News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

Boukes, Mark; Boomgaarden, Hajo G.; Moorman, Marjolein; Vreese, Claes H. de

doi:10.1080/15205436.2014.891136

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 110 publications

(165 reference statements)

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“…The term pre-generic implies the imitation of an original genre (Knight 2004), but our results demonstrate that the imitated genre can also be a hybrid genre since some scholars argue that liberal and conservative news are hybrid genres (e.g., Boukes et al 2014). The reason being that opinionated news often deviates from genre conventions of traditional news towards those of entertainment genres by focusing more on emotions for example (Boukes et al 2014).…”

Section: Implications Of Main Findingsmentioning

confidence: 64%

From The Daily Show to Last Week Tonight: A Quantitative Analysis of Discursive Integration in Satirical Television News

et al. 2021

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Satirical news shows constitute an innovative hybrid genre that mixes regular news and fiction. The discursive integration hypothesis posits that the defining characteristic of satirical news shows is that news and fiction elements are integrated such that boundaries between the preexisting genres have blurred. The current study quantitatively tests this hypothesis on both longrunning American shows such as The Daily Show and more recent shows such as Last Week Tonight. We collected transcripts of fifteen satirical news shows, eleven regular news shows, and fourteen fiction shows from 2018 (9,824,249 words). Transcripts were automatically tagged for over fifty linguistic features to identify register dimensions, patterns in linguistic features unique to genres, which we used to determine the presence of discursive integration. Findings revealed that two-thirds of satirical news shows were indeed characterized by discursive integration (which we labeled "complete hybrids"), while one-third manifested through the already existing hybrid genre of opinionated news (which we labeled "hybrid-genre echoes"). These two categories of shows demonstrate the importance of genre hybridity for defining satirical news across different shows.

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Section: Implications Of Main Findingsmentioning

confidence: 64%

From The Daily Show to Last Week Tonight: A Quantitative Analysis of Discursive Integration in Satirical Television News

et al. 2021

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“…Although frequently understood as a form of regular journalism, one could argue that opinionated or partisan forms of journalism are an infotainment genre as well (see Boukes, Boomgaarden, Moorman, & De Vreese, 2014). Well-known examples of opinionated news are outlets, such as FoxNews and Breitbart, which clearly relate to the final dimension of soft news characteristics as described by Reinemann et al (2012): whereas news and opinion in regular journalism are strictly separated, they are intertwined within the opinionated news genre.…”

Section: Opinionated Newsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Infotainment

Boukes

2019

The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies

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Infotainment is the umbrella term that covers the fusion of entertainment and journalism within different media genres. Infotainment-a linguistic blend of information and entertainment-can be understood as two related developments: (a) news becoming more entertaining, and (b) entertainment taking up political topics. Thus, infotainment should not be understood as one separate news genre. Instead infotainment is an umbrella term for a range of genres that provide a softened form of political communication by combing information and entertainment within one outlet (Otto, Glogger, & Boukes, 2017). Figure 1 illustrates the infotainment concept: Infotainment is not a genre in itself, but a construct encompassing various underlying genres that represent entertaining formats of political information. There are five infotainment genres in the media landscape as well as in academic work: soft news, opinionated news, political satire, entertainment talk shows, and political fiction. The rise of infotainment began in the late 1980s when government regulations were relaxed in multiple countries that had not-until that time-permitted private parties to broadcast television. With the advent of commercial television channels, audiences gradually fragmented and competition for viewers increased. News outlets, therefore, could no longer simply assume that people would tune in; the new media environment provides so many alternatives that citizens not interested in politics can easily avoid the news. To maintain advertising revenues, an audience-centered approach to newsmaking has allegedly become dominant in which the public is considered to consist of consumers who want to be entertained rather than citizens who should be informed. Accordingly, news producers have begun to tailor their product to the needs of the market. News coverage has thus become a potential source of revenue for media companies instead of just a societal duty. Consequently, many producers of news are guided by a media logic in which news outlets aim to commercially survive, rather than by a public logic in which informing the audience would be the primary goal. A review of scholarly definitions reveals three dimensions in which news coverage can be categorized as less or more entertaining (Reinemann, Stanyer, Scherr, & Legnante, 2012): (a) whether the covered subject matter is politically relevant or not; (b) whether political news items stress public relevance or personal consequences; and (c) whether political news coverage is objective and factual or explicitly includes the opinions and interpretations of journalists. People have increasingly tuned out from the traditional forms of news coverage and instead turned to lighter alternatives (i.e., infotainment) or they use these new news formats in addition to their consumption of traditional news. Infotainment may draw wider and/or different audiences than regular journalism; following uses-and-gratifications theory, people consume media (including news programs) not only to gain information but also to be ...

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“…In the modern news environment, objective news can be most directly contrasted with ‘opinionated news’, which is news coverage that is combined with ‘explicitly expressed opinions’ (Boukes et al, 2014: 355). Examples of opinionated news include television news programs hosted by some anchors (e.g.…”

Section: Twitter and Journalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sean Hannity, Rachel Maddow) on US cable news channels such as Fox News and MSNBC (Feldman, 2011; Stroud, 2010). Opinion is purposefully included in opinionated news to differentiate the content from other news sources in order to reach audiences and increase revenue (Boukes et al, 2014; Gentzkow and Shapiro, 2010).…”

Section: Twitter and Journalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The twitterization of journalism: User perceptions of news tweets

et al. 2018

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Using an experiment and probability sample of Chicago and Los Angeles adults ( N = 1211), this study tested how tweet characteristics (tone, space) and participant age (younger, middle, older) affected attitudes about tweets from a local newspaper. Results indicate that non-opinionated tweets were perceived as more useful and credible than opinionated tweets, and local tweets resulted in more engagement than national tweets. Younger participants (19–36 years) reported more positive affect, usefulness, engagement, and credibility related to tweets than did middle/older age groups. Younger participants were generally more negative about opinionated national tweets and preferred opinionated local tweets compared with middle/older groups.

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News With an Attitude: Assessing the Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Opinionated News

Cited by 19 publications

References 110 publications

From The Daily Show to Last Week Tonight: A Quantitative Analysis of Discursive Integration in Satirical Television News

From The Daily Show to Last Week Tonight: A Quantitative Analysis of Discursive Integration in Satirical Television News

Infotainment

The twitterization of journalism: User perceptions of news tweets

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