I am the James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University and Director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy. My research interests focus on media institutions and media policy. My most recent book is Social Media and the Public Interest: Media Regulation in the Disinformation Age (Columbia University Press, 2019). My previous books include Audience Evolution: New Technologies and the Transformation of Media Audiences (Columbia University Press) and Communications Research in Action: Scholar-Activist Collaborations for a Democratic Public Sphere (Fordham University Press), which I co-edited with Minna Aslama.
I have also authored Audience Economics: Media Institutions and the Audience Marketplace (Columbia University Press, 2003) and Foundations of Communications Policy: Principles and Process in the Regulation of Electronic Media (Hampton Press, 2001). Address: School of Communication and Information
Rutgers University
4 Huntington St.
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
This article examines ongoing efforts to discourage disinformation and hate speech research in th... more This article examines ongoing efforts to discourage disinformation and hate speech research in the U.S. These initiatives originate from a variety of institutional actors, including digital platforms, congressional committees, state attorneys general, and advocacy organizations. It employs the conceptual framework of agnotology, which refers to the study of deliberate culturally or politically induced ignorance. Through an analysis of over 1,800 pages of primary documents, it identifies the strategic approaches employed, the outcomes, and the broader democratic implications associated with these efforts to create and maintain knowledge gaps in the disinformation and hate speech arenas.
In the United States, debates about political bias in the content curation and moderation practic... more In the United States, debates about political bias in the content curation and moderation practices of social media platforms have spilled over into the policy realm, rekindling conversations about the Fairness Doctrine and its potential utility in possible regulatory approaches to social media. This article revisits the history of the Fairness Doctrine and uses this history as a lens for critically examining current proposals for integrating Fairness Doctrine‐like principles into a regulatory framework for social media. In addressing this topic, the first section of this article provides a brief overview of the history of the Fairness Doctrine and how the Doctrine has informed (and misinformed) subsequent media policy debates in the years since its elimination. The second section describes how the Fairness Doctrine is being brought to bear in the contemporary debates around social media regulation. The third section offers a critical analysis of the applicability of the Fairness Do...
A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistan... more A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Rather, companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have regularly insisted that they should be thought of purely as technology companies. This paper critiques the position that these platforms are technology companies rather than media companies, explores the underlying rationales, and considers the political, legal, and policy implications associated with accepting or rejecting this position. As this paper illustrates, this is no mere semantic distinction, given the history of the precise classification of communications technologies and services having profound ramifications for how these technologies and services are considered by policy-makers and the courts.
The Communication Crisis in America, And How to Fix It, 2016
Today’s communications economy is fundamentally different from the communications economy that ch... more Today’s communications economy is fundamentally different from the communications economy that characterized the previous “mass media era” in ways that dramatically affect the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and information critical to the effective functioning of democracy. As the traditional news business model has declined, big data, content farms, and new media platforms are serving as increasingly important mechanisms for analyzing, creating, and disseminating news and information. Yet these trends also exacerbate “one-way flows,” single-subject news models, audience fragmentation, and shifting tensions between large and small market journalism. The nature of the technological changes that have affected the news industry are interacting with certain fundamental economic characteristics of news content, news audiences, and the news marketplace as a whole.
This paper examines the emergence of social TV analytics as an alternative to traditional televis... more This paper examines the emergence of social TV analytics as an alternative to traditional television ratings. Drawing upon data from three of the leading providers of social TV analytics, this paper investigates the extent to which these measurement systems are providing comparable representations of audience engagement with individual television programs and networks. The findings suggest that, across most criteria, these services are providing largely incompatible representations of audience engagement with television. The paper then considers the implications of these findings for the possible institutionalization of social TV metrics as a supplement or alternative to traditional television ratings.
ABSTRACT This article provides a critical comparative analysis of mobile versus personal computer... more ABSTRACT This article provides a critical comparative analysis of mobile versus personal computer (PC)-based forms of Internet access. Drawing from an interdisciplinary body of literature, it illustrates a wide range of ways in which mobile Internet access offers lower levels of functionality and content availability; operates on less open and flexible platforms; and contributes to diminished levels of user engagement, content creation, and information seeking. At a time when a growing proportion of the online population is “mobile only,” these disparities have created what is termed here a mobile Internet underclass. The implications of this argument for digital divide policymaking and, more broadly, for the evolutionary trajectory of the Internet and the dynamics of Internet usage are discussed.
