years after it was introduced to Taiwan (there're at least two different newspapers we read each day in my family, not just Apple daily), but I suddenly feel it's not attractive to me when going back home this summer. I don't know why but I feel I need to read something more important (very vague...:p) rather than the typical pattern of bloody body, people's imagined pron stories, naked pictures, or all kinds of fashion products. (Maybe just tired of this pattern...) It's weak in political coverage or analysis of important social issues... maybe I'm getting old....:D (but its magazine did a good job in investigation journalism and interview.)
Both articles look at the bright side of the Internet, but Iris also touches the consequence brought from sensational or sexual information from media and suggests us to redirect our eyes from media-centric to people-centric issues. I'm more interested in this part rather than saying I have no idea and just fully submit to the sensational trend in media contents, which still have great influence on the soceity. Is there any new ideas to study the media literary or media education in the new media era?
Just chatting:
I was so attracted by the Apple daily for years after it was introduced to Taiwan (there're at least two different newspapers we read each day in my family, not just Apple daily), but I suddenly feel it's not attractive to me when going back home this summer. I don't know why but I feel I need to read something more important (very vague...:p) rather than the typical pattern of bloody body, people's imagined pron stories, naked pictures, or all kinds of fashion products. (Maybe just tired of this pattern...) It's weak in political coverage or analysis of important social issues... maybe I'm getting old....:D (but its magazine did a good job in investigation journalism and interview.)
Information deficit and the death of the article
We've already been introduced to a number of classes, etc. on "writing for the web." The basic premise is that it's more difficult to read long-form writing, and as a result news stories written for the web should be written in short, easy to read bursts.
The paragraph above shouldn't be any longer than it is. In fact, this blog entry might be better served if written in bullet points:
The paragraph above shouldn't be any longer than it is. In fact, this blog entry might be better served if written in bullet points:
- As the distribution of information moves increasingly to mobile devices, this is an even greater concern. Articles are not made for smartphones.
- This move is already becoming evident, as some articles contain three or four bullet points summing up the content at the beginning of the piece.
- As we move into the futute, is the "writer" a thing of the past?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Health-Knowledge Gap ... in new media
Before you dive in, I have a confession.
This study wasn't up to par when I first read through it earlier this month. However, a second late-night reading (and perhaps a sugar-free Red Bull) helped change my mind.
To avoid boring anyone who might be reading, the study focuses primarily on achieving positive results for three hypotheses: high levels of education provide stronger connections between Internet use and health knowledge; education levels will be positively related to the Internet-engagement scale; higher levels of Internet usage will create stronger associations between Internet use and health knowledge.
Lee provides an excellent backdrop and analysis, and the results are predictable, to put it flatly. However, as Lee is keen enough to indicate, there are several flaws in the study, which focused primarily on folks 40- to 70-years-old (how many grannies do you know who use the Internet daily for news or media consumption?)
The survey essentially tests the hypotheses that higher education will lead to more Internet use which will lead to more health knowledge for those seeking it. Nothing too heavy there. However, the survey fails to engage a large party of Internet users, chiefly those under 40-years-old. The reasoning is offered that those individuals under 40 don't have as much knowledge or need for knowledge in health. I find the evidence for this shaky at best. Lee does note that it also possible that there could be a reverse to all of the causal orders of the survey, which nearly calls the entire effort into question.
Overall, though, I was engaged and encouraged by Lee's survey after a second reading. The empirical evidence provided and the conclusions drawn implicate a need for further research into the area of the knowledge gap in health news and information.
My misunderstanding or their mistakes
Economic Growth and Advertising Expenditures in Different Media in Different Countries Richard van der Wurff and Piet Bakker, Robert G. Picard, Journal of Media Economics, 21:28-52, 2008
Purpose
It explores the relationships between economic growth (GDP) and advertising expenditures for different media in 21 industrialized countries (all long-time member states of the OECD)
Hypotheses
H1: Advertising intensity (a) increases in time and is higher in countries where (b) the primary sector is less important, (c) the secondary and tertiary sectors are more important, (d) a smaller share of production is exported, and (e) per capita GDP is higher.
H2: Advertising intensity of a single medium (a) is not influenced by the advertising intensity of other media and varies (b) in times as well as with (c) per capita GDP.
