Skip to main content

Mobile News Processing: University Students’ Reactions to Inclusion/Exclusion-Related News

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Information in Contemporary Society (iConference 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 11420))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 4818 Accesses

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a diary study involving 49 university students reporting how they consume and react to news via their mobile phones. In their diary entries, participants used 23 pairs of semantic differential scales to express their reactions. Out of 265 political and society news items submitted, 68 were inclusion/exclusion-related news. The most frequent categories of inclusion/exclusion news were related to “ethnicity/race,” “gender/sexual orientation,” and “religion,” and these three groups of news items counted for over 85% of all inclusion/exclusion related news that were submitted. Significant differences were found in participants’ choices of semantic adjectives between inclusion news and exclusion news, as well as between inclusion/exclusion news and general news. Findings provide an insightful understanding of the interests, value judgment, and emotional attachments of university students in the US to inclusion/exclusion and to general news.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Li, X.: Technology facility and news affinity: predictors of using mobile phones as a news device. In: Xu, X. (ed.) Interdisciplinary Mobile Media and Communications: Social, Political, and Economic Implications, pp. 278–304 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Barthel, M., Mitchell, A.: Americans’ attitudes about the news media deeply divided along partisan lines. Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Pew Research Center: State of the news media 2015. Washington, D.C. (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Pew Research Center: State of the news media 2016. Washington, D.C. (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Purcell, K., Rainie, L., Mitchell, A., et al.: Understanding the participatory news consumer: how internet and cell phone users have turned news into a social experience. Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  6. O’Brien, H., Freund, L., Westman, S.: What motivates the online news browser? News item selection in a social information seeking scenario. Inf. Res. 19(3) (2017). http://www.informationr.net/ir/19-3/paper634.html#.V8ssaFQrKM8

  7. Struckmann, S., Karnowski, V.: News consumption in a changing media ecology: an MESM study on mobile news. Telematics Inform. 33(2), 309–319 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Sung, H., Parboteeah, P.: Diversity-related research reported in high-impact library and information science journal literature: a content analysis. Libr. Inf. Sci. Res. 39(2), 77–84 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Hastings, S.: If diversity is a natural state, why don’t our libraries mirror the populations they serve? Libr. Q. 85, 133–138 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Subramaniam, M., Rodriguez-Mori, H., Jaeger, P., Hill, R.: The implications of a decade of diversity-related doctoral dissertations (2000–2009) in LIS: supporting inclusive library practices. Libr. Q. 82(3), 361–377 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Schemer, C.: The influence of news media on stereotypic attitudes toward immigrants in a political campaign. J. Commun. 62, 739–757 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Dixon, T.: Network news and racial beliefs: exploring the connection between national television news exposure and stereotypical perceptions of African Americans. J. Commun. 58, 321–337 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Benesch, C.: An empirical analysis of the gender gap in news consumption. J. Media Econ. 25, 147–167 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Uriarte, C., Valgeirsson, G.: Institutional disconnects as obstacles to diversity in journalism in the United States. Journalism Pract. 9(3), 399–417 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Osgood, C., Suci, G., Tannenbaum, P.: The Measurement of Meaning. University of Illinois Press, Urbana (1957)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Scott Jr., W.: The development of semantic differential scales as measures of “morale”. Pers. Psychol. 20(2), 179–198 (1967)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Katzer, J.: The development of a semantic differential to assess users’ attitudes towards an on-line interactive reference retrieval system. J. Am. Soc. Inf. Sci. 23(2), 122–128 (1972)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Ajzen, I., Timko, C.: Correspondence between health attitudes and behavior. Basic Appl. Soc. Psychol. 7(4), 259–276 (1986)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Khan, K.: User experience in mobile phones by using semantic differential methodology. In: Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems Management and Evaluation, Cork, Ireland, pp. 143–150 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Takahashi, H., Terada, K., Morita, T., et al.: Different impressions of other agents obtained through social interaction uniquely modulate dorsal and ventral pathway activities in the social human brain. Cortex 58, 289–300 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Takahashi, H., Ban, M., Asada, M.: Semantic differential scale method can reveal multi-dimensional aspects of mind perception. Front. Psychol. 7(1717), 1–5 (2016)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This research study was funded by The Emily Hollowell Research Fund and Mara Dole Innovation Fund from the School of Library and Information Science, Simmons University. We wish to thank Alison Fisher for her assistance in participant recruitment and data collection. We would also like to thank all the participants of the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rong Tang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Oh, K.E., Tang, R. (2019). Mobile News Processing: University Students’ Reactions to Inclusion/Exclusion-Related News. In: Taylor, N., Christian-Lamb, C., Martin, M., Nardi, B. (eds) Information in Contemporary Society. iConference 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11420. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_30

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15742-5_30

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15741-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15742-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics