“Toxic atmosphere effect”: Uncivil online comments cue negative audience perceptions of news outlet credibility

Uncivil user comments have been found to have a negative effect on how people perceive an issue featured in the news, a news story, or a journalist who reports a news story. To advance this line of research, we draw on expectancy violations theory and the concept of heuristic cues to theorize the toxic atmosphere effect. We theorize that incivility in online comment threads could pose an even larger challenge to news organizations by cuing news audience members to perceive an entire news outlet—not just an individual story—as lacking in credibility. Based on two experiments in the United States (Study 1, n = 520; Study 2, n = 1056), we show that exposure to incivility can lead people to perceive a news outlet as less credible even though the incivility did not directly attack the news outlet. Such effects hold true even when people are exposed to comment threads in which the first several comments are civil. Democratic and business implications are discussed.

Metonymies, Immigration and the Press: From Ilegales to Guiris

The current paper explores the Lexical and Conceptual Metonymies employed by the Spanish press to refer to immigrants from cognitive and critical discourse perspectives. Two corpora of news stories are analyzed: the first contains news stories from the Comunidad de Madrid, whereas the second is contextualized and geolocalized in a particular area of Madrid, Lavapiés, where several studies have revealed a tendency to use the diversity present in this territory as a marketing strategy. The analysis brings to light differences and similarities in the underlying metonymical discourse of each corpus, namely in terms of the distribution of the Conceptual Metonymies found therein, as well as their correlation with a positive, neutral or negative assessment of the given news story. The metonymical discourse of the first corpus correlates most strongly with neutral assessments, while that of the second corpus correlates largely with positive assessments of the conceptualizations.

Biased perceptions against female scientists affect intentions to get vaccinated for COVID-19

Based on role congruity theory, we investigated how gender bias may influence public attitudes toward the vaccine in Turkey. Using a between-subjects design, we tested whether an emphasis on the female versus the male scientist as the vaccine’s inventor in a news story influenced attitudes about the BioNTech vaccine and vaccination intentions. Partly confirming role congruity theory, three-way interaction results from 665 participants demonstrated that among male participants with a stronger belief in traditional gender roles (compared to males with lower belief), the presence of the female inventor, either by herself or together with the male inventor, decreased the perceived efficacy and safety of the vaccine and reduced intentions to be vaccinated by the BioNTech vaccine. We did not observe such differences for women. These findings highlight how gender bias may influence individuals’ information processing and decision making in a way that may have negative consequences for public health.

