Blink and You Miss it
Measuring News Readers’ Attention to Interpretative Journalism Cues
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12908641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arthur D Santana (0000-0002-2626-3971, San Diego State University, corresponding author), Toby Hopp (0000-0003-0460-2669, University of Colorado Boulder) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1192-1208 |
| Publication date | 2020-10-12 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journalism Practice (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1751-2786 • E-ISSN: 1751-2794 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17512786.2020.1827968 |
| OpenAlex | W3093200613 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 34 |
Studies have shown that newsreaders often have a difficult time distinguishing between different article types and, anecdotally, were oblivious to the text cues that news organizations offered to help make the distinctions. Inquiry into how news readers come to conclusions regarding news content is critical in light of the apparent emergence of so-called interpretative journalism stories—pieces that depart from a straightforward objective approach to the news by subjectively analyzing news content. The goal of this study is to empirically assess the degree to which news readers make visual contact with cues signifying article type, usually with the word “analysis” above the headline. Specifically, the eye movement of 250 college-going US news readers was tracked to determine if they cast their gaze on the textual cues used by two major online newspapers to signify article type. Results revealed that news readers infrequently made eye contact with such cues. Findings give rise to questions about the ways that online news is displayed and understood by audiences
Journalism · Media studies · Political science · Sociology · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Media Studies and Communication · Psychology · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Social Psychology
Eye fixations and cognitive processes
Conferring Resistance to Digital Disinformation
News Media Literacy and Political Engagement
Going Native
Interpretive journalism
How Web Site Organization Influences Free Recall, Factual Knowledge, and Knowledge Structure Density
Generation Y, web design, and eye tracking
The Limited Capacity Model of Mediated Message Processing
News media literacy and conspiracy theory endorsement
Improving Visual Behavior Research in Communication Science
Beyond Self-Reports
Discovering the Explanatory Report in American Newspapers
Presentation factors affecting reading behaviour in readers of newspaper media
The agenda-setting power of fake news
Knowledge acquisition gaps
Climate Change in the Newsroom
Beyond false balance
Looking left or looking right? Effects of newspaper layout style on the perception of political news
Just the Facts
Differences in Knowledge Acquisition among Readers of the Paper and Online Versions of a National Newspaper
The rise of contextual journalism, 1950s–2000s
Learning From News on Different Media Platforms
Framing analysis
Eye movements in reading and information processing
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |