Between the technological hare and the journalistic tortoise

Minimization of knowledge claims in online news flashes

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7477602
AutoresShelly Rom (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), Zvi Reich (0000-0002-5523-1821, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume21
Fascículo1
Páginas54-72
Data de publicação2017-11-22
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournalism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1464-8849 • E-ISSN: 1741-3001
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1464884917740050
OpenAlexW2769218413
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas19
Referências citadas56

A growing series of news platforms such as live blogging, tweeting, and push notifications are struggling with the extreme pressure of immediate reporting. The current study explores which strategies of knowledge acquisition and knowledge presentation journalists who operate immediate channels are using to address the mounting pressures and enhanced risk of error. It focuses on online news flashes that at least in the Israeli case enable systematic comparison of four types of output: routine and crisis news flashes and routine and crisis final items that follow them. Findings show that news flash editors develop special practices to acquire and present knowledge – the most prominent being minimization of knowledge claims. However, significantly higher use of modality, evidentiality, and source responses (measures for minimizing journalists’ knowledge claims) was found only in crisis flashes. This may suggest that journalists find themselves outside their epistemic comfort zone only under the convergence of crisis and immediacy. According to ‘inductive error’ theory, the studied websites act as responsible epistemic actors, who are so concerned about ‘false-positive’ errors (untrue publications) that they do not hesitate to make ‘false-negative’ ones (delaying publication, minimizing knowledge claims, and sharing them with third parties

Business · Convergence (economics · Economics · Epistemology · Falsity · Immediacy · Irrational number · Political science · Presentation (obstetrics · Public relations · Computer Science · Mathematics · Medicine · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Social Media and Politics