For an increasing proportion of the population worldwide, mobile-based forms of Internet access r... more For an increasing proportion of the population worldwide, mobile-based forms of Internet access represent the primary means of going online. Furthermore, for some sectors, mobile-based forms of Internet access are the only means for connecting online. Much has been written about the tremendous benefits, and even the transformative capacity, associated with this global mobile diffusion. Though there is much to be gained from what might be called the ongoing mobile conversion, in which mobile Internet access supplants wireline access via PCs/laptops, there are significant drawbacks as well. This paper seeks to offer a somewhat contrarian perspective to the overwhelmingly positive discourse that has accompanied discussions of the rise of mobile Internet access. Specifically, this paper argues that the transition from fixed to mobile forms of Internet access represents an evolutionary regression across some key dimensions. In particular, the mobile conversion brings with it a significant step backwards in terms of the activity and autonomy that the Internet has, to this point, brought to media audiences. It is this re-passification of the audience that is the focal point of this analysis. In addressing these issues, this paper begins with a theoretical grounding in media and audience evolution. Specifically, this paper begins with an examination of the institutional tensions and resistance patterns that have historically characterized the dynamic between media and audiences, with a particular emphasis on the extent to which media systems have facilitated or discouraged audience activity and content creation. Next, this paper examines the evidence that the dynamics of mobile Internet content provision and usage are fundamentally different from the traditional PC-based Internet in ways that represent a regression of the Internet’s capabilities, particularly in terms of facilitating a more active, content-creating and distributing role for the audience. It is suggested that relative to the PC-based model of Internet access and usage, the mobile Internet is, in many ways, a significant step back towards a more passive audience model in which the traditional boundaries between content providers and audiences that the Internet has thus far helped to break down are to some extent being re-established.
The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 2008
Cultural and media policy have remained largely distinct fields of research, policymaking, and po... more Cultural and media policy have remained largely distinct fields of research, policymaking, and policy advocacy in the United States. There are, however, significant areas of overlap between these two areas that have not been fully explored. The author examines the linkages between the two fields, covering the traditional lines of demarcation that have separated them; contemporary developments that compel stronger overlap in terms of their substantive areas of concern; the shared, normative principles between the two areas; the ...
Technological Visions originated as a series of projects at the Annenberg Schools for Communicati... more Technological Visions originated as a series of projects at the Annenberg Schools for Communication at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania. Both the original projects and the material added for this volume were selected with the aim of presenting a range of perspectives on technological innovation and the strong emotions it engenders in American culture. This works well for the reader seeking a range of viewpoints, but makes it hard on a reviewer trying to tease out themes from among eighteen very different essays. Bearing in mind that any summary must leave out as much as it reveals, I will focus on three issues that come to the fore in many of the contributions: the shock of the new, virtual reality versus “real” reality, and the centrality of specific technologies to our overall vision of technology. The shock that new technology has created and continues to create, despite its importance to American cultural self-definition, is the theme of essays by Langdon Winner and Lynn Speigel. Speigel’s is titled “Portable TV: Studies in Domestic Space Travels.” Winner’s “Sow’s Ears from Silk Purses” addresses the “visionary enthusiasm” (p. 34) that always accompanies new technologies in American culture. Such enthusiasm is aptly demonstrated in the case of Arthur Little, a chemical engineer, who showed that it is indeed possible to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The futurist penchant of pundits is addressed in three contributions, David Nye’s “Technological Prediction: A Promethean Problem,” John Perry Barlow’s “The Future of Prediction,” and Wendy Grossman’s “Penguins, Predictions, and Technological Optimism: A Skeptic’s View.” Nye provides a historical critique of futurism, while Grossman takes aim at the capacity of the Internet to generate predictions of its own glorious future. Barlow, in contrast, suggests that predictions of enormous changes wrought by technology have, in fact, come true. That the impact of new technologies continues to vary widely among different ethnic and economic groups is confirmed by Jennifer Gibbs and her coauthors in “The Globalization of Every Day Life,” a study of differing concepts of globalization among seven Los Angeles communities. A second theme in Technological Visions concerns virtual reality. Sherry Turkle’s “Spinning Technology” explores the way in which children make sense of their computer experience by trying to relate it to the values and attitudes present in their upbringing. In “Science Fiction Film and the Technological Imagination,” Vivian Sobchack argues that science fiction owes less to the “objectivity” of science and technology than to the “subjecB O O K R E V I E W S
The regulation of media industries is undergoing a period of intense change. New technologies suc... more The regulation of media industries is undergoing a period of intense change. New technologies such as direct broadcast satellite, digital television, satellite radio, and the Internet are dramatically changing the competitive landscape and placing strains on traditional regulatory models. In many nations, the transition from a government-controlled to a commercial, privatized media system is ongoing. Regulatory philosophies, as well as the processes by which regulatory decisions are made are, in many nations, in a state of flux ...
