Online news media and interactivity: studying control, conversation, self-

production and hyperlinks from a cognitive and methodological

approach

Drs. Michaël Opgenhaffen

Information: Interactions and ImpactRGU – Aberdeen, 26/06/07

PhD-project

• Lessius University College – Catholic University Leuven, Belgium

• Multimedia, interactivity and hypertext in online news: effect on objective and subjective knowledge

• 2006-2009

• INTERNET

Engines, blogs, Usenet, fora, …

INFORMATION NEEDS

MEDIATED INFORMATION

RETRIEVAL

KNOWLEDGE OUTCOME

MEDIATED INFORMATION PROCESSING

General model of retrieving and processing

INTERNET

Mediated information-processing

• What happens once the news is retrieved?

• Effect of interactivity on information-processing and knowledge outcome?

• Theories from cognitive psychology / media studies

Purpose of this presentation

Methodological + cognitive approach

• What do we study? – What are online news media?– What is interactivity?

• What is information-processing?– Limited capacity model – Effect of interactivity and hyperlinks– Measuring information-processing

What do we study?

What do we study: online news media

What’s an online news medium?

– Internet is not one, big, homogeneous medium

– Convergent meta-medium (e.g. internet, online newspaper, news site, …)

Divergent sub-media (e.g. news page,

forum, web-tv, blog, RSS-feeds, news alerts, …)

Studying divergent sub-media Sampling messages from sub-media

Defining a medium: production

• Kozma (1991): Sign system Technology Processing possibilities

• Hoogeveen (1997):Perceptual (text, audio, video, …)Technological (mpeg, jpeg, wmv, mp3, …)Fysical (computer, television, mobile phone, …)

Defining a medium: consumption

• Survey in June, 2007 with 890 students between 18-22 years

Digital divide in use by homogeneous group 100% online newspaper (convergent)

- 100% news site (divergent)- 45% blogs (divergent) - 31% videos (divergent) - 28% audio (divergent) - 27% discussion forum (divergent) - 14% picture tray (divergent) - 9% polls (divergent) - 8% RSS-feeds (divergent) - 6% newsletters (divergent) - …

What do we study: interactivity

• “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time” (Steuer, 1992).

Control

• “the expression of the extent that in a given series of communication exchanges, any third (or later) transmission is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred to even earlier transmission” (Rafaeli, 1988, p. 111).

Conversation

• “the possibility to ad information online (Heeter, 1989)”

Publication

What do we study: hypertext

Hypertext makes control, conversation andpublication possible

• Internal hyperlinks refer to other texts (or sections) within the news

medium

• External hyperlinks refer to texts or media located outside the news

medium

Content analysis

• Online coverage of municipal and federal elections in Belgium in 2006 + 2007

• Convergent + divergent news media

• Digital newspapers, television and radio news sites, ‘online onlies’, alternative news media.

• ° classification / operationalisation of interactivity + hypertext

Interactivity ready for operation (1)

CONTROL- Number of articles - Choice of modalities (yes/no)- Choice of frequence (obliged – optional – not)- Choice of category (obliged - optional - not)- Choice of chronology (obliged - optional – not)- Search by word (obliged – optional - not)- Personalisation (obliged - optional – not)- Adaptivity (obliged – optional – not)- Accessibility (push – pull)- Archiving (yes/no)- Print (yes/no)- Read later (yes/no)- Pay section (obliged – optional – not)- Advisory cues (yes/no)

Interactivity ready for operation (2)

CONVERSATION- Contact author (yes/no)

- Contact other actors (yes/no)- Send to (yes/no)

PUBLICATION- publish message (yes/no)

- Adapt message (yes/no)- React on message (yes/no)- Poll/survey (yes/no)- Rate information (yes/no)

Hypertext ready for operation

• Number of clicks to full article

• In article: – Number of text-internal links– Number of medium-internal links

– Number of related external links– Number of non-related external links

Information-processingLearning from the news

The black box

• Exposure knowledge (S – R)

• Exposure information processing knowledge (S – ? – R)

• Studying the ‘black box’ between exposure en knowledge

Model

MultimediaMULTIMEDIA

INTERACTIVITY

HYPERTEXT

INFORMATION-PROCESSING

KNOWLEDGE

Limited Capacity Model (Lang, 2000)

• “News consumer is a news processor with limited cognitive capacities”

• News processing• Encoding• Storage• Retrieval

Interactivity and hypertext both stimulates and hampers these processes

Implications of interactivity on IP

Positive

• Involvement• Evaluation

Negative

• Selective scanning• desorientation• time-consuming• cognitive overload

Control + communication + publication

Implications of hypertext on IP

Positive

• Structural isomorphism• Evaluation

Negative

• desorientation• cognitive overload

Internal / external links

Interactivity Hypertext

Control Conversation Publication Internal External

Online newspage

High Medium Low High Medium

Paper in pdf Medium Low None Low Low

Web TV Medium Medium Low Medium None

Live TV None None None None None

Web radio Low Low None Low None

Live radio Low Low None Low None

News in pictures

Low Low Low Low Low

Infographic High Low None High None

Assessment of effects

Interactivity Hypertext

Control Conversation Publication Internal External

News blog Low High High High High

News forum Low High High Low Low

Poll / survey Low Low High Low None

Mail alert Medium Low None High None

News feed (RSS) Medium Low None Medium None

Teletext High None None High None

Typology Flemish online news media

Measuring information-processing

E.g.

? External hypertext desoriëntation Decreased knowledge ?

? Self-production of contentHigh involvement

High evaluation Increased knowledge ?

Measuring information-processing

• First step (October 2007): Think-aloud protocol / thought-list procedure

“asks a subject to report all his or her thoughts while doing some task. The goal is to capture what actually goes through a person’s mind as he or she performs a task.” (Shapiro, 1994)

Using Morae-software to record voice and face expression during online news consumption

Degree of desorientation, evaluation, maintenance, cognitive overload, … / interactive and hypertextual feature

Measuring information-processing (2)

• Second step (January 2008):

Measuring IP retrospectively by measuring type of knowledge after consumption of manipulated news media (cfr. Lang, 2000)(High – medium - low interactive)(High – medium – low hypertextual)

Recognition = encodingCued recall = storageFree recall = retrieval

Summary

• Internet as infrastructure, as a complex of convergent and divergent media

• Besides content, form and structure is important

• Interactivity and hypertext are multidimensional

• Exposure is not an adequate predictor of knowledge

• Combination of methodes/measures needed in order to measure the information-processing and the knowledge outcome