H3: The responsiveness of advertising expenditures to changes in GDP is higher for print media (newspapers, magazines) and outdoor advertising than for electronic media (television, radio, and cinema).
H4: The responsiveness of advertising expenditures to changes in GDP is higher in countries where (a) newspapers have a larger share in total advertising expenditures, and (b) advertising intensity is higher.
Results
· Advertising intensity varies considerably across time and countries.
· Newspaper advertising expenditures depend more strongly on economic development.
· GDP predicts ad spending better in countries where newspapers are an important advertising medium.
· GDP predicts ad spending better in countries where a larger proportion of GDP is spent on advertising.
The remaining questions
The weak tie between literature and its actual analysis.
· The authors mentioned the previous findings of the principle of relative constancy and unique
events influencing advertising expenditures; however, they did not analyze directly in this study.
· Regarding the intermedia competition, they considered the potential power of the Internet
Advertising; however, it was not analyzed directly in the study.
· For the first hypothesis, the authors did not mention clearly the influence of the manufactures variables
No clear explanation
· How do we define the long-term and short-term?
· How do we define economic declines and upturns? Any indicators to differentiate or standardize the periods?
· No clear analysis of the intermedia competition; why some media are more seriously affected by economic downtowns than others? The authors are more likely to find the answers from the previous research not their findings.
· What is “advertising cultures”? Does the advertising intensity or expenditures determine the advertising culture? Any factors?
· So….what..? why did we get that results? No explanation.
Purpose
It explores the relationships between economic growth (GDP) and advertising expenditures for different media in 21 industrialized countries (all long-time member states of the OECD)
Hypotheses
H1: Advertising intensity (a) increases in time and is higher in countries where (b) the primary sector is less important, (c) the secondary and tertiary sectors are more important, (d) a smaller share of production is exported, and (e) per capita GDP is higher.
H2: Advertising intensity of a single medium (a) is not influenced by the advertising intensity of other media and varies (b) in times as well as with (c) per capita GDP.
H3: The responsiveness of advertising expenditures to changes in GDP is higher for print media (newspapers, magazines) and outdoor advertising than for electronic media (television, radio, and cinema).
H4: The responsiveness of advertising expenditures to changes in GDP is higher in countries where (a) newspapers have a larger share in total advertising expenditures, and (b) advertising intensity is higher.
Results
· Advertising intensity varies considerably across time and countries.
· Newspaper advertising expenditures depend more strongly on economic development.
· GDP predicts ad spending better in countries where newspapers are an important advertising medium.
· GDP predicts ad spending better in countries where a larger proportion of GDP is spent on advertising.
The remaining questions
The weak tie between literature and its actual analysis.
· The authors mentioned the previous findings of the principle of relative constancy and unique
events influencing advertising expenditures; however, they did not analyze directly in this study.
· Regarding the intermedia competition, they considered the potential power of the Internet
Advertising; however, it was not analyzed directly in the study.
· For the first hypothesis, the authors did not mention clearly the influence of the manufactures variables
No clear explanation
· How do we define the long-term and short-term?
· How do we define economic declines and upturns? Any indicators to differentiate or standardize the periods?
· No clear analysis of the intermedia competition; why some media are more seriously affected by economic downtowns than others? The authors are more likely to find the answers from the previous research not their findings.
· What is “advertising cultures”? Does the advertising intensity or expenditures determine the advertising culture? Any factors?
· So….what..? why did we get that results? No explanation.
Ting's stock picks
sorry I totally forgot to post it here.
Time Warner Inc. (TWX) 29.25 90 shares
Sony Corporation (SNE) 29.25 110 shares
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) 28.18 153 shares
Time Warner Inc. (TWX) 29.25 90 shares
Sony Corporation (SNE) 29.25 110 shares
Walt Disney Co. (DIS) 28.18 153 shares
Incidental exposure to online news
The article I reviewed is “Accidentally Informed: Incidental News Exposure on the World Wide Web” from 2001 Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly.
This article argued that even though acquiring current affairs information is rarely a primary goal for people to use Internet, the prevalence of news on the web provides opportunities for people to encounter news in an incidental way. Therefore, the article assumed that “the frequency of web use will be positively associated with incidental exposure to news on the web” (H1). In addition, the article pointed out the goals people have for surfing the web could impact incidental exposure from the uses and gratifications perspective leading to the first research questions: “Do different uses of the Web result in differences in incidental exposure news?” Then, the second hypothesis “Incidental exposure to news on the Web will be positively associated with knowledge of current events.” was proposed.