Audiences are the primary product manufactured and sold by advertisersupported media. In selling ... more Audiences are the primary product manufactured and sold by advertisersupported media. In selling audiences to advertisers, media firms deal in human attention, which resists the type of exact verification and quantification typical of transactions in other industries (Napoli forthcoming). Verifying the presence of human attention to media generally requires entering people's living rooms, bedrooms and cars, and monitoring their behaviour. For such monitoring to be maximally effective requires audience members' explicit permission and ...
Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 2001
This study investigates whether market conditions affect the provision of public affairs programm... more This study investigates whether market conditions affect the provision of public affairs programming by television broadcasters. The study examined a random sample of 112 commercial broadcast stations in order to determine whether station characteristics, market size and demographics, and competitive conditions affect the quantity of public affairs programming provided. The results suggest that market conditions have very little effect on the quantity of public affairs programming provided by individual broadcast stations and that if regulators wish to increase the amount of public affairs programming in the digital broadcasting realm, specific government-mandated programming requirements may be necessary.
This report examines the 2007 Internet Governance Forum, held in November, 2007 in Rio de Janeiro... more This report examines the 2007 Internet Governance Forum, held in November, 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Internet Governance Forum is a UN-sponsored convening that emerged from the UN's World Summit on the Information Society. The purpose of the IGF is to provide a multi-stakeholder forum for discussion and debate on the wide range of social, political, and economic issues related to Internet governance. This report first provides background on the events and issues leading up to the creation of the ...
This article examines ongoing efforts to discourage disinformation and hate speech research in th... more This article examines ongoing efforts to discourage disinformation and hate speech research in the U.S. These initiatives originate from a variety of institutional actors, including digital platforms, congressional committees, state attorneys general, and advocacy organizations. It employs the conceptual framework of agnotology, which refers to the study of deliberate culturally or politically induced ignorance. Through an analysis of over 1,800 pages of primary documents, it identifies the strategic approaches employed, the outcomes, and the broader democratic implications associated with these efforts to create and maintain knowledge gaps in the disinformation and hate speech arenas.
In the United States, debates about political bias in the content curation and moderation practic... more In the United States, debates about political bias in the content curation and moderation practices of social media platforms have spilled over into the policy realm, rekindling conversations about the Fairness Doctrine and its potential utility in possible regulatory approaches to social media. This article revisits the history of the Fairness Doctrine and uses this history as a lens for critically examining current proposals for integrating Fairness Doctrine‐like principles into a regulatory framework for social media. In addressing this topic, the first section of this article provides a brief overview of the history of the Fairness Doctrine and how the Doctrine has informed (and misinformed) subsequent media policy debates in the years since its elimination. The second section describes how the Fairness Doctrine is being brought to bear in the contemporary debates around social media regulation. The third section offers a critical analysis of the applicability of the Fairness Do...
A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistan... more A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Rather, companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have regularly insisted that they should be thought of purely as technology companies. This paper critiques the position that these platforms are technology companies rather than media companies, explores the underlying rationales, and considers the political, legal, and policy implications associated with accepting or rejecting this position. As this paper illustrates, this is no mere semantic distinction, given the history of the precise classification of communications technologies and services having profound ramifications for how these technologies and services are considered by policy-makers and the courts.
