Welcome to another edition of The Fix’s research roundup. In this instalment, we take a look at three studies: 

  • the power of humour in Ukraine’s fight against Russia;
  • journalists’ networks on Twitter;
  • young people’s perception of news on Instagram.

Let’s dive in.

“Humour as a strategic tool against disinformation: Ukraine’s response to Russia”

Can humour be a strategic tool to combat disinformation? According to the study by Olga Tokariuk, fellow at the Reuters Institute, this is exactly what is happening in the Ukrainian response to Russian disinformation after the 2022 invasion.

If we think about our daily lives, jokes and memes indeed not only boost morale but can also help foster a sense of unity and belonging among a specific group. Furthermore, comedy can be a way to gain global support by reaching audiences that may not typically engage in politics. Corneliu Bjola, Associate Professor of Diplomatic Studies at the University of Oxford, noted in Tokariuk’s report that “using humour in this case is not very intuitive. But when you […] use these kinds of memes—especially with cultural frames, like from The Simpsons or from movies that Western audiences are quite familiar with—then you know it’s easy [for audiences] to absorb that type of information”.

Example of a meme mocking Russia’s failure to seize Kyiv early into the full-scale invasion (source: “Humour as a strategic tool against disinformation” report)

There are also challenges in using this strategy, which centre around misinterpretation and oversimplification: the choice of content matters. Not all kinds of humour suit everyone and can result in offence. Memes can also oversimplify complex situations and even create a misleading picture of Ukrainians not suffering as much.

Thus, while humour and memes can be powerful tools in combating disinformation and fostering solidarity, it is crucial to use them judiciously. The effectiveness of humour relies on striking the right balance between being relatable and respectful, ensuring that the intended message is conveyed without trivialising the gravity of the situation or alienating certain audiences.

“Journalists’ networks: Homophily and peering over the shoulder of other journalists”

The study examines the influence of social media, specifically Twitter, on journalists’ professional environment and news coverage. Focusing on the U.S. area with the use case of politics, the authors find that journalists form connections based on shared journalistic values more than political ideologies. They also discover that working for a larger outlet is more impactful in the social media network, as journalists tend to “peer over the shoulder” of those who work at larger papers.

The study, motivation and methodology

Social media is an essential part of journalists’ professional routines, who rely on it to gather information, as well as for users who want to know what is happening in the world. At the same time, there has been no extensive study on the importance of social media networks for news production, particularly focusing on reporters’ echo chambers and the perception of professionals in using online resources to understand what is newsworthy and how to cover it. Indeed, while we know a fair amount about where people go for news, we know much less about the professional and social environment in which journalists work.

The authors of the study have therefore examined the Twitter network of about 5,000 U.S. political newspaper journalists, and combined this analysis with qualitative surveys of 247 of these journalists and data on their employment, focusing on the year 2017. This analysis reveals to what extent a social media channel like Twitter can influence news content through the construction and exchange of a similar value network, which in turn affects news consumers’ beliefs and behaviours. The network has been analysed by capturing who each user follows and who follows them, filtering out non-journalists and merging this data with survey data that asked respondents their journalistic values and political ideology.

The relationships among journalists

First of all, how are values exchanged across reporters’ circles, and what exactly are these values? Li, Hassell and Bond have selected values of ethical journalism according to the principles of the Society of Professional Journalism Code of Ethics: seeking and reporting the truth, minimising harm, acting independently, and being accountable and transparent. These beliefs form the foundation upon which the study is based, and they can change across journalistic circles according to their mutual contributions through two processes: 1) reporters discover and internalise the ethical norms of other reporters in their network; and 2) similar journalistic values may lead journalists to build professional relationships on social media based on homophily, therefore influenced by demographic similarities and shared values. As it’s more likely that people with similar traits tend to form ties more easily rather than those with dissimilar viewpoints, more questions arise: do these values also concern political ideologies, and to what extent are they important in forming journalistic network connections?

Key findings

In a previous article, we covered the phenomenon of homophily among journalists in the context of AI guidelines. This study, too, finds value homophily alongside demographic homophily as relevant. In short, journalists tend to connect with other journalists who share similar values. Furthermore, the social media followers of journalists also shared similar views on the importance of specific journalistic values.