The Impact of Unfamiliar Proper Names on ESL Learners' Listening Comprehension

<p>Vocabulary knowledge is a prerequisite to successful comprehension for native speakers and second language learners alike. Proper names, a peculiar and diverse group of lexical items, have long been the focus of discussion in general linguistics but have received practically no attention in second language vocabulary acquisition research. This study is the first attempt to assess whether proper names impact on second language learners' listening ability. First, I examine the question of how proper names can be adequately defined and discuss their semantic, structural, pragmatic and functional properties. I analyze proper names in light of the prototype theory and argue that personal, deity and pet names constitute the core of the proper name category. Names of places and enterprises occupy an intermediate position while names of events and artefacts are considered the least prototypical, i.e. peripheral members of the category. After identifying essential properties of prototypical proper names, I argue that in a spoken (as opposed to a written) text proper names cannot be considered automatically known items and place high demands on the listeners' cognitive resources. English as a second language (ESL) learners have to bring in a large amount of linguistic and encyclopaedic knowledge in order to cope with proper names in the flow of speech. I propose a 3-level model of such knowledge: recognition -> categorization -> referent properties. I then subject this model to empirical testing. The first experiment shows that among intermediate to advanced ESL learners the proper names recognition rate is around 60 percent. It is harder for ESL listeners to recognize proper names when the percentage of difficult common vocabulary in the text is high. The participants' proficiency level and the structure of a specific text were also found to affect the ability to recognize unfamiliar names. Well over a third of proper names are missed, which suggests that in real life listening, ESL learners mistake unknown common expressions for proper names and vice versa. In the second experiment, the participants' comprehension of a news story is tested under two conditions: Names Known (all proper names are familiar prior to listening) and Names Unknown (all proper names are unfamiliar). Results indicate that the presence of unfamiliar proper names hinders the intermediate to advanced proficiency learners' comprehension of a short news text as measured by immediate free recall and the ability to evaluate proper names related statements. The effect is local; it concerns comprehension of details, particularly those details that are associated with processing the proper names themselves. The Names Unknown group produced fewer details and more incorrect inferences in their recalls, scored significantly lower on the measure of proper names related comprehension, and selfreported a lower amount of comprehension. In contrast, the Names Known group produced more details and fewer incorrect inferences in their recalls, scored much higher on the measure of proper names related comprehension, and self-reported a greater degree of comprehension. The experiment also shows that participants in the Names Unknown treatment were not always able to ascertain from context what the referent of an unfamiliar proper name is, and in cases when they did, they could not extract as much information about the referent as the participants in the Names Known treatment had available. It is evidently unrealistic to expect ESL learners to determine what unfamiliar proper names refer to from context. On average, after 2-3 attempts at listening participants in the Names Unknown group were able to extract just over 40 percent of the information about the referents of unfamiliar proper names. Also participants' difficulty ratings of experimental tasks confirmed that the presence of unfamiliar proper names definitely makes the text seem harder to understand. The last experiment replicated the findings of the previous one on a larger sample. The Names Known group performed significantly better on open-ended questions and true-false-don't know statements. A substantial effect of unfamiliar proper names on the overall comprehension scores was found. Around 17 percent of the variance in the scores was accounted for by familiarity/lack of familiarity with proper names. The findings also provide some evidence in support of the claim that a name form that hints at the cognitive category its referent belongs to is less likely to adversely affect comprehension than a form that does not. Unfamiliar proper names contribute to raising the vocabulary threshold in second language listening, which should be taken into account by teachers, test-developers and other TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) professionals.</p>

