Oxford Scholarship Online You are looking at 1-10 of 25 items for: keywords : Quantum Information Science polcom polame News on the Internet: Information and Citizenship in the 21st Century Item type: book acprof:osobl/9780195391961.001.0001 Online news sites play an ever-pervasive role in the daily gathering and flow of political information. Media has always played an intermediary role in the way that citizens receive and process news, but, with the speed of information transmission, the segmentation of news sources, and the rise of citizen journalism, issues of authority, audience, and even the definition of news have shifted and become blurred. This book synthesizes research on developing and current patterns of online news provision with the literature on traditional, offline media to create a conceptual map for understanding the way that public affairs and news are presented and consumed on the Internet. The book looks at the dual role of the Internet as a source of authoritative news and as a vehicle for citizens in contemporary democracies to create and share political information. Throughout, it addresses the tension between the benefits of Internet news provision, specifically increased citizen engagement, and the negative, perhaps counterintuitive, effects: the fragmentation of knowledge and polarization of opinion in contemporary democracies. The book focuses on these points of conflict and contradiction in the online news environment and offers conclusions and predictions for how these phenomena will develop in the future. The Threat on the Horizon: An Inside Account of America's Search for Security after the Cold War Loch K. Johnson Published in print: 2011 Published Online: February 2015 ISBN: 9780199737178 eisbn: 9780190252458 Item type: book acprof:osobl/9780199737178.001.0001 Page 1 of 5
The Aspin-Brown Commission of 1995 1996, led by former U.S. Defense Secretaries Les Aspin and Harold Brown, was a landmark inquiry into the activities of America's secret agencies. The purpose of the commission was to help the Central Intelligence Agency and other organizations in the U.S. intelligence community adapt to the quite different world that had emerged after the end of the Cold War in 1991. This book offers an insider's account of this inquiry. Based on a close sifting of government documents and media reports, interviews with participants, and, above all, eyewitness impressions, this history offers a window onto why the terrorist attacks of 2001 caught the United States by surprise and why the intelligence community failed again in 2002 when it predicted that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Introduction acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0001 This book focuses on news as presented on the Internet and how it is approached and influenced by audiences online. More specifically, it examines online news with news provided by other media (newspapers, magazines, and broadcast radio and television). It also looks at meanings in the patterns of online news provision. It also considers how people are getting and creating news online. What are the social and political implications of such news in a modern democracy? The chapter also discusses the relationship between information and citizenship; some attributes of the Internet that are most relevant for the creation, presentation, and consumption of news; and the role of technology in the relationship among citizens, news, and society. Shifting Audiences acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0002 This chapter considers how people use media and become an audience. More specifically, it examines why audiences move from one medium Page 2 of 5
to another and how these shifts affect the business of media. It shows that members of an audience can be passive or active and explains how the Internet changes the way we think about audience activity. It also examines how the content and operation of media are influenced by audience activity. It argues that shifting audiences plays an important role in understanding online news. The chapter concludes by looking at the online audience in relation to the digital divide and how the audience will affect the news industry more generally. Offline and Online News Content acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0003 This chapter focuses on how online news is generated and presented. It compares the content of online news with that created for the offline media (for example, newspapers, radio and television), and whether the distinction between offline and online news remains a meaningful one. It also examines the extent with which news appearing on the Internet reflects traditional notions of the importance of issues and events, along with the novel ways that online news content can be disseminated to the audience. The role of citizen journalism such as blogs and news feeds in the news environment is considered. The chapter concludes by discussing how the creation and presentation of news online can affect the way citizens understand events, issues, and public policy. News Specialization and Segmentation acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0004 This chapter focuses on breadth of news content and its relationship with audience segments. More specifically, it examines how the content of news on the Internet is tailored to specific audience characteristics and interests. After considering the history of medium specialization and how media tend to evolve, the chapter explains how online news providers make use of technological interactivity and audience selectivity. It also Page 3 of 5
outlines the organizing structure of media evolution and how content and audience segmentation or specialization arise from media competition and development. In addition, it looks at some of the factors that tend to restrain the segmentation of online news content and audiences into discrete units. Finally, it discusses the structures of online news and the categorization of news through the production of hard and soft news. Selecting News Online acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0005 This chapter discusses the concept of audience selectivity, with particular reference to the extent with which news audiences focus their Internet time on the news. It first explains selectivity as a general concept and how people choose media and messages. It then turns to a discussion of how people select online news sites and stories. It also examines the effect of specific topics on news outlets and the content they provide, and how online news informs people about political affairs. Finally, the chapter describes how audience selectivity results in audience specialization as well as news browsing. Learning from Online News acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0006 This chapter examines what people learn from online news and how. It first reviews research that looks into how people learn from the news before discussing how consumption of news found on the Internet affect the way audiences think about politics. It then considers how the Internet affects the online learning process, along with the implications of differential learning for society. It shows that audiences use search functions and topical menus and follow hyperlinks to respond to how the news is presented. Page 4 of 5
Fragmentation and Polarization of the Audience acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0007 This chapter looks at how consumption of news online gives rise to audience fragmentation and polarization. It considers the conditions under which audience fragmentation and polarization may occur or operate. It also reviews the research literature to find evidence for the fragmentation and polarization of online news audiences in contemporary democracies. More specifically, it examines whether people base their news exposure and thus their knowledge and opinion on factors such as political beliefs. The chapter also discusses types of audience fragmentation and polarization, the causes of fragmentation and polarization, and exposure fragmentation and polarization on the Internet and compares those with those in the traditional or offline media. Finally, it analyzes fragmentation of public affairs knowledge and of the public agenda. Information Democratization acprof:osobl/9780195391961.003.0008 This chapter focuses on the normatively positive implications of how news appears and is consumed online. More specifically, it examines whether the Internet makes democratization of public information possible, that is, Internet use results in citizen involvement with content creation. It first explains the concept of information democratization and its implications for society before turning to a discussion of the role of information in democracy. It then highlights the relationship between user control and social good, as well as the differences between the mass media system and the media of today. It also considers how the Internet strengthens the connections between citizens and political knowledge. The chapter concludes by looking at the barriers to democratization and the potential effects of online news on society. Page 5 of 5