The Communication Crisis in America, And How to Fix It, 2016
Today’s communications economy is fundamentally different from the communications economy that ch... more Today’s communications economy is fundamentally different from the communications economy that characterized the previous “mass media era” in ways that dramatically affect the production, dissemination, and consumption of news and information critical to the effective functioning of democracy. As the traditional news business model has declined, big data, content farms, and new media platforms are serving as increasingly important mechanisms for analyzing, creating, and disseminating news and information. Yet these trends also exacerbate “one-way flows,” single-subject news models, audience fragmentation, and shifting tensions between large and small market journalism. The nature of the technological changes that have affected the news industry are interacting with certain fundamental economic characteristics of news content, news audiences, and the news marketplace as a whole.
This paper examines the emergence of social TV analytics as an alternative to traditional televis... more This paper examines the emergence of social TV analytics as an alternative to traditional television ratings. Drawing upon data from three of the leading providers of social TV analytics, this paper investigates the extent to which these measurement systems are providing comparable representations of audience engagement with individual television programs and networks. The findings suggest that, across most criteria, these services are providing largely incompatible representations of audience engagement with television. The paper then considers the implications of these findings for the possible institutionalization of social TV metrics as a supplement or alternative to traditional television ratings.
ABSTRACT This article provides a critical comparative analysis of mobile versus personal computer... more ABSTRACT This article provides a critical comparative analysis of mobile versus personal computer (PC)-based forms of Internet access. Drawing from an interdisciplinary body of literature, it illustrates a wide range of ways in which mobile Internet access offers lower levels of functionality and content availability; operates on less open and flexible platforms; and contributes to diminished levels of user engagement, content creation, and information seeking. At a time when a growing proportion of the online population is “mobile only,” these disparities have created what is termed here a mobile Internet underclass. The implications of this argument for digital divide policymaking and, more broadly, for the evolutionary trajectory of the Internet and the dynamics of Internet usage are discussed.
For an increasing proportion of the population worldwide, mobile-based forms of Internet access r... more For an increasing proportion of the population worldwide, mobile-based forms of Internet access represent the primary means of going online. Furthermore, for some sectors, mobile-based forms of Internet access are the only means for connecting online. Much has been written about the tremendous benefits, and even the transformative capacity, associated with this global mobile diffusion. Though there is much to be gained from what might be called the ongoing mobile conversion, in which mobile Internet access supplants wireline access via PCs/laptops, there are significant drawbacks as well. This paper seeks to offer a somewhat contrarian perspective to the overwhelmingly positive discourse that has accompanied discussions of the rise of mobile Internet access. Specifically, this paper argues that the transition from fixed to mobile forms of Internet access represents an evolutionary regression across some key dimensions. In particular, the mobile conversion brings with it a significant step backwards in terms of the activity and autonomy that the Internet has, to this point, brought to media audiences. It is this re-passification of the audience that is the focal point of this analysis. In addressing these issues, this paper begins with a theoretical grounding in media and audience evolution. Specifically, this paper begins with an examination of the institutional tensions and resistance patterns that have historically characterized the dynamic between media and audiences, with a particular emphasis on the extent to which media systems have facilitated or discouraged audience activity and content creation. Next, this paper examines the evidence that the dynamics of mobile Internet content provision and usage are fundamentally different from the traditional PC-based Internet in ways that represent a regression of the Internet’s capabilities, particularly in terms of facilitating a more active, content-creating and distributing role for the audience. It is suggested that relative to the PC-based model of Internet access and usage, the mobile Internet is, in many ways, a significant step back towards a more passive audience model in which the traditional boundaries between content providers and audiences that the Internet has thus far helped to break down are to some extent being re-established.
The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 2008
Cultural and media policy have remained largely distinct fields of research, policymaking, and po... more Cultural and media policy have remained largely distinct fields of research, policymaking, and policy advocacy in the United States. There are, however, significant areas of overlap between these two areas that have not been fully explored. The author examines the linkages between the two fields, covering the traditional lines of demarcation that have separated them; contemporary developments that compel stronger overlap in terms of their substantive areas of concern; the shared, normative principles between the two areas; the ...