The Impact of Unfamiliar Proper Names on ESL Learners' Listening Comprehension

<p>Vocabulary knowledge is a prerequisite to successful comprehension for native speakers and second language learners alike. Proper names, a peculiar and diverse group of lexical items, have long been the focus of discussion in general linguistics but have received practically no attention in second language vocabulary acquisition research. This study is the first attempt to assess whether proper names impact on second language learners' listening ability. First, I examine the question of how proper names can be adequately defined and discuss their semantic, structural, pragmatic and functional properties. I analyze proper names in light of the prototype theory and argue that personal, deity and pet names constitute the core of the proper name category. Names of places and enterprises occupy an intermediate position while names of events and artefacts are considered the least prototypical, i.e. peripheral members of the category. After identifying essential properties of prototypical proper names, I argue that in a spoken (as opposed to a written) text proper names cannot be considered automatically known items and place high demands on the listeners' cognitive resources. English as a second language (ESL) learners have to bring in a large amount of linguistic and encyclopaedic knowledge in order to cope with proper names in the flow of speech. I propose a 3-level model of such knowledge: recognition -> categorization -> referent properties. I then subject this model to empirical testing. The first experiment shows that among intermediate to advanced ESL learners the proper names recognition rate is around 60 percent. It is harder for ESL listeners to recognize proper names when the percentage of difficult common vocabulary in the text is high. The participants' proficiency level and the structure of a specific text were also found to affect the ability to recognize unfamiliar names. Well over a third of proper names are missed, which suggests that in real life listening, ESL learners mistake unknown common expressions for proper names and vice versa. In the second experiment, the participants' comprehension of a news story is tested under two conditions: Names Known (all proper names are familiar prior to listening) and Names Unknown (all proper names are unfamiliar). Results indicate that the presence of unfamiliar proper names hinders the intermediate to advanced proficiency learners' comprehension of a short news text as measured by immediate free recall and the ability to evaluate proper names related statements. The effect is local; it concerns comprehension of details, particularly those details that are associated with processing the proper names themselves. The Names Unknown group produced fewer details and more incorrect inferences in their recalls, scored significantly lower on the measure of proper names related comprehension, and selfreported a lower amount of comprehension. In contrast, the Names Known group produced more details and fewer incorrect inferences in their recalls, scored much higher on the measure of proper names related comprehension, and self-reported a greater degree of comprehension. The experiment also shows that participants in the Names Unknown treatment were not always able to ascertain from context what the referent of an unfamiliar proper name is, and in cases when they did, they could not extract as much information about the referent as the participants in the Names Known treatment had available. It is evidently unrealistic to expect ESL learners to determine what unfamiliar proper names refer to from context. On average, after 2-3 attempts at listening participants in the Names Unknown group were able to extract just over 40 percent of the information about the referents of unfamiliar proper names. Also participants' difficulty ratings of experimental tasks confirmed that the presence of unfamiliar proper names definitely makes the text seem harder to understand. The last experiment replicated the findings of the previous one on a larger sample. The Names Known group performed significantly better on open-ended questions and true-false-don't know statements. A substantial effect of unfamiliar proper names on the overall comprehension scores was found. Around 17 percent of the variance in the scores was accounted for by familiarity/lack of familiarity with proper names. The findings also provide some evidence in support of the claim that a name form that hints at the cognitive category its referent belongs to is less likely to adversely affect comprehension than a form that does not. Unfamiliar proper names contribute to raising the vocabulary threshold in second language listening, which should be taken into account by teachers, test-developers and other TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) professionals.</p>

Communicating sustainable environment and pro-poor policy in tourism in Indonesia: A discourse network analysis

The development of tourism to increase the regional economy sometimes becomes a source of environmental damages. The problem that is addressed in this paper is: how can tourism development support the sustainable environment policy and at the same time increase the economy. This study aims to analyze how the values of sustainable environment and economic development are represented and discussed in the tourism policy of Geopark Karangsambung-Karangbolong (GKK), Kebumen, Central Java, Indonesia. This study employs a quantitative approach with Discourse Network Analysis as the main technique. The data is taken from the news stories published on the geopark.kebumenkab.go.id before the Covid-19 pandemic (January 2019 – March 15, 2020) and during the pandemic (March 16, 2020 – June 30, 2021). The unit of analysis is words or phrases in the news story which represent: (1) discourses on preserving the healthy environment; (2) discourses on improving the economic welfare and reducing poverty; and (3) network of actors related to the discourse. This study finds that the communication of GKK sustainable environment policy contains discourses on sustainable tourism, affirmative actions to poverty reduction in the region, and the involvement of the pentahelix elements.

The Cyber Avatar of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace: Media Analysis of Reports During COVID-19