This article mentioned in the literature review that more news are published online right now due to the popularity of portal sites and the information services provided by search engines. Since the online news is getting more and more, it would be obvious to see that people are more likely to expose to online news unintentionally. For the research question, it is also quite obvious that different purpose of using the Internet can lead to different patterns of using the Internet. I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly the “differences in incidental exposure news” is. It seems pretty vague to me. Lastly, when previous literature indicates that learning can be active or passive, it seems clear that the more online news people expose to (whether intentional or unintentional), the more knowledge of current events people would have.
The measure of knowledge here is an issue (Similar to SungWoo mentioned). Surveys relevant to the present research questions were taken in Autumn (21 through 31 Octobor) 1996, Spring (24 April through 11 May) 1998, and Autumn (26 October through 1 December) 1998. I would think that participants who took the survey later (for example the one took the survey on Dec. 1st comparing to the one did it on Oct. 26), might have more knowledge in terms of current events because people’s knowledge of current events is accumulated and they can acquire those information from different media.
In addition, this article mentions that the Internet is often an addition to rather than a replacement of traditional media, so the authors believe that web use will increase incidental learning about current events in part because of the complementary nature of contemporary media. I would consider that for certain groups such as young adults, the Internet might be a replacement of traditional media. Also, the incidental online news exposure was measured by a self-reported yes/no questions which is not persuasive to me. There should be a better way to measure people’s attention to information when the contents and media are competing with each other under the condition of information surplus.
Similar to Sandra’s feeling, I wonder if it is because I am not familiar with or interested in some area, I couldn’t get the meaning of those hypotheses or research questions. Would it be possible that those hypotheses or research questions which seem meaningless or boring to us might be important for theory testing or theory building?
This article argued that even though acquiring current affairs information is rarely a primary goal for people to use Internet, the prevalence of news on the web provides opportunities for people to encounter news in an incidental way. Therefore, the article assumed that “the frequency of web use will be positively associated with incidental exposure to news on the web” (H1). In addition, the article pointed out the goals people have for surfing the web could impact incidental exposure from the uses and gratifications perspective leading to the first research questions: “Do different uses of the Web result in differences in incidental exposure news?” Then, the second hypothesis “Incidental exposure to news on the Web will be positively associated with knowledge of current events.” was proposed.
This article mentioned in the literature review that more news are published online right now due to the popularity of portal sites and the information services provided by search engines. Since the online news is getting more and more, it would be obvious to see that people are more likely to expose to online news unintentionally. For the research question, it is also quite obvious that different purpose of using the Internet can lead to different patterns of using the Internet. I couldn’t help but wonder what exactly the “differences in incidental exposure news” is. It seems pretty vague to me. Lastly, when previous literature indicates that learning can be active or passive, it seems clear that the more online news people expose to (whether intentional or unintentional), the more knowledge of current events people would have.
The measure of knowledge here is an issue (Similar to SungWoo mentioned). Surveys relevant to the present research questions were taken in Autumn (21 through 31 Octobor) 1996, Spring (24 April through 11 May) 1998, and Autumn (26 October through 1 December) 1998. I would think that participants who took the survey later (for example the one took the survey on Dec. 1st comparing to the one did it on Oct. 26), might have more knowledge in terms of current events because people’s knowledge of current events is accumulated and they can acquire those information from different media.
In addition, this article mentions that the Internet is often an addition to rather than a replacement of traditional media, so the authors believe that web use will increase incidental learning about current events in part because of the complementary nature of contemporary media. I would consider that for certain groups such as young adults, the Internet might be a replacement of traditional media. Also, the incidental online news exposure was measured by a self-reported yes/no questions which is not persuasive to me. There should be a better way to measure people’s attention to information when the contents and media are competing with each other under the condition of information surplus.
Similar to Sandra’s feeling, I wonder if it is because I am not familiar with or interested in some area, I couldn’t get the meaning of those hypotheses or research questions. Would it be possible that those hypotheses or research questions which seem meaningless or boring to us might be important for theory testing or theory building?
Monday, September 28, 2009
How do you measure knowledge in new media environment?
