This study examined the topic of growing news consumption on Instagram and the impact that could have on the spread of misinformation. The purpose was to establish if there was an issue with news being mixed into a platform with Swedish influencers. Furthermore, the study aimed to examine whether young adults were faced with risks when consuming news on Instagram.  An experiment was conducted in order to research if influencers liking posts were able to further mislead young adults. The experiment occurred in a web survey where 196 respondents participated. Respondents were exposed to a fabricated health related news post about vaccinating against covid-19. Comparing the result of those who saw the stimuli and those who only saw the unliked news post, resulted in indications that influencers were able to further mislead young adults. Spearmans rank correlation showed a significant correlation, 0.289**, between source-credibility and message-credibility. The influencers did not need to have an expertise in the area of health. Nonetheless, they could still increase the trustworthiness to health-related news by approximately 29% as indicated by the results. In order to protect young adults from misleading news, Instagram needs to separate influencers from public health news. In addition, influencers need to be informed that their social media post interactions could produce consequences. Further research could be qualitative, finding out reasons behind the social validation. Furthermore, future research could categorize the influencers investigated. / Denna studie undersökte den växande nyhetskonsumtionen på Instagram och påverkan förändringen kan ha på spridningen av falska nyheter. Syftet var att upptäcka eventuell problematik när nyheter integreras på en plattform med svenska influencers. Dessutom ämnade studien att undersöka unga vuxnas potentiella risker när de konsumerade nyheter på Instagram. Ett experiment genomfördes för att undersöka huruvida influencers kunde gillade-markera nyhetsinlägg på Instagram och ytterligare missleda unga vuxna. Experimentet genomfördes i en webbenkät där 196 respondenter deltog. Respondenterna tog del av ett fabricerat hälsorelaterat nyhetsinlägg om vaccinering mot covid-19. Genom att jämföra resultatet av dem som fick ta del av stimuli och de som endast såg det ogillade nyhetsinlägget påvisades indikationer på att influencers kunde missleda unga vuxna ytterligare. Spearmans rangkorrelation visade en signifikant korrelation på 0,289** mellan informants-tillförlitlighet och informations-tillförlitlighet. Influencerna visade sig inte behöva en expertis inom hälsa och vård. Resultatet indikerade att de ändå kunde öka tilliten till en hälsorelaterad nyhet med ungefär 29%. För att motarbeta unga vuxnas missledning bör Instagram särskilja influencers från nyhetsinlägg. Dessutom bör influencers informeras om hur deras interaktioner med inlägg på sociala medier kan ge konsekvenser. Vidare forskning kan vara kvalitativ och redogöra för anledningar till den erhållna sociala bekräftelsen. Dessutom kan framtida forskning kategorisera de undersökta influencerna.

This diploma thesis deals with the use of artificial intelligence tools and automated journalism in the Czech News Agency. Specifically, it deals with the very first use of algorithmically generated news reports, which the agency published during the election in 2018. It compares municipal and Senate elections from this year with the outputs of ČTK news from municipal elections in 2014 and Senate elections in 2016. It uses qualitative and quantitative analysis methods. The diploma thesis also deals with the method how the generation of reports in 2018 worked in ČTK and shows and explains examples of source codes by which the report generator was programmed. It will also offer other ways and areas in which the Czech News Agency uses or is about to use automated journalism and its tools. One part of the thesis is also an interview with the technical director of ČTK Jan Kodera, who explained how automated journalism works in the Czech media environment of the press agency. The author also outlines some scientific disciplines related to artificial intelligence, which are required for the needs of this thesis. At the same time, he will also offer a number of examples of how automation tools are used in other newsrooms around the world.

The rise of social media platforms has had a significant impact on the conventional model of gatekeeping. With increased access to information--as well as the ability to contribute to the public discourse--individuals no longer need to rely on the mass media for news. These realities have led to increased conversations surrounding credibility in the digital age. Although not a new concept, fake news has become increasingly common in recent years. The web--particularly social media outlets, like Twitter--have enhanced the spread of misinformation. To combat this, social media platforms have introduced gatekeeping features like verification marks and warning labels. However, questions remain regarding the credibility and effectiveness of these features. Furthermore, little information exists regarding the perceptions of these features. For this study, the researcher examined the perceptions of fake news, verification, and Notices (i.e., warning labels) as they relate to Twitter. These perceptions were captured through a survey that was distributed to Twitter users through MTurk. Results were examined generally as well as in the light of political orientation, ranging from very liberal to very conservative on a 4-point scale. Within the scope and limitations of this study, results indicate that the majority of Twitter users believe that fake news on the platform is a major problem. Additionally, results show that there is no significant difference between the effectiveness of verification and the effectiveness of Notices in slowing the spread of fake news, and neither feature is perceived as strongly credible or effective.

