This pilot study of networked news organizations in the San Francisco Bay ..... of the San Francisco Chronicle, and alamanacnews.com is the online site of a ...
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
Study of the Bay Area News System David Ryfe, Donica Mensing, Hayreddin Ceker, and Mehmet Gunes This pilot study of networked news organizations in the San Francisco Bay area examined linking from a small number of sites and that traditional news sites attract the most links within the ecosystem. However we discovered that many links are driven by commercial concerns and do not news sector indicate the development of an alternative model of relationship building. We conclude
Introduction
and audience attention to these sources is too fragmented, for the news media to
Researchers have explained the waning of the news media’s agenda setting role as a consequence of structure rather than choice.
152
makes the web an information-saturated environment, and audiences are fragmenting
such characteristic is that hubs, a relatively small subset of nodes, strongly mediate the
they have done for decades.
setters in their communities.
The data suggest that regional dailies are voluntarily relinquishing their role as agenda setters in their communities. Literature Review
1
these dailies mostly link to themselves, and that most of this internal linking seems to be
153
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
little interest in the information environment beyond their own sites, or that commercial -
use marketing tools to discover audience interests, and devote most of their resources to delivering content that aligns with these interests. The result has been less investment
2
The web is not inevitably hostile to the formation of coherent news agendas
demonstrate that the web is not inevitably hostile to the formation of coherent news agendas, at least in regional news systems.
Methods The extant literature on news agenda formation online is scant. Thus far, much of this
generated during one week.
154
identify the news agenda, researchers conducted content analyses of elite news outlets in a given community. Because their reach was limited, and they mostly followed the cues of elite news outlets anyway, less elite outlets were ignored by researchers. dominant. Given the greater diversity of information online, and the fact that online audiences are much more fragmented, it may be the case that no outlet follows the cue of any other outlet.3 their traditional analyses of content. q, site p
q has
more such links site q accumulates from other sites, the more one may say that site q
Columbia Journalism Review
online content analysis.
Are sites that attract the most links necessarily the
155
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
Results on online news. Traditional news media tend to link to one another much more than to -
Site
# of In-Bound Links
Total
San Jose Mercury News Siliconvalley.com, The Oakland Tribune Times
Contra Costa
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
of the San Francisco Chronicle
Site
# of In-Bound Links
Sf.eater.com
30,140
Total -
For instance, in a calculation of Eigenvector centrality, which measures the degree to
by far, in this news system.
Traditional media organizations own the most popular sites, by far, in this news system.
tend to reach larger audiences. The advertising revenue generated by these large outlets more ability to determine the stories and issues that will circulate through a
the network.
certain dynamic takes root. First, the earliest nodes in a network tend naturally to have more connections, and their connections to others grow faster as the network enlarges.
2
, T3
1
, the more likely it
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
Mercury News
Site
Measure of “Closeness Centrality” 4.00
Sfbayview.com
Claycord.com
3.51
Siliconvalley.com
3.4
Pleasantonweekly.com
3.32
The San Francisco Chronicle links are to sites owned by the Chronicle: imgs.sfgate.com, local.sfgate.com, subscriber-
real estate. Figure 2. Sfgate.com Cluster
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
numbers generated, and so the higher the ad rates that can be charged.
the Chronicle
Chronicle
that Chronicle th
Chronicle stories, and no Chronicle Chronicle for readily available content. The Chronicle’s
Discussion ally set news agendas because they have greater access to sources of information and
-
Reaching large audiences happens differently online.
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle never be so cohesive as when McCombs and Shaw conducted their original agenda
to do so?
Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle, the Milwaukee Sentinel, and the Sacramento Bee
California Watch has more reciprocal relationships with other sites in the news system than any other site This network certainly has access to sources and resources that rival any daily Los Angeles Times
Conclusion networks are able to drive issues onto the news agenda of the broader system. We
regarding the changing dynamics of a networked news system as distinct from, or in addition to, a mass media news ecosystem.
The weakened agenda-setting role of traditional media in regional news systems is not due to anything intrinsic to networked environments weakened agenda-setting role of traditional media in regional news systems is not due to anything intrinsic to networked environments. Rather, our data indicate that the
communications environment is critical to future success.
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
References Science, 286(5439),
Linked: How everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science, and everyday life The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven:
The handbook of political communication Nexus: Small worlds and the groundbreaking science of networks New Media Society, 12
online. New Media and Society, 5(2),
Journalism Studies, 4, 401-414.
The News about the News: American Journalism in Peril
Breaking the news: How the media undermine American democracy ism The State of the News Media 2011.
Public Choice, 134(1–2),
New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 17
The New York Times. Retrieved from Linking audiences to news: A network analysis of Chicago websites, Chicago
Community Trust. Retrieved from
of weblogs. Retrieved from
web sites. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 54 050
Javnost, 18 Gigaom. Retrieved from Journalism Studies, 11
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 83
Political Communication, 15(2),
radio. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 87 Journalism Studies, 6(4),
Market-driven journalism: Let the citizen beware?
Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 41, 1-12. Women, men, and news: Divided and disconnected in the news media landscape
networks. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 14
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 88
#ISOJ Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2012
Communication campaigns about drugs: Government, media, public Lawrence Erlbaum.
media in the global news arena. Journalism, 8(3), Breach of faith: A crisis of coverage in the age of corporate newspapering. Fay-
Political Communication, 11(3),
Communication Research, 29(1),
Doc Searls Weblog. Retrieved from
The Bay Citizen Retrieved from
-
Altimeter Group.
Read All About It! The Corporate Takeover of America’s Newspapers Wall Street Journal Retrieved from
blog. Neiman Journalism Lab. Retrieved from
Convergence, 11
:
When MBAs Rule the Newsroom: How the Marketers and Managers are Reshaping Today’s Media Six degrees: The science of a connected age
endnotes -
agenda setting.
David Ryfe is an Associate Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has conducted research on presidential communication, public deliberation, the history of journalism, and the sociology of journalism. His recent book, Can Journalism Survive? has been published by Polity Press (2012). Donica Mensing is an Associate Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research interests include networked news, online journalism and journalism education. She writes about journalism and education on her blog, Networked Journalism Education. Hayreddin Ceker, receive his B.S. degree from Bogazici University in Turkey and is currently M.S. student in Computer Science and Engineering department of University of Nevada, Reno. Mehmet Gunes is an Assistant Professor at University of Nevada, Reno. His research interests include communication protocols, complex networks, biological and social networks, graph data mining, network visualization, Internet topology measurement, Internet modeling, network security, anonymizer technologies, private communication, and secure cloud.
