POS: 3931 News Consumption and Soft News Chase Meyer Sep. 05, 2017

Today’s Agenda Announcements What gets covered in the news? Which stories people read? Who consumes news and what kind of news Media consumption Entertainment vs. News Soft News

Announcements For next week read Boydstun chapters 3-5 Remember your response papers! So about next week…

What Gets Covered in the News? All news covers major events when they happen Natural disaster, tragedy, election, scandal, etc... But why is it that some stories stay in the news and on the front page longer? Why do some seem to disappear over the matter of days? What causes the rise and fall of certain news stories?

Gun Control Example

Newtown Triggered Positive Feedback Got a conversation going about gun control that did not stop

Chicken or the Egg? Did people continuing to talk about gun control after Newtown cause the news to keep reporting on it? Or did the news continuing to talk about gun control and the shooting cause people to continue the conversation?

Who Reads/Watches the News? Before we determine what causes people to watch/read some news stories more than others we have to determine who watches/reads news in the first place Consumers of news are usually more wealthy, more interested in politics/current events, more partisan... Similar to voters vs. non-voters

Who Did NOT Watch News in 2016?

Trust People will watch/read the news media they trust Ideological component usually, but also basic trust in the institution

Who Consumes Media/Specific Stories Those who consume media in the USA are generally wealthy, interested in politics/current events, non-white, young, voters, liberals, and partisans The type of media they consume is the one they trust With ideological component But what about SPECIFIC stories? How do they stay in the news and remain consumed?

Proximity Proximity increases news coverage US news will report far more on US events

Proximity Readers care about proximity How does this effect ME? Readers are far more likely to read news stories that they feel are more relevant and local Localization of news results in greater readers/media consumers How to localize stories?

Localizing Stories People far more likely to read stories about the USA than about China – people far more likely to read stories about their hometown than the USA Goal of journalists is to localize stories in some way Can be difficult for national and international organizations This is why many news stories are about individuals in the event being covered People can relate to the individual and think, “Someone like this could be in my home town.”

Proximity/Localization Stories that localize the news and cause readers to add personal relevance to the story This not only results in more people reading/consuming the story, but also greater recollection/memory of the story Some events though are so big they do not need to be localized Ex: Sept. 11th

Good News or Bad News? Negativity bias – our eyes and minds are more drawn to negative stories than positive ones Why? Psychology has some theories: We pay attention to bad news because we are overly optimistic at least at a subconscious level We think that everything is great and rosy in our lives Thus bad news is more of a “surprise” In 2014 Russian news-website The City Reporter reported ONLY positive stories for 24 hours Readership dropped by 2/3

Going Viral!

Going Viral! What causes some stories to spread and “go viral” over other stories? Positive stories more than “negative” stories, but must have the shock/surprise/anger/awe factor (even if it is negative/sad) Study of NYT articles in November 2008 Backed up by study of NYT articles shared over a 3 month period in 2012 Criticism of these studies: Lack political component Done during height of election seasons!

What Makes Stories Stick? Be local and have proximity to readers/consumers of news Have shock/surprise/awe/anger Generally be more bad news than good news But avoid being very sad

What News Do People Consume? Broadcast Average number of viewers of the Big 3 evening news shows

What News Do People Consume? Cable Among the Cable News Channels

What News Do People Consume? Newspapers

What News Do People Consume? Newspapers As of 2016

What News Do People Consume? Magazines

What News Do People Consume? Magazines

What News Do People Consume? Websites

What News Do People Consume? Social media

What News Do People Consume? Social media

Thoughts on News/Media Consumption? Notice how many more people go to non-news sites and read non-news magazines? Is this good or bad? Do we want more people to pay attention and learn more from the news?

Let’s Debate: Entertainment vs. News?

Solution: Soft News Non-news stories/sources can still inform readers

Soft News vs. Hard News Hard News is your traditional news outlets that focus exclusively on the news: CNN, ABC News, etc... Soft News is untraditional and their first job is to entertain, but you still learn more about the topics/issues than not reading any news at all Baum (University of Chicago) 2002

Soft News

Soft News

The Oprah Effect Baum 2006 – soft news does more than educate it, it helps you vote “better” or “consistently”

Politicians and Soft News

Politicians on Soft News But WHICH soft news shows should politicians appear on? Brewer and Coa (2006) looked at which appearences resulted in viewers learning more about the 2004 primary campaign Result? Comedy and Late Night better than Day Time

Soft News Come for the jokes leave with the political knowledge? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOW0Z2Czgzk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPh_raqO_A0

The Colbert Bump

The Colbert Bump https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHInZUyUiPw Fowler 2008 – its true! At least for Democrats Both in % change And donation amount

Any Questions? You, what’s your question?