Measurement of knowledge is an important issue in media effect studies. It is a tricky problem we have learned. In surveys, typical questionnaires are the name of vice president, identifying policy stance with the party, job title of US chief justice and so on. Based on this scale, pundits argued that the public is too ignorant to sustain a healthy democracy. And they said the public is getting dumber and dumber.
Markus Prior of Princeton Univ. and Arthur Lupia of Michigan Univ. challenged this conventional way of knowledge measures. 2008. Money, Time, and Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Quick Recall and Political Learning Skills. American Journal of Political Science, 52 (1): 169–183.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lupia/Papers/Prior_Lupia_AJPS_2008.pdf
Theory: Knowledge is not only about recall. It is also a learning or searching skill. In cognitive psychology distinction is made between a kind of memory known as “declarative memory” and rule based “procedural memory.”
Method: Experiment that treat monetary reward and 24 hour searching period. Four group. 1 minute and no pay. 1minute and pay. 24hours and no pay. 24 hour and pay.
Null Hypothesis #1: Providing an incentive for correctly answering knowledge questions
will not affect the likelihood of offering a correct answer.
#2: Even if giving respondents extra time increases the number of correct answers, the change will be uninteresting: it will be constant across respondents or simply amplify differences between strong and weak performers.
Result : Null Hypotheses are rejected. The treatments increased the number of correct answers by 11–24%. Findings imply that conventional knowledge measures confound respondents’ recall of political facts with variation in their motivation to exert effort during survey interviews
Criticism
-Wrong calculation. Reported percent increase, rather than increase in percentage.
-Political learning skills indicate only a potential for making more informed choices.
-This study was not received well. But is it not the concept of political learning skill, or procedural memory included in the concept of political knowledge, since people are linked and searching for information on the web?
Markus Prior of Princeton Univ. and Arthur Lupia of Michigan Univ. challenged this conventional way of knowledge measures. 2008. Money, Time, and Political Knowledge: Distinguishing Quick Recall and Political Learning Skills. American Journal of Political Science, 52 (1): 169–183.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lupia/Papers/Prior_Lupia_AJPS_2008.pdf
Theory: Knowledge is not only about recall. It is also a learning or searching skill. In cognitive psychology distinction is made between a kind of memory known as “declarative memory” and rule based “procedural memory.”
Method: Experiment that treat monetary reward and 24 hour searching period. Four group. 1 minute and no pay. 1minute and pay. 24hours and no pay. 24 hour and pay.
Null Hypothesis #1: Providing an incentive for correctly answering knowledge questions
will not affect the likelihood of offering a correct answer.
#2: Even if giving respondents extra time increases the number of correct answers, the change will be uninteresting: it will be constant across respondents or simply amplify differences between strong and weak performers.
Result : Null Hypotheses are rejected. The treatments increased the number of correct answers by 11–24%. Findings imply that conventional knowledge measures confound respondents’ recall of political facts with variation in their motivation to exert effort during survey interviews
Criticism
-Wrong calculation. Reported percent increase, rather than increase in percentage.
-Political learning skills indicate only a potential for making more informed choices.
-This study was not received well. But is it not the concept of political learning skill, or procedural memory included in the concept of political knowledge, since people are linked and searching for information on the web?
meaningful or meaningless
In searching for the to-be-criticized paper, one question keeps coming into my mind: are those seemingly-silly or seemingly-common sense hypotheses really meaningless, or just because I don't know what's deeper behind the hypothese. It makes me hard to find a journal paper to criticize it's RQ and hypothese. (Of course it's eaiser to pick up the insufficency and weakness of each paper, but it's hard to say this hypothesis is totally meaningless or not make sense, especially those selected in the well-known journals.) I'm thinking maybe the RQs I think are not interesting or boring is because that's not my interest or I haven't read enough to know the meaning behind. Like what I've learnt in the political sophistication class at Government department, many readings focus on some tiny changes or adjustments of measurements and questions they ask. Sometimes I'll think, do we need to be so care about all those tiny things, but from their long-term studies, even one word matters, and their studies in method/measurement develpment sometimes more mature than other field. Is it because it's meaningless, or we just don't have enough knowledge to catch its real meaning? In addition, sometimes, someone's trash might be others' treasure, how to know the distinction of lack of meaning or precious treasure in certain field before we're really familiar with that field?
