Suchergebnisse

The contemporary media systems present hybrid logics and features that imply an increasingly interdependence among actors, media and communication formats. The hybrid media system approach underlines that legacy news media and non-elite media actors construct flows of news through different media technologies and according to complex temporal structures. A media environment arises in which traditional distinctions between concepts like 'online' and 'offline', 'producer' and 'audience', 'citizens' and 'journalists' become blurred. The emphasis appears to be on change more than continuity, and on difference more than similarity. Although the hybrid media approach is appreciated by numerous contemporary media scholars, hybridity in media often remains an all-encompassing concept and few attempts have been made to measure it. This article assesses the level of hybridity by investigating journalists' uses of sources. It considers mainly journalists' use of sources by the medium for which they work (from newspapers to web or radio) and the kinds of news that they produce (hard or soft news, business/finance, tech/science). The assumption is, therefore, that, within a homogeneously hybridized media system, journalists use the same sources regardless of the medium for which they work and the topics with which they deal. This objective is pursued by analysing the data collected via a survey conducted by means of structured interviews with a sample of 1424 Italian journalists between October and November 2016. The findings show that the analytical distinction among platforms for which journalists work still matters in terms of sources. Except for the use of Facebook and Google, journalists have still very defined paths to collect sources according to the medium they work for. The article has implications also for the literature on journalists' authority and expertise.

Looking at TV news viewership in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigate whether demand for national and local news depends on national or local events. Exploiting the fact that epidemiological developments display a great deal of variation among the different regions, we find that demand for both national news and, more surprisingly, local news responds to the national epidemiological developments rather than to the local ones. This implies that local politicians have a further incentive to take preventive action.

Looking at TV news viewership in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic using actual consumption data, we investigate whether demand for national and local news depends on national or local epidemiological developments, as measured by the number of new positives or the number of currently positives in any given day. Exploiting the fact that the seriousness of the pandemic displays a great deal of variation among the different regions, we find that at the regional level demand for both national news and, more surprisingly, local news responds to the national epidemiological developments rather than to the local ones. This has implications for the incentives faced by local politicians to take preventive action.