Horizontal communication networks and the evolution of journalism

Donica Mensing, PhD.Reynolds School of JournalismUniversity of Nevada, Renodmensing@unr.edu

SummaryThis project uses an examination of Twitter and

Facebook posts about climate change to consider how horizontal communication structures are changing journalistic practices, and in turn, affecting the creation of public agendas.

Climate science“…The basic consensus is almost universally

accepted. That is, the planet is warming, that human activities are contributing to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (chiefly, but not exclusively CO2), that these changes are playing a big role in the current warming, and thus, further increases in the levels of GHGs in the atmosphere are very likely to cause further warming which could have serious impacts.”

Guardian.co.uk, 25 June 2010http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/25/what-climate-scientists-think

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

of the United States of America (2010)

97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the findings about climate change outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of human caused climate change are substantially below that of convinced researchers

Gallup Poll, March 11, 2010http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/americans-global-warming-concerns-continue-drop.aspx

Journalism and climate changeSignificant journalistic resources dedicated to

the subject over the past 20 years

Yet coverage is often sporadic, lacks context, focuses on conflict

Balancing viewpoints to achieve “objectivity” gives undue credibility to some sources

Changes in communicationThe structure of communication and

information flows is changing, adding an active horizontal dimension (Benkler, Castells)

Communication is now mobile, global, peer to peer, asynchronous (horizontal) as well as institutional (vertical)

Agenda setting theoryAgenda setting is the process that determines

what issues are considered most important (salient) by the public, and by legislators, candidates, and politicians. (Dearing & Rogers, 1996, p. 8).

Media agenda setting refers to the influence of the media on public and policy agendas

Agenda setting is also influenced by public relations (Ohl, 1995), interpersonal communication (Wyatt, Katz and Kim, 2000) and other audience factors.

QuestionsHow do horizontal communication networks

affect the practices of journalism?

How might these changes in journalism effect media agenda setting/agenda building?

Social networksFacebook is now the most popular online site

after Google. Every day a third of all online users globally access the site for an average of 30 minutes (NYT reaches 1.2% of the Internet population for 4.8 minutes a day)

Twitter is the 11th most popular site online. Approximately 300,000 people create new accounts daily.

Study designDownloaded 50* Facebook updates and 50

Twitter posts in English that mentioned the word “climate” and were relevant to climate change every night for five nights

Collected 413 posts for analysis

Who is posting?

Seven observations about changes in news practices on social networks

News is for sharing 80% of all posts included a link to an

information source

People like to share what they are reading and viewing

Social networks facilitate conversation about news, encourage action and provide interpretation. Conversation about the news has been shown to increase knowledge.

News is persuasiveUsers post links to make a point, sway

opinions, convince others to act

41% of all links were to mainstream news sources

59% of all links were to partisan news sources, alternative news, interest groups, bloggers

News and information are found in many places

News distribution is story-by-story

The prominence of stories is determined by friends and followers, not by editors

“News finds me” -- news is consumed as part of social interaction, not by appointment

Stories are stripped of context, placement, timing; brand becomes less important

 News has new forms and new authors

The Guardian is one major media brand making the transition to networksNo media organizations used Facebook to

promote climate stories in the selected study sample; all were on Twitter

The most linked to stories on Twitter were from the Guardian (UK)

The most popular Twitter feed was by the Guardian

Example: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/16/google-climate-chief-price-carbon

News is global

One each: Bolivia, Bulgaria, Denmark, El Salvador, Greece, Haiti, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, UAE

News on social networks is continuous and voluminous

River of news is flowing constantly

On Twitter, climate related posts are being posted at the rate of 100+ per hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (one week = 16,800 posts)

The five most visited online news sites posted four short stories about climate change during the week of this study (BBC, New York Times, Yahoo, Google, CNN)

ImplicationsNews is determined more by personal networks

than by professional editors

News consumption is more interactive, more social, more value driven

It is more difficult for mainstream media to maintain agendas

There is no single ‘media agenda;’ agendas become highly personalized

Agenda setting likely to be far more complex and chaotic than in the past

The futureNeed to develop structures for integrating and

co-producing professional news in social networks

Need to understand how variations in network design affect news creation, distribution, conversation and deliberation

Need to develop process mechanisms for editing, curation and knowledge building, and ultimately improved civic capacity

Thank you