Breaking News...politicians like being in the media.
I reviewed the article titled, The Influence of Presumed Media Influence in Politics. Do politicians' perspectives on Media power matter? By: Jonathan Cohen, Yariv Tsfati, and Tamir Sheafer. It was published in Public Opinion Quarterly in the Summer of 2008.
The paper suggests that politicians are motivated and driven by their ability to get media coverage. While its an interesting topic I found the three hypotheses a little boring.
H1: Legislators' perceptions of media influence on the public will be associated with their media motivation and effort.
H2: Legislator's perceptions of media influence on other legislators will also be associated with such media motivation and effort.
H3: Legislators' media motivation and effort will be positively associated with the amount of coverage they receive.
H4: Legislators' media motivation and effort will be positively associated with the amount of their parliamentary activity.
I guess having covered lawmakers for many years you figure out how much they love the media and how much they can try to manipulate their message through the media. So it seemed to me these hypothesises were kind of obvious.
The researchers surveyed lawmakers in Israel about how media influenced them. They found all of the hypothesises were supported except H2. Their explanation for that is that they only asked one question on their survey regarding H2 and they felt like it wasn't focused enough for their hypothesis to be supported. It seems pretty weak to only have one question on a survey that can answer an entire hypothesis.
The paper suggests that politicians are motivated and driven by their ability to get media coverage. While its an interesting topic I found the three hypotheses a little boring.
H1: Legislators' perceptions of media influence on the public will be associated with their media motivation and effort.
H2: Legislator's perceptions of media influence on other legislators will also be associated with such media motivation and effort.
H3: Legislators' media motivation and effort will be positively associated with the amount of coverage they receive.
H4: Legislators' media motivation and effort will be positively associated with the amount of their parliamentary activity.
I guess having covered lawmakers for many years you figure out how much they love the media and how much they can try to manipulate their message through the media. So it seemed to me these hypothesises were kind of obvious.
The researchers surveyed lawmakers in Israel about how media influenced them. They found all of the hypothesises were supported except H2. Their explanation for that is that they only asked one question on their survey regarding H2 and they felt like it wasn't focused enough for their hypothesis to be supported. It seems pretty weak to only have one question on a survey that can answer an entire hypothesis.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Journal article critique; media skepticism & trust
Tsfati, Yariv & Cappella, Joseph N. (2003). Do People Watch What They Do Not Trust? Exploring the Association Between News Media Skepticism and Exposure. Communication Research, 30(5), 504-529.
http://crx.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/cgi/reprint/30/5/504
This paper explored the relationship between media consumption and media trust – specifically to investigate whether media trust affected consumption patterns. The hypothesis suggested that people who trust mainstream media consume it; those who don’t seek alternatives.
Assumptions:
The author uses an elegant, parsimonious definition of media skepticism; “a subjective feeling of mistrust toward the mainstream news media.” Specifically, this involves questioning credibility and reliability, whether the MSM is right and fair. But this is a two-part study, with the other key aspect being a hostile media effect. This paper assumes rational audiences, a la the rational self interests of consumers as described in the Media Economics book. This is the first of four assumptions made by the author, each of which lacks a bedrock foundation. There is also the assumption that consumers desire “accurate knowledge about the nonimmediate world;” that they “have an incentive to ignore many stimuli; and that, for convenience of analysis, there are two types of media, mainstream and non-mainstream. With deference to the elegance of analysis of these assumptions, I believe each of these lacks fail to capture the complexity and diversity of contemporary media and those who consume it. For example, the study equates PBS and MSNBC as mainstream; while I would agree, I dare say dissenters could be found. Likewise, online news and political talk radio are equated as non-mainstream sources.
Two of the hypotheses seem fairly obvious:
H1: Mainstream media skepticism will be associated with lower mainstream news exposure.
H2: Mainstream media skepticism will be associated with higher non-mainstream news exposure.
The final hypothesis seems less explored and more interesting.
H3: Skepticism will be associated with news media diets: the higher the skepticism, the higher the non-mainstream component in audiences’ media diets.