Technological Visions originated as a series of projects at the Annenberg Schools for Communicati... more Technological Visions originated as a series of projects at the Annenberg Schools for Communication at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania. Both the original projects and the material added for this volume were selected with the aim of presenting a range of perspectives on technological innovation and the strong emotions it engenders in American culture. This works well for the reader seeking a range of viewpoints, but makes it hard on a reviewer trying to tease out themes from among eighteen very different essays. Bearing in mind that any summary must leave out as much as it reveals, I will focus on three issues that come to the fore in many of the contributions: the shock of the new, virtual reality versus “real” reality, and the centrality of specific technologies to our overall vision of technology. The shock that new technology has created and continues to create, despite its importance to American cultural self-definition, is the theme of essays by Langdon Winner and Lynn Speigel. Speigel’s is titled “Portable TV: Studies in Domestic Space Travels.” Winner’s “Sow’s Ears from Silk Purses” addresses the “visionary enthusiasm” (p. 34) that always accompanies new technologies in American culture. Such enthusiasm is aptly demonstrated in the case of Arthur Little, a chemical engineer, who showed that it is indeed possible to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The futurist penchant of pundits is addressed in three contributions, David Nye’s “Technological Prediction: A Promethean Problem,” John Perry Barlow’s “The Future of Prediction,” and Wendy Grossman’s “Penguins, Predictions, and Technological Optimism: A Skeptic’s View.” Nye provides a historical critique of futurism, while Grossman takes aim at the capacity of the Internet to generate predictions of its own glorious future. Barlow, in contrast, suggests that predictions of enormous changes wrought by technology have, in fact, come true. That the impact of new technologies continues to vary widely among different ethnic and economic groups is confirmed by Jennifer Gibbs and her coauthors in “The Globalization of Every Day Life,” a study of differing concepts of globalization among seven Los Angeles communities. A second theme in Technological Visions concerns virtual reality. Sherry Turkle’s “Spinning Technology” explores the way in which children make sense of their computer experience by trying to relate it to the values and attitudes present in their upbringing. In “Science Fiction Film and the Technological Imagination,” Vivian Sobchack argues that science fiction owes less to the “objectivity” of science and technology than to the “subjecB O O K R E V I E W S
The regulation of media industries is undergoing a period of intense change. New technologies suc... more The regulation of media industries is undergoing a period of intense change. New technologies such as direct broadcast satellite, digital television, satellite radio, and the Internet are dramatically changing the competitive landscape and placing strains on traditional regulatory models. In many nations, the transition from a government-controlled to a commercial, privatized media system is ongoing. Regulatory philosophies, as well as the processes by which regulatory decisions are made are, in many nations, in a state of flux ...
Audiences are the primary product manufactured and sold by advertisersupported media. In selling ... more Audiences are the primary product manufactured and sold by advertisersupported media. In selling audiences to advertisers, media firms deal in human attention, which resists the type of exact verification and quantification typical of transactions in other industries (Napoli forthcoming). Verifying the presence of human attention to media generally requires entering people's living rooms, bedrooms and cars, and monitoring their behaviour. For such monitoring to be maximally effective requires audience members' explicit permission and ...
Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 2001
This study investigates whether market conditions affect the provision of public affairs programm... more This study investigates whether market conditions affect the provision of public affairs programming by television broadcasters. The study examined a random sample of 112 commercial broadcast stations in order to determine whether station characteristics, market size and demographics, and competitive conditions affect the quantity of public affairs programming provided. The results suggest that market conditions have very little effect on the quantity of public affairs programming provided by individual broadcast stations and that if regulators wish to increase the amount of public affairs programming in the digital broadcasting realm, specific government-mandated programming requirements may be necessary.
This report examines the 2007 Internet Governance Forum, held in November, 2007 in Rio de Janeiro... more This report examines the 2007 Internet Governance Forum, held in November, 2007 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Internet Governance Forum is a UN-sponsored convening that emerged from the UN's World Summit on the Information Society. The purpose of the IGF is to provide a multi-stakeholder forum for discussion and debate on the wide range of social, political, and economic issues related to Internet governance. This report first provides background on the events and issues leading up to the creation of the ...
