The dissemination of science news in social media platforms during the COVID-19 crisis: Characteristics and selection criteria
Main Article Content
Abstract

This study explores the specific characteristics of science news stories posted on social media platforms during the first phase of the global pandemic crisis (the first semester of 2020). The focus of the study is to enhance our understanding of the selection criteria for science-related news content posted on social media platforms. Our approach takes into consideration the evolving technological environment of these platforms and the new relationships between media professionals and social media users. Our findings indicate that, under specific circumstances, scientific discoveries may be prioritized in the selection of news stories. We also suggest specific additions to the framework proposed by Harcup and O’Neil (2017), indicating that news stories during crisis situations are more internationally oriented, where audience proximity is created not around “nearby” events but those occurring in other countries around the world. In times of crisis, the main target of news stories is not simply to attract the audience’s interest with classic clickbait tactics but to respond to the immediate socio-political context in a meaningful way.
Keywords
References
Ahuvia, A. (2008). Traditional, interpretive, and reception-based content analyses: Improving the ability of content analysis to address issues of pragmatic and theoretical concern. In R. P. Franzosi (Ed.), Content analysis (Volume 1): What is content analysis? Defining the methodological playing field (pp. 185-209). London, UK: Sage.
Al-Zaman, M. S. (2021). Social media and COVID-19 misinformation: How ignorant Facebook users are? Heliyon, 7(5), e07144. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e07144
Baek, K., Holton, A., Harp, D. & Yaschur, C. (2011). The links that bind: Uncovering novel motivations for linking on Facebook. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(6), 2243-2248. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.07.003
Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A., Valensise, C. M., Brugnoli, E., Schmidt, A. L., Zola, P., Zollo, F. & Scala, A. (2020). The covid-19 social media infodemic. arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.05004. https://www.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5
Cohen, E. L. (2002). Online journalism as market-driven journalism. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 46(4), 532-548. https://www.doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4604_3
Condor, S. & Gibson, S. (2007). 'Everybody's entitled to their own opinion': Ideological dilemmas of liberal individualism and active citizenship. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 17(2), 115-140. https://www.doi.org/10.1002/casp.885
Deuze, M. (2003). The web and its journalisms: Considering the consequences of different types of newsmedia online. New Media & Society, 5(2), 203-230. https://www.doi.org/ 10.1177/1461444803005002004
Ferrara, E. (2020). #covid-19 on Twitter: Bots, conspiracies, and social media activism. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.09531. https://www.doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2004.09531
Gallotti, R., Valle, F., Castaldo, N., Sacco, P. & De Domenico, M. (2020). Assessing the risks of 'infodemics' in response to COVID-19 epidemics. arXiv preprint arXiv: 2004.03997. https://www.doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-00994-6
Galtung, J. & Ruge, M. H. (1965). The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research, 2(1), 64-90. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/002234336500200104
Grabe, M. E., Zhou, S. & Barnett, B. (2001). Explicating sensationalism in television news: Content and the bells and whistles of form. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 45(4), 635-655. https://www.doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4504_6
Hamilton, J. (2004). All the news that's fit to sell: How the market transforms information into news. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400841417
Hammad, M. A. & Alqarni, T. M. (2021). Psychosocial effects of social media on the Saudi society during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic: A cross-sectional study. PLoS One, 16(3), e0248811. https://www.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248811
Harcup, T. & O'Neill, D. (2001). What is news? Galtung and Ruge revisited. Journalism Studies, 2(2), 261-280. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/14616700118449
Harcup, T. & O'Neill, D. (2017). What is news? News values revisited (again). Journalism Studies, 18(12), 1470-1488. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1150193
Islam, M. S., Sarkar, T., Khan, S. H., Kamal, A. H. M., Hasan, S. M. et al. (2020). COVID-19-related infodemic and its impact on public health: A global social media analysis. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 103(4), 1621-1629. https://www.doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.20-0812.
Kepplinger, H. M. & Ehmig, S. C. (2006). Predicting news decisions. An empirical test of the two-component theory of news selection. Communications, 31(1), 25-43. https://www.doi.org/10.1515/COMMUN.2006.003
Kim, L., Fast, S. M. & Markuzon, M. (2019). Incorporating media data into a model of infectious disease transmission. PloS One, 14(2) e0197646. https://www.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0197646
Lee, C. S. & Ma, L. (2012). News sharing in social media: The effect of gratifications and prior experience. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 331-339. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2011.10.002
McGregor, J. (2002). Restating news values: Contemporary criteria for selecting the news. In M. Power (Ed.), Communication: Reconstructed for the 21st Century: Refereed Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association International Conference (pp. 1-7). Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA).