I also take issue with the data set. The Electronic Dialogue project offered free WebTV units to those who volunteered to participated in surveys and online political discussions. As an early attempt to gather public opinion data online, the ED study is laudable. But the panel inherently lacked early adopters of online technology and likely excluded both those who were pioneers in consuming information online as well as online laggards. Cudos to the author for attempting to validate the data with cross comparisons to two well-respected and established data sets; the National Election Studies and the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Analysis:
The analysis was well done. Nine factors were scaled to create a media trust index and factor analysis clearly delineated between mainstream media and non-mainstream, which included talk radio and the Internet. While skepticism has already been voiced about lumping Internet with alternative, the factor analysis found only 15% correlation between the two, validating the data over my objections. The author found that a majority of audience members still preferred mainstream media and that most subjects were skeptical of mainstream media – especially national television news and newspapers. This seems to contradict both hypotheses 1 and 2, which suggested those who watch mainstream news more will be more trusting of it; and those who don’t trust it will avoid it. In fact, given the author’s definition of mainstream versus non-mainstream, political ideology was as much stronger predictor of media skepticism than was news consumption habits – although skepticism also was associated with listeners to talk radio. Therefore H3 was supported and, in fact, political interest was the greatest predictor of any and all media consumption and the skeptics seemed to cast a wider news net than non-skeptics.
Of course this study was conducted in 2003 and, hence, suffers from the inability to consider the wealth of academic research conducted in the ensuing years – but, pretending this was a contemporary study, I would have suggested the new fall, 2009 Pew study examining media credibility and trust which found, as I described, that political ideology was a large predictor of trust in the mainstream media. Also, studies last year and this year by Gil de Zuniga, Valenzuela, Kaufhold, Bachmann, Shah, Eveland and many others have constructed new ways to define traditional, online and alternative media, including recoding online MSM sources with traditional; blogs as alternative; and treating conservative talk radio as an outlier variable – highly predictive but incomparable to other media types.
I would certainly recommend that this article be revised and resubmitted, with more careful thought given to how the literature leads to the hypotheses and to more contemporary literature and data sets. This study was well thought out. It could benefit from a more thoughtful embrace of the definitions of mainstream and non, traditional and alternative.
http://crx.sagepub.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/cgi/reprint/30/5/504
This paper explored the relationship between media consumption and media trust – specifically to investigate whether media trust affected consumption patterns. The hypothesis suggested that people who trust mainstream media consume it; those who don’t seek alternatives.
Assumptions:
The author uses an elegant, parsimonious definition of media skepticism; “a subjective feeling of mistrust toward the mainstream news media.” Specifically, this involves questioning credibility and reliability, whether the MSM is right and fair. But this is a two-part study, with the other key aspect being a hostile media effect. This paper assumes rational audiences, a la the rational self interests of consumers as described in the Media Economics book. This is the first of four assumptions made by the author, each of which lacks a bedrock foundation. There is also the assumption that consumers desire “accurate knowledge about the nonimmediate world;” that they “have an incentive to ignore many stimuli; and that, for convenience of analysis, there are two types of media, mainstream and non-mainstream. With deference to the elegance of analysis of these assumptions, I believe each of these lacks fail to capture the complexity and diversity of contemporary media and those who consume it. For example, the study equates PBS and MSNBC as mainstream; while I would agree, I dare say dissenters could be found. Likewise, online news and political talk radio are equated as non-mainstream sources.
Two of the hypotheses seem fairly obvious:
H1: Mainstream media skepticism will be associated with lower mainstream news exposure.
H2: Mainstream media skepticism will be associated with higher non-mainstream news exposure.
The final hypothesis seems less explored and more interesting.
H3: Skepticism will be associated with news media diets: the higher the skepticism, the higher the non-mainstream component in audiences’ media diets.
I also take issue with the data set. The Electronic Dialogue project offered free WebTV units to those who volunteered to participated in surveys and online political discussions. As an early attempt to gather public opinion data online, the ED study is laudable. But the panel inherently lacked early adopters of online technology and likely excluded both those who were pioneers in consuming information online as well as online laggards. Cudos to the author for attempting to validate the data with cross comparisons to two well-respected and established data sets; the National Election Studies and the Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Analysis:
The analysis was well done. Nine factors were scaled to create a media trust index and factor analysis clearly delineated between mainstream media and non-mainstream, which included talk radio and the Internet. While skepticism has already been voiced about lumping Internet with alternative, the factor analysis found only 15% correlation between the two, validating the data over my objections. The author found that a majority of audience members still preferred mainstream media and that most subjects were skeptical of mainstream media – especially national television news and newspapers. This seems to contradict both hypotheses 1 and 2, which suggested those who watch mainstream news more will be more trusting of it; and those who don’t trust it will avoid it. In fact, given the author’s definition of mainstream versus non-mainstream, political ideology was as much stronger predictor of media skepticism than was news consumption habits – although skepticism also was associated with listeners to talk radio. Therefore H3 was supported and, in fact, political interest was the greatest predictor of any and all media consumption and the skeptics seemed to cast a wider news net than non-skeptics.