Facebook, a platform created by undergraduates in a Harvard dorm room, has transformed the ways m... more Facebook, a platform created by undergraduates in a Harvard dorm room, has transformed the ways millions of people consume news, understand the world, and participate in the political process. Despite taking on many of journalism’s traditional roles, Facebook and other platforms, such as Twitter and Google, have presented themselves as tech companies―and therefore not subject to the same regulations and ethical codes as conventional media organizations. Challenging such superficial distinctions, Philip M. Napoli offers a timely and persuasive case for understanding and governing social media as news media, with a fundamental obligation to serve the public interest.
Social Media and the Public Interest explores how and why social media platforms became so central to news consumption and distribution as they met many of the challenges of finding information―and audiences―online. Napoli illustrates the implications of a system in which coders and engineers drive out journalists and editors as the gatekeepers who determine media content. He argues that a social media–driven news ecosystem represents a case of market failure in what he calls the algorithmic marketplace of ideas. To respond, we need to rethink fundamental elements of media governance based on a revitalized concept of the public interest. A compelling examination of the intersection of social media and journalism, Social Media and the Public Interest offers valuable insights for the democratic governance of today’s most influential shapers of news.
Based on our analysis of local news data provided by Facebook for February of 2019, a number of k... more Based on our analysis of local news data provided by Facebook for February of 2019, a number of key findings emerge that provide insight into local news on Facebook: ● For communities meeting Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature, 61% of the stories aggregated were identified as serving a critical information need. ● While stories classified as critical information needs only made up 58% of the classified stories across all communities, those stories accounted for 65% of the interactions in that same dataset. Stories satisfying critical information needs received an average of 244 interactions, while stories categorized as not meeting a critical information need had an average of 158 interactions. ● Communities that met Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature are larger in terms of population than communities that don’t meet the threshold (76,606 vs. 15,353) - suggesting community size is a key determinant. ● Factors such as population, and some US Census categories (percent white, percent college educated) increase the likelihood that stories associated with a community will meet a critical information need.
The economic challenges facing local journalism and the associated declines in revenues and newsr... more The economic challenges facing local journalism and the associated declines in revenues and newsroom staffs have generated great interest in understanding the composition and dynamics of local news ecosystems. Much of this research has focused on case studies of individual communities while other research has focused either on the content produced by local news outlets in the face of these challenges or on the consumption of local news by the American public.
However, despite what we know about the challenges faced by local journalism, the content of local news outlets, and Americans’ preferences for local news sources, we don’t know a great deal about how different types of outlets are serving the information needs of their communities. This paper addresses this question through an analysis of 100 randomly selected communities across the U.S. Across these 100 communities, this study analyzes over 16,000 stories provided by 663 local media outlets. For this analysis, local media outlets fall into one of four categories (radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and online-only outlets). Each story in the sample was content analyzed to determine whether the story was original, local, and addressed a critical information need. To understand the journalistic performance of different outlet types, this study analyzes each the story output of each outlet type relative to the outlet type’s numeric frequency. Doing this allows us to assess each outlet type’s news production relative to that outlet type’s prominence in the news ecosystem. To examine production in this way, ratios were calculated comparing the share of total stories, original stories, local stories, and stories addressing a critical information from each outlet type to each outlet type’s share of outlets.
Key findings of this study include:
▪ Local newspapers significantly outperform local TV, radio, and online-only outlets in news production, both in overall story output and in terms of stories that are original, local, or address a critical information need. For instance:
o Local newspapers account for roughly 25 percent of the outlets in our sample, but nearly 50 percent of the original news stories.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the Local news stories in our sample – more than all of the other outlet types combined – despite accounting for only 25 percent of the outlets in our sample.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria (original, local, addresses a critical information need), with the other outlet categories each accounting for only 10 to 15 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria.
▪ Online-only media outlets remain a relatively small component of local media ecosystems, accounting for about 10 percent of the local outlets in the sample and generally producing only about 10 percent of the news stories in the sample, across the various content categories (original, local, addresses a critical information need).
o Online-only outlets do perform well in terms of the proportion of their story output that addresses critical information needs (over 80 percent).
