In this study, we explore two factors of selective exposure and their effect on the relation between political sympathies and xenophobic attitudes in Sweden. Previous studies implies that internet and social media-platforms, as well as political interest, are two important factors behind selective news consumption in todays fragmented media landscape. Based on previous studies we hypothesised that; news consumption via social media/internet and political interest effects the relation between political sympathies and xenophobia, and that the effect is positive if the individual sympathies with Sweden democrats and negative if the sympathies lie with the Left party. The result shows that among all Swedish parties the political interested individuals tend to be less xenophobic, while the effect of sympathizing with the Sweden democrats and being political interested shows an increased level of xenophobia. The same result could be observed for Sweden democrats that consumed news via social media and internet, where an increased level of consumption resulted in increased level xenophobic attitudes. The study found no support for the effects of news consumption via social media/internet and political interest on the relation between Left party sympathizers and xenophobic attitudes.

Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på hur stor andel studenter det är som tar del av nyheter på Facebook, och identifiera vad som kännetecknar dessa personer. Undersökningen görs med grund i att nyheter får allt mer utrymme i facebookflödet vilket är något som bidrar till större klyftor i människors nyhetskonsumtion. Fortsättningsvis blir det relevant att utvidga förståelsen för vilka dessa konsumenter är. Studien har genomförts med en kvantitativ metod i form av en enkätundersökning. Empirin har framtagits genom att 114 respondenter fått svara på sammanlagt 17 frågor gällande individuella faktorer, sin nyhetskonsumtion på Facebook samt vilka fördelar de ser med plattformen. Urvalet har begränsats till studenter på Karlstads universitet inom fyra olika utbildningar: ingenjör, medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, ekonomi och handel samt sjuksköterska. Respondenterna har nåtts genom att enkäten publicerats i respektive utbildnings facebookgrupp. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien är uses and gratifications, sociala fält, primära och sekundära nyhetspubliker samt tidigare forskning som berört nyhetskonsumtion både i traditionell mening och på sociala medier. Det finns en bred vetenskaplig grund vars fokus ligger på hur medierna påverkar publiken, men uses and gratifications belyser istället motsatsen, nämligen vad publiken gör med medierna. Därför blir framförallt denna teori den som genomgående berörs i studien. Resultatet i undersökningen visar att 92 procent av alla tillfrågade studenter tar del av nyheter via Facebook. Frekventa läsare, det vill säga de som gör det dagligen eller flera gånger i veckan, utgör 49 procent och därmed nästan hälften. Dessa flitiga konsumenter kännetecknas främst av att vara sjuksköterskor, kvinnor och av att ha studerat en kortare tid. I motsats är de minst benägna läsarna av facebooknyheter medie- och kommunikationsstudenter, män och personer som studerat en längre tid. Skillnaderna har sin grund dels i att kvinnor generellt använder det sociala nätverket mer än män, och dels i att olika utbildningar har skilda preferenser. Sjuksköterskor konsumerar frekvent nyheter på Facebook på grund av dess bekvämlighet och för att nyheterna ligger i deras intresse, medan mediestudenter oftare vänder sig till andra källor som ett resultat av att de vill täcka särskilda informationsbehov. Uppväxthem och föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå har inte visat sig vara av större betydelse för vem som är den mest frekventa nyhetskonsumenten på Facebook, inte heller graden av politiskt intresse. Här konsumerar både de med högt, medel och lågt intresse för politik dagligen nyheter på plattformen. Dock kan man se en tydlig dynamik mellan den förstnämnda och sistnämnda. De högt politiskt intresserade är de som i högst utsträckning följer en nyhets ursprungliga avsändare, samtidigt som dessa uppvisar en mer positiv inställning till interaktiviteten på Facebook där de kan dela, kommentera och diskutera nyheter. Därigenom blir de en primär nyhetspublik vilka sorterar ut och tolkar nyheter för de lågt politiskt intresserade, som i sin tur utmärks som en sekundär. Således influerar den primära publiken den sekundära med sina värderingar, åsikter och uppfattningar vilket enligt forskningen kan medföra en demokratisk utmaning. / The purpose of this study is to find out how big percentage of students that reads news on Facebook, and to identify what characterizes these people. The study is made with the knowledge that news seems to take more space in Facebook’s feed, which is something that contributes to larger gaps in people’s news consumption. Therefore, it will in the long run be relevant to extend the understanding of who these consumers are. The study has been carried out with a quantitative method in the shape of a survey. The empirical data has been retrieved by letting 114 respondents answer 17 questions concerning individual factors, their news consumption on Facebook and what advantages they see with the social platform. The sample has been limited to students at four different educational programs at the university of Karlstad; engineering, media and communications, economy and trade and nursing. The respondents have been reached by publishing the survey in the different groups on Facebook, belonging to each education. The theoretical starting point of the study is Uses and gratifications, Fields, Primary and secondary news audiences and previous research about news consumption both in a traditionally sense and on social media. There is a wide scientific belief that focuses on how the media is affecting the audience, but uses and gratifications instead, highlights the contrary - namely what the audience is doing with the media. That is why this theory is mainly used in this study. The results shows that 92 percent of all respondents read news on Facebook. Frequent readers, meaning the people that consume news on Facebook each day or several times a week, make up 49 percent of the total amount of students and thereby almost half of the totalt respondents. These frequent consumers are characterized mainly by the fact that they are students at the nursing program, females, and have been studying for a shorter period of time. In contrast, the least likely readers are students at the media and communications program, males, and those who have studied for a longer period of time. These differences are seen firstly because of the fact that females tend to spend more time on Facebook in general, and secondly since different educations have different preferences. The nurses frequently consumes news on Facebook because of its convenience and because they find that the news lies within their interests, while media students more often turn to other sources as a result of wanting to cover a certain need for information. Childhood home and the parent’s level of education have not shown to be of great significance to decide whether a person consumes news on Facebook, and neither has political interest. Both people with high, medium and low interest in politics daily consume news on the social platform. However, it is possible to see a clear dynamic between the first and last. Individuals with a high political interest tend to follow the original source of the news, whilst displaying a positive attitude to the interactivity on Facebook and the possibility to comment, discuss and share news. Because of this, they function as the primary news audience who sorts out and interpreters the news for the low politically interested, which, in turn, is characterized as the secondary news audience. Thus, the primary news audience influences the secondary with values, opinions and perceptions of the news, which according to research is something that could induce a democratic challenge.

