Audience Expectations of Media Accountability in the Netherlands

When Journalists Tweet: Disclosure, Participatory, and Personal Transparency

“…There are several objectives for more transparency in journalism: audiences want news media to be transparent about their sources, journalistic principles, and mistakes; news organizations want their audiences to think of them as objective, accountable, and transparent, and journalists hold transparency as one of the most important professional ideals (Chadha & Koliska, 2014;Groenhart, 2012;Heise, Loosen, Reimer, & Schmidt, 2013;Phillips, 2010;van der Wurff & Schönbach, 2010). Essential to all arguments for transparency is its link to credibility and accountability.…”

“…193, 195), even though this could increase their accountability. It also seems as if, even though the audiences appreciate the disclosure transparency and the possibilities of interaction, most of them are in fact not interested in actually interacting with journalists (Robinson, 2011; van der Wurff & Schönbach, 2014).…”

Do Not Stand Corrected

“…On the other hand, studies from different time periods and settings uniformly found that accuracy is a very important trait of journalism to users (Braman, 1988;Heider, McCombs, & Poindexter, 2005;Willnat & Weaver, 1998). Likewise, two recent studies by van der Wurff andSchoenbach (2013, 2014) found that users were, in general, conservative in their views about changes in journalistic accountability and that users expect news media to be transparent about their mistakes (see also Braman, 1988). These second group of findings suggest that citizens, when asked, expect high (and old) standards as well as accountability from the media, suggesting that the citizens might not be willing to part with the high standards despite the changing publishing rhythm.…”

“…Turning to audience studies, the results are somewhat ambivalent. On one hand, swift news dissemination is one dimensions of (online) journalism that users most appreciate (Bergström, 2008;Chung & Yoo, 2008;Nguyen, 2010;van der Wurff & Schoenbach, 2014). On the other hand, studies from different time periods and settings uniformly found that accuracy is a very important trait of journalism to users (Braman, 1988;Heider, McCombs, & Poindexter, 2005;Willnat & Weaver, 1998).…”

“…However, although changes in journalism and the news media are hotly debated within communication research, citizens' perspectives and the demands of journalism are often missing (Boczkowski & Mitchelstein, 2013;van der Wurff & Schoenbach, 2014). In this study, we focus on changes in online news and how users perceive those changes.…”