Biased Social Media Debates About Terrorism? A Content Analysis of Journalistic Coverage of and Audience Reactions to Terrorist Attacks on YouTube

IF 5.5 1区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Social Media + Society Pub Date : 2024-10-25 DOI:10.1177/20563051241290113

Liane Rothenberger, Valerie Hase

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Social media are an important source of news during crises such as terrorist attacks. However, how news media and their audiences make sense of terrorism on social media is subject to bias, for example, given their differential treatment of terrorism by right-wing versus Islamist extremist perpetrators. In this study, we analyze how incident- and perpetrator-related characteristics of terrorist attacks are associated with bias in public debates about terrorism on YouTube. We focus on selectiveness in which attacks are covered (gatekeeping bias), how attacks are covered (presentation bias), and how audiences react to coverage (audience bias). Methodologically, we employ a manual and an automated content analysis of terrorism coverage by five international broadcasters on YouTube ( N = 643, 2018–2020) and related user comments ( N = 193,721). Our findings illustrate how sociocultural contexts shape news bias in terrorism coverage, both in the form of gatekeeping bias and presentation bias—but we conclude with less evidence for audience bias in public reactions to terrorism, at least on social media. Consequently, journalists should critically question working routines in covering crises to avoid reinforcing power imbalances, especially those from Western contexts.

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关于恐怖主义的有偏见的社交媒体辩论？对 YouTube 上有关恐怖袭击的新闻报道和受众反应的内容分析

在恐怖袭击等危机期间，社交媒体是重要的新闻来源。然而，新闻媒体及其受众如何在社交媒体上理解恐怖主义却受到偏见的影响，例如，他们对右翼和伊斯兰极端分子实施的恐怖主义的不同处理方式。在本研究中，我们分析了恐怖袭击事件和肇事者的相关特征如何与 YouTube 上有关恐怖主义的公开辩论中的偏见相关联。我们重点关注报道袭击事件的选择性（把关偏差）、报道袭击事件的方式（呈现偏差）以及受众对报道事件的反应（受众偏差）。在方法论上，我们采用手动和自动内容分析的方式，对 YouTube 上五家国际广播公司的恐怖主义报道（N = 643，2018-2020 年）和相关用户评论（N = 193721）进行了分析。我们的研究结果说明了社会文化背景如何在恐怖主义报道中形成新闻偏见，包括把关偏见和表述偏见--但我们的结论是，在公众对恐怖主义的反应中，受众偏见的证据较少，至少在社交媒体上是如此。因此，记者在报道危机时应批判性地质疑工作常规，以避免强化权力失衡，尤其是来自西方背景的权力失衡。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Media + Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

9.20

自引率

3.80%

发文量

111

审稿时长

12 weeks

期刊介绍： Social Media + Society is an open access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal that focuses on the socio-cultural, political, psychological, historical, economic, legal and policy dimensions of social media in societies past, contemporary and future. We publish interdisciplinary work that draws from the social sciences, humanities and computational social sciences, reaches out to the arts and natural sciences, and we endorse mixed methods and methodologies. The journal is open to a diversity of theoretic paradigms and methodologies. The editorial vision of Social Media + Society draws inspiration from research on social media to outline a field of study poised to reflexively grow as social technologies evolve. We foster the open access of sharing of research on the social properties of media, as they manifest themselves through the uses people make of networked platforms past and present, digital and non. The journal presents a collaborative, open, and shared space, dedicated exclusively to the study of social media and their implications for societies. It facilitates state-of-the-art research on cutting-edge trends and allows scholars to focus and track trends specific to this field of study.