Of course this study was conducted in 2003 and, hence, suffers from the inability to consider the wealth of academic research conducted in the ensuing years – but, pretending this was a contemporary study, I would have suggested the new fall, 2009 Pew study examining media credibility and trust which found, as I described, that political ideology was a large predictor of trust in the mainstream media. Also, studies last year and this year by Gil de Zuniga, Valenzuela, Kaufhold, Bachmann, Shah, Eveland and many others have constructed new ways to define traditional, online and alternative media, including recoding online MSM sources with traditional; blogs as alternative; and treating conservative talk radio as an outlier variable – highly predictive but incomparable to other media types.
I would certainly recommend that this article be revised and resubmitted, with more careful thought given to how the literature leads to the hypotheses and to more contemporary literature and data sets. This study was well thought out. It could benefit from a more thoughtful embrace of the definitions of mainstream and non, traditional and alternative.
When supply exceeds demand
In an attention economy like we have, it seems like the solution is selectivity – information now is, for the first time on such a scale, better, more numerous, and personalizable (p. 4). Since filtering is also personalizable that should solve the problem of information overload. It also contributes to the tremendous specialization available in contemporary society, like, for example, cardiothoracic surgery or piloting a modern jet fighter. A hundred years ago, people were able to read most of what was available, on all topics, if they so desired. If they did, they overwhelmingly read important, meaningful words – stirring literature, economics, history, civics. Does selectivity make it much, much easier to distract people away from serious information and rather choose to, say, watch slam dunks on YouTube (p. 5-6)? Am I being elitist or is this a problem? The authors admit that attention to entertainment was on the rise already in 2001 and I love Herbert Simon’s quote: “…a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”
This is just an aside, but the attention economy discussion reminded me of the three levels of media “effect” – cognitive, affective and behavioral. It seems like one big advantage of the Web, from a communicators perspective (think about the 40,000 grocery store items) is the wider reach for cognitive awareness. Ever heard of Goya foods? Now you have. And the Grateful Dead example (p. 8) illustrates that attention can lead to a desire for more attention, and a profit.
I’m a little surprised at Davenport & Beck’s lack of skepticism at the devaluing of some information in the attention economy (p. 9) although they wrote this in 2001. It seems like mainstream media, under a tsunami of distractions and competing sources for information, has clearly deflated in value. You mention in your chapter (p. 91) that supply outstrips demand even at a cost of zero. Davenport & Beck do acknowledge a mismatch of supply and demand, worsening the attention deficit. Given that we’re in journalism, is there a deficit of attention paid to important news – not just mainstream media, mind you, just the information that will guide how I spend my money and live my life. I’m not at all adverse to exploring new models of journalism, but here’s a thought for you. As for me, I’d rather have surgery now than at the end of the 19th Century. Does the same apply to news?
As for your chapter, I’ve long had an interest in young adults and news, every since I started to realize a decade ago that my young newsroom colleagues weren’t following the news. I think it’s ironic that new technologies diffuse most quickly among the young but that online news consumption is lowest among the young. But there are a lot of ironies, online and in life. For example, Facebook began as a closed network only for college students but now most users, by far, are over 30. And here’s an analog – when Vespa introduced its retro scooter in 2004 it expected big “cool factor” sales to the young. Instead, sales overwhelmingly went to buyers over 40 who remember the original Vespa.
Information surplus contributes mightily to Putnam’s time displacement hypothesis. It’s easier than ever, especially with wireless devices, to find something digital to do. In that environment, is differentiation enough? Do we need to push price below zero – to pay people to consume news? It sound crazy, but think about this – the majority of revenue, by far, has come from advertisers for 170 years. We’ve been “selling” eyeballs for decades – why not take the next step?
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