Concerning political ideology, there seems to be no evidence of ideological homophily, as journalists tend to connect with others regardless of their political ideology, although very few journalists, the authors report, identified as conservative.

Building on previous research and evidence, the authors of the study note that journalists tend to consider larger news outlets more highly compared to smaller ones. This suggests that the size of a journalist’s employer explains how much attention their work receives from reporters elsewhere. These findings support and reinforce the concept of journalistic capital, which is the specific cultural capital cultivated by journalists in the field, accumulated by journalists working for larger newspapers.

“What feels like news? Young people’s perceptions of news on Instagram”

Our latest interesting article for this month comes from a commentary on Mark Coddington and Seth Lewis’ newsletter, RQ1. We know a great deal about users’ news consumption on social media. However, it can become difficult to distinguish news from entertainment on these channels; the presence of advertising and misinformation doesn’t help. This concept has been confirmed by research conducted by Sjart and Broersma, which views visual social media as an intriguing avenue for research. Thanks to in-depth interviews conducted from 2020 to 2022 with 111 Dutch smartphone users aged 16-25, the authors find that while young people are strongly aware of what news is or should be, this awareness does not align with how they experience it in their everyday practices.

Young people scrolling Instagram. Image automatically generated by DALL-E.

Using Instagram as a newsfeed

The modern era of news hybridisation and reliance on visual social media leads us to consider that, alongside new ways of news consumption, young people may also hold different news values compared to older generations. This shift could lead to different understandings of what constitutes news. For instance, is a picture of a refugee considered news? What is the boundary between what is perceived as information and social media content? Do sources matter in this context, or are they deemed less important?

Many newsrooms are now active on Instagram, a platform traditionally thought of as a space for entertainment. In this environment, young people are targeted; they tend to receive news from the accounts they follow, the social platform’s algorithmic curation, and their friends’ posts. At the same time, the limited space for text on these platforms forces the creation of new presentation formats such as memes or infographics.

Considering previous research on the cognitive perception of news, the authors of this study aim to expand this perspective with a sense-making approach to be analysed.

What do young people consider “news”: do they consider Instagram “news”? Four user responses to this research question

Thanks to a series of interviews conducted in three waves in the spring of 2020, 2021, and 2022, 111 Dutch young people between 16 and 25 years old participated in an in-depth survey about the apps they use for news. They also shared their thoughts while browsing their Instagram feed, revealing that their conceptualisations of news remained stable over time.

This interview data shows multiple interesting results. First of all, young people may not consume much news from legacy media, but they still recognise traditional journalism and understand the characteristics of news. At the same time, their experience of news is different. They might value the conciseness of news while understanding that social media is not always up-to-date and might be unreliable. Nevertheless, Instagram is considered a gateway to other platforms for further exploring articles. Negativity, in this context, is perceived by interviewees as a characteristic of news, leading them to view social media more as a website for entertainment and not really to focus on what’s happening in the world.

This user response, a “traditionalist” one, is just one among the four identified by the authors: reverting to traditional boundaries around news, distinguishing between different types of news, labelling all novel information as news, or re-interpreting classic news values and re-conceptualising news.

The study by Swart and Broersma highlights that apart from traditionalists, other groups are actively redefining the concept of news to align with their experiences on Instagram. They are broadening the traditional, more limited view of news to include content that resonates with them emotionally on the platform. The authors suggest that this emotional dimension of what constitutes “news” might be a crucial factor that journalists, who often focus on more rational markers of news, tend to overlook. According to them, these implicit and emotional aspects of news are just as significant to users as the more logical and cognitive elements.

The study reveals a wide array of interpretations regarding what constitutes news on Instagram according to young people, characterised by distinct markers that define various news genres. Concurrently, the data indicates conflicts between what is commonly recognised or labelled as news by others, and what individuals personally perceive as news in their daily consumption. This underscores the intricacies involved in determining what is considered “news” in the modern media environment, affecting users, journalists, and researchers alike.

Source of the cover photo: https://unsplash.com/

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