In this thesis, news media use and trust among Swedish upper secondary schools students of Generation Z is investigated through focus group interviews with students from two different schools. This study aims to explain how and why Swedish upper secondary school students of Generation Z use and perceive news media, with focus on the relations between news media trust and news media use. To interpret the empirical data, the study uses a theoretical framework consisting of three pillars: an understanding of trust informed by Giddens (1990) definition; the use of public connection (Couldry et al., 2018) to understand the role of news media; a generational understanding based on Prensky’s (2001a; 2001b) concept of Digital Natives, and Bolin’s (2017) media generations. This study suggests that there is a clear discrepancy between the young Swedes news media use, and their trust. They acknowledge the importance of news media in society, and traditional news medias are perceived as trustworthy expert systems, providing of professional, quality journalism. Despite the high levels of trust, traditional news medias are rarely actively used. Instead, students come into contact with most news through social media feeds, on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. They mostly view the content on these platforms as unreliable and untrustworthy, due to the lack of a clear, trustworthy expert presence. Despite distrusting the content on social media, the students continue to use the services as a source of news, in part due to the convenience of use and in part as they believe themselves to well equipped to discern true and fake news through their generations’ intimate knowledge of both the structure of social medias, and strategies for fact checking. This study also argues that the use of distrusted news from social media, may in fact in some cases enable a public connection.

This study was an investigation of the effect of political advertising on readers’ perceived bias and credibility of an online news article based on participants’ political leanings. Media priming and the hostile media effect were the theoretical underpinnings. Participants were asked to read an unbiased news article placed alongside 3 advertisements. Participants were put into 1 of 3 conditions — right-leaning advertisements, left-leaning advertisements, or neutral advertisements. They then answered questions about the perceived bias and credibility of the article and their own political affiliation. The researchers hypothesized that left-leaning individuals would perceive the article with right-leaning advertisements as biased and less credible and the opposite would be true of right-leaning individuals. Results were not consistent with hypotheses but trended in the expected directions.

[pt] Este artigo estuda o papel de agregadores como intermediários no mercado de notícias online. Propomos um modelo onde firmas buscam consumidores com preferências heterogêneas, balaceando entre uma dimensão vertical de qualidade e uma dimensão horizontal de relevância. Nesse contexto, dependendo da intensidade relativa dessas forças, a presença de um agregador de notícias pode aumentar a qualidade e bem estar dos consumidores ou diminuir a qualidade com efeitos ambíguos no bem estar. Argumentamos que apesar do primeiro cenário se aproximar mais da literatura teórica existente sobre agregadores de notícias, o segundo cenário parece melhor sustentado pela evidência empírica. O impacto de agregadores neste segundo cenário pode sustentar preocupações sobre a qualidade da provisão de notícias na internet. / [en] This paper studies the role of aggregators as intermediaries in the online news industry. I propose a model where firms must appeal to consumers with differentiated tastes, trading off between a vertical dimension of quality and a horizontal dimension of relevance. In this context, depending on the relative strength of these forces, the presence of the news aggregator may either increase quality and welfare or decrease quality with an ambiguous effect on welfare. I argue that while the first scenario is more in line with the existing theoretical literature on news aggregators, the second seems to be more strongly supported by the empirical evidence. The impact of aggregators in this second scenario may substantiate concerns over the quality of news provision on the internet.