McQuail, D. (1994). Mass communication theory. London: Sage.
Mendoza, M., Poblete, B. & Castillo, C. (2010). Twitter under crisis: Can we trust what we RT? In P. Melville, J. Leskovec & F. Provost (Eds.), Proceedings of the First Workshop on Social Media Analytics (pp. 71-79). New York: Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/1964858.1964869
Newman, N. (2011). Mainstream media and the distribution of news in the age of social media. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Oxford: University of Oxford.
O'Neill, D. & Harcup, T. (2020). News values and news selection. In K. Wahl-Jorgensen & T. Hanitzsch (Eds.), Handbook of journalism studies (2nd ed.) (pp. 213-228). New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315167497-14
Papa, V. & Maniou, T.A. (2020). Recurrent narratives around the COVID-19 crisis in social networks: a case study analysis on Facebook. Tripodos, 2(47), 11-28. https://doi.org/10.51698/tripodos.2020.47p11-28
Phillips, A. (2012). Sociability, speed and quality in the changing news environment. Journalism Practice, 6(5-6), 669-679. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2012.689476
Russell-Neuman, W., Guggenheim, L., Mo Jang, S. & Bae, S. Y. (2014). The dynamics of public attention: Agenda-setting theory meets big data. Journal of Communication, 64(2), 193-214. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12088
Shifman, L., Coleman, S. & Ward, S. (2007). Only joking? Online humour in the 2005 UK general election. Information, Community and Society, 10(4), 465-487. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/13691180701559947
Shoemaker, P. J. & Vos, T. (2009). Gatekeeping theory. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203931653
Starbird, K., Maddock, J., Orand, M., Achterman, P. & Mason, R. M. (2014). Rumors, false flags, and digital vigilantes: Misinformation on Twitter after the 2013 Boston marathon bombing (pp. 654-662). IConference 2014 Proceedings.
Tewksbury, D. (2003). What do Americans really want to know? Tracking the behavior of news readers on the Internet. Journal of Communication, 53(4), 694-710. https://www.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2003.tb02918.x
Thorson, E. (2008). Changing patterns of news consumption and participation: News recommendation engines. Information, Communication & Society, 11(4), 473-489. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/13691180801999027
Thurman, N. & Myllylahti, M. (2009). Taking the paper out of news: A case study of Taloussanomat, Europe's first online-only newspaper. Journalism Studies, 10(5), 691-708. https://www.doi.org/10.1080/14616700902812959
Tumber, H. (1999). News: A reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Villar-Rodríguez, G., Souto-Rico, M. & Martín, A. (2022). Virality, only the tip of the iceberg: ways of spread and interaction around COVID-19 misinformation in Twitter. Communication & Society, 35(2), 239-256. https://www.doi.org/10.15581/003.35.2.239-256
WHO (2020). WHO Situation Report 13. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200202-sitrep-13-ncov-v3.pdf?sfvrsn=195f4010_6 . (Accessed: 2010-09-30).
Zarocostas, J. (2020). How to fight an infodemic. The Lancet, 395(10225), 676. https://www.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30461-X
Details
Article Details

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
RIGHTS TRANSFER
By submitting the article for evaluation and subsequent publication in Communication & Society, the AUTHOR exclusively assigns the rights of public communication, reproduction, distribution and sale for commercial exploitation to the University of Navarra through its Publications Service, for the maximum legal term in force -the entire life of the author and seventy years after his death or declaration of death-, in any country, and in any of the current and future edition modalities, both in print and electronic versions.
In the event that the article is not accepted for publication , this transfer of rights lapses with the communication of the refusal to the AUTHOR.
The AUTHOR affirms that the article is unpublished, that it has not been sent simultaneously to another publication medium and that the rights have not been transferred exclusively previously. He is responsible to the University of Navarra through its Publications Service for the authorship and originality of his work, as well as for all pecuniary charges that may arise for the University of Navarra through its Publications Service, in favor of third parties due to actions, claims or conflicts arising from the breach of obligations by the AUTHOR.