Consuming news and defining its credibility play a large role in our everyday lives. The digitalisation of news has enabled new interactions with the medium, that have yet to be analysed in their impact on credibility. This study aims to investigate the effects interactivity has on perceived credibility and how user interactions can be applied to the digital news medium. The analysis is done through a user -centric approach using both qualitative and quantitative methods based on design thinking. The methods used include a digital questionnaire, user interviews and prototype testing. Using these methods we find that no strong association can be made between the frequency of use of specific digital interactions such as sharing, liking and commenting and perceived credibility. While most users see an added benefit in having more interactive elements on a digital platform, it cannot be concluded that overall higher levels of interactivity lead to higher credibility. However, if interactivity is used to enable people to voice their opinion an increase in trust can be built, which subsequently increases credibility. / Att konsumera nyheter och definiera deras trovärdighet spelar en stor roll i vår vardag. Digitaliseringen av nyheter har möjliggjort nya interaktioner med mediet, som ännu inte har analyserats i deras inverkan på trovärdigheten. Denna studie syftar till att undersöka effekterna som interaktivitet har på upplevd trovärdighet och hur användarinteraktioner kan tillämpas på det digitala nyhetsmediet. Analysen görs genom en användarcentrerad metod med både kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder baserade på designtänkande. Metoderna som används inkluderar ett digitalt frågeformulär, användarintervjuer och prototyptestning. Med hjälp av dessa metoder finner vi att ingen stark koppling kan göras mellan frekvensen för användning av specifika digitala interaktioner som att dela, gilla och kommentera och upplevd trovärdighet. Medan de flesta användare ser en extra fördel med att ha fler interaktiva element på en digital plattform, kan man inte dra slutsatsen att övergripande högre nivåer av interaktivitet leder till högre trovärdighet. Men om interaktivitet används för att göra det möjligt för människor att uttala sig, kan man öka förtroendet, vilket därefter ökar trovärdigheten.

Människors uppfattning om sig själva och sin omvärld påverkas mycket av medierna de konsumerar, i synnerhet nyhetsmedier, och nu kanske mer än någonsin genom den ökade tillgängligheten. För personer med delad nationell identitet, till exempel immigranter, kan nyhetskonsumtionen både påverka och påverkas av hur relationen till det nuvarande respektive tidigare hemlandet är och utvecklas. Den här uppsatsen bygger på två jämförande fallstudier, båda bestående av webbenkäter och intervjuer, som kartlägger och jämför användarvanor gällande nyhetskonsumtion bland svenskar bosatta på Island respektive islänningar bosatta i Sverige. För att försöka förstå och förklara vilka faktorer som påverkar användningen av nyhetsmedier har en tredelad modell lånats från tidigare forskning (Wadbring & Andersson, 2016) och aningen modifierad använts som ramverk. Resultaten visar att fördelningen i konsumtion mellan det nuvarande och tidigare hemlandets nyhetsmedier är nästintill identisk för både svenskar på Island och islänningar i Sverige, där det nuvarande hemlandets nyhetsmedier dominerar något. Även gällande olika bakgrundsfaktorer följs de båda urvalsgruppernas nyhetsmedieanvändning åt. Förhoppningen är att uppsatsen ska kunna bidra till en större förståelse för det nuvarande respektive tidigare hemlandets nyheters betydelse för människor med delad nationell identitet.