Denna uppsats syftar till att mäta hur ofta ämnen och muntliga källor förekommer. Två nyhetsförmedlare har undersökts. Den ena drivs via public service, Rapport, och den andra är ett kommersiellt företag, Tv4 Nyheterna. De två aktörernas resultat jämfördes för att kunna urskilja likheter och skillnader i hur de valde att utforma sina sändningar. Grundtanken som ledde till denna studie var att se om nyhetsförmedlarnas olika organisationer, historia och finansieringssystem leder till att vissa ämnen och muntliga källor tas upp mer eller mindre än i rivalens sändningar. Målet var att mäta, alltså att omvandla sändningarna till siffror som kan tolkas. Därför ansåg jag att en positivistisk infallsvinkel var lämplig. Därför valde jag kvantitavit innehållsanalys som metod. Själva kodningen genomfördes via ett kodschema som definierar de olika alternativen. Resultatet ger en bild av att likheterna mellan de två nyhetsförmedlarna är större än skillnaderna, men såklart existerar det skillnader. En av de kanske största skillnaderna mellan de två finns när man tittar på ämnesfördelningen under utrikesnyheter. Rapport, driven av public service, tar upp inrikesnyheter oftare än vad Tv4 Nyheterna gör. DettaPage 4 of 46är bara en av många skillnader. För att sammafatta, skulle jag vilja påstå att de olika finansieringssystemen leder vissa skillnader men det hela präglas ändå av enighet. / This study aims to measure how often news items and oral sources occur. Two news programs have been examined. One is operated via public service, Rapport, and the other is a commercial company, Tv4 Nyheterna. The results of the two were compared in order to be able to distinguish similarities and differences in how they choose to shape their programs. The idea that led to this study was to see if the news programs different organizations, history and funding systems lead to certain topics and oral sources being addressed more or less than in the rival's broadcasts. The aim was to measure, that is, to convert the broadcast into numbers that can be interpreted. Therefore, I considered a positivistic approach appropriate. Therefore, I chose quantitative content analysis as a method. The coding itself was performed via a code scheme that defines the various options. The result gives the impression that the similarities between the two news programs are greater than the differences, but of course there are differences. One of the perhaps biggest differences between the two is when you look at the distribution of topics under foreign news. Rapport, driven by public service, gives domestic news more space than what Tv4 Nyheterna does. This is just one of many differences. To sum up, I would like to say that the different financing systems lead to some differences, but the whole thing is still characterized by unity.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of "An Achievable Dream" (AAD), a program developed for at risk elementary students in Newport News, Virginia, in improving academic achievenlent, self concept, and school attendance. One hundred rising fourth grade students were identified in 1992 to participate in the pilot year of this program. Eighty-four students completed the entire year and were included in this study. A review of effective programs currently operating throughout the country examined other programs with similar goals. A case study detailed the history of the program, the adaptations made since the program's inception, and a summary of baseline data on the students. A program evaluation validated the structure of AAD, assessed the impact of AAD as it related to achieving the stated goals, and served as the foundation for a decision model for program continuation. Data was obtained through individual interviews, a review of written program materials, attendance records, and from individual student scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) reading comprehension subtest, the Degrees of Reading Power (DRP), and the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale (PHCSCS). All AAD program components were validated except student selection procedures. Many students were selected for inclusion into the program who did not fit the criteria for selection. Results of the evaluation showed little change in school attendance patterns and a decline in reading achievement percentile scores on both the ITBS and the DRP. Scores on the PHCSCS indicated that the majority of the students had an average to above average self concept. The decision model for program continuation included recommendations for consideration in program continuation. / Ed. D.

In his first term as president, George W. Bush was confronted with one of the worst national attacks in United States history: the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001. Through the devastation, however, President Bush triumphed in unifying and guiding this nation during what would become the height of his rhetorical leadership. Following his reelection in 2004, President Bush faced one of the worst natural disasters in the nation's history: Category 4 Hurricane Katrina. In its aftermath, Katrina became known as "one of the worst mishandled disasters ever." Utilizing Kenneth Burke's pentad, this study analyzes the president's rhetorical response and the primetime network news coverage following each crisis in an attempt to determine how President Bush could fare so well in one instance, consoling and leading the American people, while falling short in his second major crisis during his term as president. / Master of Arts

The study used quantitative content analysis to compare the international news content about Africa and the rest of the world in selected daily and weekly newspapers in Malawi and explored the extent to which economic factors, as represented by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), influence news flows about Africa into Malawi. The results showed dominance of the categories of war/international conflict and politics. International news agencies were the principal sources of news items for all the four papers. Though there were differences among the newspapers in the amount of space allocated to various categories such differences were minor. The study established that GDP is not a determinant of the amount of coverage a country receives. / Communication Science / M.A. (International Communication)