▪ Radio stations represent the most common type of local media outlet in our sample, but generally are the weakest in terms of the extent to which their story output is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
Overall, these findings suggest that newspapers are the most important producers of local news in terms of the volume of journalistic output being produced for local communities. The relative paucity of online-only local media outlets, and the relatively limited (compared with newspapers) journalistic output of these outlets suggest that online-only outlets have yet to come close to matching local newspapers as significant sources of reporting that is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
These findings support the continued importance of public policy and philanthropic efforts to support the viability of local newspapers. These findings also suggest that commercial and philanthropic efforts to establish online-only outlets as comparable alternatives to local newspapers remain far from this goal.
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Papers by Philip Napoli
Social Media and the Public Interest explores how and why social media platforms became so central to news consumption and distribution as they met many of the challenges of finding information―and audiences―online. Napoli illustrates the implications of a system in which coders and engineers drive out journalists and editors as the gatekeepers who determine media content. He argues that a social media–driven news ecosystem represents a case of market failure in what he calls the algorithmic marketplace of ideas. To respond, we need to rethink fundamental elements of media governance based on a revitalized concept of the public interest. A compelling examination of the intersection of social media and journalism, Social Media and the Public Interest offers valuable insights for the democratic governance of today’s most influential shapers of news.
● For communities meeting Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature, 61% of the stories aggregated were identified as serving a critical information need.
● While stories classified as critical information needs only made up 58% of the classified stories across all communities, those stories accounted for 65% of the interactions in that same dataset. Stories satisfying critical information needs received an average of 244 interactions, while stories categorized as not meeting a critical information need had an average of 158 interactions.
● Communities that met Facebook’s threshold for launching the Today In feature are larger in terms of population than communities that don’t meet the threshold (76,606 vs. 15,353) - suggesting community size is a key determinant.
● Factors such as population, and some US Census categories (percent white, percent college educated) increase the likelihood that stories associated with a community will meet a critical information need.
However, despite what we know about the challenges faced by local journalism, the content of local news outlets, and Americans’ preferences for local news sources, we don’t know a great deal about how different types of outlets are serving the information needs of their communities. This paper addresses this question through an analysis of 100 randomly selected communities across the U.S. Across these 100 communities, this study analyzes over 16,000 stories provided by 663 local media outlets. For this analysis, local media outlets fall into one of four categories (radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and online-only outlets). Each story in the sample was content analyzed to determine whether the story was original, local, and addressed a critical information need. To understand the journalistic performance of different outlet types, this study analyzes each the story output of each outlet type relative to the outlet type’s numeric frequency. Doing this allows us to assess each outlet type’s news production relative to that outlet type’s prominence in the news ecosystem. To examine production in this way, ratios were calculated comparing the share of total stories, original stories, local stories, and stories addressing a critical information from each outlet type to each outlet type’s share of outlets.
Key findings of this study include:
▪ Local newspapers significantly outperform local TV, radio, and online-only outlets in news production, both in overall story output and in terms of stories that are original, local, or address a critical information need. For instance:
o Local newspapers account for roughly 25 percent of the outlets in our sample, but nearly 50 percent of the original news stories.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the Local news stories in our sample – more than all of the other outlet types combined – despite accounting for only 25 percent of the outlets in our sample.
o Local newspapers account for nearly 60 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria (original, local, addresses a critical information need), with the other outlet categories each accounting for only 10 to 15 percent of the stories that meet all three criteria.
▪ Online-only media outlets remain a relatively small component of local media ecosystems, accounting for about 10 percent of the local outlets in the sample and generally producing only about 10 percent of the news stories in the sample, across the various content categories (original, local, addresses a critical information need).
o Online-only outlets do perform well in terms of the proportion of their story output that addresses critical information needs (over 80 percent).
▪ Radio stations represent the most common type of local media outlet in our sample, but generally are the weakest in terms of the extent to which their story output is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
Overall, these findings suggest that newspapers are the most important producers of local news in terms of the volume of journalistic output being produced for local communities. The relative paucity of online-only local media outlets, and the relatively limited (compared with newspapers) journalistic output of these outlets suggest that online-only outlets have yet to come close to matching local newspapers as significant sources of reporting that is original, local, and addresses critical information needs.
These findings support the continued importance of public policy and philanthropic efforts to support the viability of local newspapers. These findings also suggest that commercial and philanthropic efforts to establish online-only outlets as comparable alternatives to local newspapers remain far from this goal.