Samhällskunskapsämnet är brett och täcker flera olika områden. Denna uppsats försöker svara på frågor om hur elever som läser samhällskunskap på gymnasiet resonerar kring nyheter, samt kring nyheter och lärande. Studien har en teoretisk utgångspunkt i att det inte räcker med att ha förmåga och möjlighet. Man behöver även ha motivation, vilket kan appliceras på nyhetskonsumtionen i ett medielandskap med större möjligheter och utbud än tidigare. I studien har åtta elever från två gymnasieskolor med kursen samhällskunskap 2 i sin utbildning intervjuats efter en semistrukturerad intervjuform. Eleverna som intervjuades uppgav att de använder digitala verktyg som mobil och dator när de ska ta till sig nyheter. Där var även sociala medier en källa som var tydligt framträdande, dock ansåg flera att man behöver vara uppmärksam på källkritiken då det kan vara väldigt mycket information i sociala medier. Vidare ansåg eleverna att man kan lära sig mycket av nyheter om vad som händer i samhället och det fanns önskemål att detta även involveras i undervisningen i samhällskunskap. / The subject of social science is a wide subject that covers several academic disciplines. The research questions in this study concern how Social Science pupils in upper-secondary school view their own consumption of news and how they reason concerning news and learning. A theoretical perspective is approached from a view that you cannot only have opportunity and ability you also need motivation, which can be applied to news consumption in an ever-increasing media environment. In the present study, eight upper-secondary school pupils from two schools were interviewed based on a semi-structured interview. Respondents were selected based on a requirement that the course Social Science 2 is included in their education. The respondents said that they use digital tools such as smartphones and computers when they consume news. Social media was also a prominent source. However, several of them claimed that you need to be more observant with source criticism compared to traditional media when using social media. Moreover, the pupils’ opinions were that you can learn a lot of what happens in the world from news. And some wished for this area to be involved in the Social Science courses to a higher extent.

The behavioral immune system (BIS) automatically activates certain cognitions, emotions and behaviors in the presence of potentially harmful pathogens. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic it is important to study reactions evoked by the BIS, to see if such reactions are related to a decreased or increased risk of the spread of pathogens, as well as if they are related to some external factors. A convenience sample of 109 participants aged 21-75 years answered an online questionnaire containing the perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD) scale and various questions about COVID-19 news consumption, preventive behaviors, and vaccination. The research question was: “To what extent does COVID-19 news consumption predict preventive behavior and vaccination, and to what extent is this mediated by PVD?”. Correlational and mediation analyses revealed that those who consume more news and those who rate themselves higher in germ aversion are more likely to engage in more preventive behaviors, but there were no mediating effects amongst these variables.

In the occurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic, a trend of Instagram as a news source emerged in the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2020 (Reuters, 2020). Instagram’s visual factor has made accessing news more feasible and convenient through a curated feed. Consequently, news producers are migrating to social media platforms, including Instagram to serve news consumption needs. However, journalism on social media has been criticized for its lack of journalistic legitimacy where media trust is challenged by the sensationalism of news to drive engagement metrics. Moreover, the COVID-19 infodemic (WHO, 2020) has escalated the concern of news credibility due to a circulation of misinformation regarding the pandemic and overwhelming citizens. Hence, the objective of this study is to analyze how a news outlet on Instagram maintains journalistic legitimacy and how Instagram users navigate news through information abundance in finding credible and trustworthy news.  The analysis of this study takes into account an Indonesian news outlet on Instagram called Narasi Newsroom, by interviewing a representative from the news producer, a content analysis of their news content, and interviewing Indonesian Instagram users. The empirical findings illustrate how Narasi Newsroom can revive journalistic legitimacy through an innovative approach without diminishing journalism quality on Instagram. With its principle of educating the audience to understand the news beyond factual statements, Narasi Newsroom’s strategy of riding the wave to serve audience needs upholds journalism values through critical thinking and credible sources. By conducting the study through updating the encoding/decoding model (Hall, 1973; 2009), it was found that the social media logic (Dijck & Poell, 2013) can balance journalism practice on Instagram as well as practices critical thinking for news consumers in finding trustworthy news. In light of the post-truth era, media trust and news credibility may be challenged, however, they are not lost when journalism on social media takes accountability to serve news consumers’ needs. Consequently, it takes both the news producers and consumers to take a critical stance to preserve trust in the news.

