6533b834fe1ef96bd129df86
RESEARCH PRODUCT
Linking News Value Theory With Online Deliberation: How News Factors and Illustration Factors in News Articles Affect the Deliberative Quality of User Discussions in SNS’ Comment Sections
Oliver QuiringKatharina EsauDennis FriessMarc Ziegelesubject
Linguistics and LanguageCommunicationmedia_common.quotation_subject05 social sciences050801 communication & media studies050109 social psychologyDeliberationAffect (psychology)Language and LinguisticsIncivility0508 media and communicationsNews valuesOnline deliberation0501 psychology and cognitive sciencesJournalismQuality (business)InformationSystems_MISCELLANEOUSPsychologySocial psychologymedia_commondescription
Previous research suggests that distinct characteristics of news articles, such as their news factors, account for the different participation rates in comment sections as well as the degree of interactivity among the discussants. In this study, this assumption is tested in the Facebook environment and extended to the analysis of how news factors (i.e., event characteristics) and illustration factors (i.e., characteristics resulting from a specific journalistic editing) of news articles predict the inclusiveness of discussions, as well as the occurrence of civility, rationality, and deliberative interactivity in user comments. A content analysis of 619 news articles and 11,218 related user comments on nine nation-wide Facebook news pages reveals that the news factors controversy, latent conflict, contravention, obtrusiveness, and impact particularly account for specific discussion qualities. The results also show that the illustration factors emotional language/ visualizations, slant, and conversational prompts affect the deliberative quality of the discussions.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-09-10 | Communication Research |