Background: Whether working at physical workplaces or from the seeming safety of home, women employees continue to be hounded by sexual harassment. During COVID-19, sexual harassment has taken on a cyber avatar and continues to enjoy the protections afforded by ambiguity and inept implementation. Objectives: The study explores how media reported cyber sexual harassment (CSH) during a 1-year period after COVID-19 in India. It explores the dominant discourses evident in such media reports, such as the ways in which CSH is manifested, psychosocial factors behind the same, action taken (if any), and organizational practices. Method: The present study involved content analysis of electronic print media content (newspapers and magazines) published in India, in the English language, between the period March 2020 and February 2021. A final pool of 24 articles was purposively arrived at through an Internet-based search, which was classified as news story, editorial, opinion piece, interview, column, and other. Content analysis of the articles was carried out to uncover the main themes. Within these themes, the researchers carried out open coding to identify subthemes. Results: Six broad themes emerged from the articles: manifestations of CSH, causes of CSH, outcomes of CSH, action taken by the victim, organizational practices, and barriers in seeking redressal. Manifestations included inappropriate behavior by boss/colleagues during meeting (30.6%), social media harassment (22.6%), video calls/meeting/work at odd hours (17.7%), inappropriate attire (14.5%), sexist behavior and comments (8.1%), and inappropriate jokes (6.2%). Some of the causes reported for CSH were blurring of personal and professional boundaries, lack of guidelines regarding virtual workplaces, job uncertainty, and notions of patriarchy. Only 29.2% articles highlighted any action(s) taken by the victim. Some of the barriers in seeking redressal were reported to be lack of awareness and/or clear guidelines, fear about the repercussions, difficulty in proving CSH, daunting appellate process, lack of privacy with family members around, and patriarchal culture. Conclusion: The study reiterates the need for clear and consistent communication on CSH, both in organizations and through the media. It is imperative not only to revive and modify the existing policies on CSH but also to implement them effectively. In the “new normal,” organizations need to formulate responses that are multilevel, swift, and coordinated across stakeholders, policymakers, technology specialists, and social scientists.

Understanding the link between audience engagement metrics and the perceived quality of online news using machine learning

This article aims to explain the perceived quality of online news articles. Discovering which elements of a news story influence readers’ perceptions could drive online popularity, which is the paramount factor of digital news readership. This work explores an approach to use tree-based machine learning algorithms to address this problem based on selected characteristics, which measure engagement, drawn from prior research mostly developed by communication scientists. A proposed extended model is used to examine the association between the engagement features and perceived quality concerning all the articles depending mainly on their genre. To demonstrate the capacity of using predictive analytics to facilitate journalistic news writing the proposed methodology is applied on a novel data set with 200K articles in total constructed from a blog site. The results of phase A, indicate interesting correlations between the features and the perceived quality of the articles. In stage B, the paper seeks to extract a set of rules that can be used as guidelines for authors in the writing of their next articles, indicating the probability of popularity that their articles may gain if these rules are taken into consideration.

Negativity In Online News Coverage Of Vaccination Rates In Serbia: A Content Analysis

The news media can influence how the public and policymakers feel about vaccination. Perhaps under the impression that such messages can be fear-inducing and thus mobilizing, the media often laments low immunization rates. This could, however, activate a powerful descriptive social norm (“many people are not getting vaccinated”) and may be especially ill-advised in the absence of a herd-immunity explanation (that if enough people have immunity through vaccination, the virus is contained). To identify typical media practices, we analyzed the content of 160 vaccination-related news stories by nine highest-trafficked news websites in Serbia, published July–December 2017, around the start of the measles outbreak. We coded both the news story as a whole and every vaccination-rate mention (N = 339). News stories framed current vaccination rates and changes in vaccination rates in a predominantly negative way (175/241 and 67/98, respectively) (e.g., “only 50% vaccinated”, “fewer parents vaccinating their children”). A total of 24/86 of news stories mentioning vaccination rates did not provide any numerical values. Reference groups for vaccination rates were rarely specified. Out of the 32 news stories mentioning the term herd or collective immunity, 11 explained the effect. We show that even routine communication of vaccination rates can be biased through (often negatively valenced) attribute frames and imprecise descriptions. We provide initial recommendations for news media organizations and journalists, including strategies to promote positive dynamic norms and prescriptive norms and explain benefits of herd immunity.

Social media users (under)appreciate the news: An application of hostile media bias to news disseminated on Facebook

News outlets rely on social media to freely distribute content, offering a venue for users to comment on news. This exposes individuals to user comments prior to reading news articles, which can influence perceptions of news content. A 2 × 2 between-subject experiment (N = 690) tested the hostile media bias theory via the influence of comments seen before viewing a news story on perceptions of bias and credibility. Results show that user comments induce hostile media perceptions.