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.

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.

本研究透過內容分析法和深度訪談法探討台灣新聞集資發展的發展概況，包含新聞內容產製者如何執行集資計畫，以及對新聞業和記者工作型態有何影響或變化。 研究結果顯示，在所有新聞集資提案中，提案數量最多的發起方類別是公民記者／團體，但他們大多自行摸索如何產製新聞，需要更多資源和專業後援以提升作品質量。傳播科系學生則透過新聞集資計畫實踐所學，新聞集資提案如同一小型創業，當前創業新聞學成為一股趨勢，未來學校教育除提供相關技能以及商業知識外，也應該引導學生探討專業倫理問題。傳統商業新聞媒體則是還沒將集資視為產製過程中的財物來源之一，尚未積極涉及新聞集資領域。 五年來的新聞集資圖像包含因社會運動熱潮推向高峰；另外至少有三成提案的發起方甘冒於更大的風險到國外取材；新聞集資也是長期追蹤議題、報導主流媒體忽視議題的可行管道。這些特點使得整體新聞集資題材更加多樣。 深度訪談八位新聞集資計畫的提案者。分析結果顯示，提案者寧願身兼多職或多工擁抱產製中的種種限制和不確定性，圖的是報導自由度以及更多時間追蹤議題並與受訪對象互動。提案者的產製運作情形因集資平台營運模式的不同有所差異。國內目前有兩家新聞集資平台：weReport、SOS。前者採非營利型、一次性集資，定位偏向提供「種子資金」育成入門報導者；後者採用營利型、持續訂閱集資，希望成為寫作者固定營收源，運作策略上強調個人品牌以及內容獨特性。 關於提案方和資助方之間的互動，新聞產製過程中的主導權多落在提案者或報導者手中，社群參與情形如啦啦隊的支持角色，積極的新聞協作功能不易實現。至於平台方和資助者的關係，雖然平台方在集資期間對於提案者的資訊揭露下了不少功夫，可惜多數平台並不追蹤計畫後續執行情形，僅由提案方自發維持。 本研究建議群眾資助新聞的轉型應朝向長期發展。除了關注社群形成以及產製過程經驗的累積，不可忽視的著力點還有「將新聞需求人口轉變為消費人口」。而無論新聞集資如何演變，至少得保持過程中的開放與透明特性。 / This study based on content analysis and in-depth interviews, explored the development of crowdfunding journalism, including how news content producers implement crowdfunding projects and how this emerging model influences or changes journalism and journalists’ work. The results revealed that citizen journalists constitute the largest proportion of crowdfunders of crowdfunding journalism projects. Citizen journalists continually explore news production independently and require more resources and professional support to raise the quality of their work. Communication students apply what they have learned by pitching projects, just like a micro start-up. Currently, entrepreneurial journalism has become a trend. In addition to providing skill training and teaching business knowledge, schools should lead students to discuss professional ethics issues. Traditional news media do not consider crowdfunding as a financing source and are not actively involved in this field. Over the past 5 years, crowdfunding journalism has peaked because of social movements. Crowdfunders of at least 30% of project seem willing to endure risky conditions abroad to gather news. Crowdfunding journalism is also an option for reporters who would like to follow a particular issue for a long time. All of these features increase the diversity of the overall subjects of crowdfunding news. In-depth interviews were conducted with eight crowdfunders. The crowdfunders revealed that they would rather take on multiple roles, undertake multiple tasks or stand the various constraints and uncertainty during the news production, in order to have the freedom of the press and much more time to track the issues and interact with their interviewees. Crowdfunders’ production practices varied from diverse business models of crowdfunding platforms. Two crowdfunding journalism platforms are available in Taiwan: weReport and SOS. weReport adopts a nonprofit, one-time funding model, and prefers to provide “seed money” for new entrants. SOS adopts a profit-based subscription model in the hope of providing writers stable funding; the business strategy of SOS emphasizes individual brands and content uniqueness. Crowdfunders or reporters usually take the initiative in news production, compared with donors. Community participation plays a supporting role, but active news collaboration from communities is not easy to achieve. Regarding the relationship between platforms and donors, although platforms endeavor to maintain information transparency, most platforms do not follow up, depending on crowdfunders' self-discipline. This study suggests that the transformation of crowdfunding journalism will move toward long-term development. In addition to focusing on community building and accumulating news production experience, the issue of “turning the news-demanding population into a news-consuming population” must not be overlooked. However, regardless of how crowdfunding journalism develops, the process should remain open and transparent.