Research team of "Journalism Studies I"

Staff

Alumni

• Engelke, Katherine M., Dr.

Research activities

Our externally and internally funded research projects examine (1) the profession and its routines, but also (2) how and why audiences participate in journalism.  

(1) Professional field research and journalistic routines

One focus of our research and teaching activities is the professional field of journalism. The research unit is involved in the Worlds of Journalism study, which maps the profession and the current conditions under which it operates in about a hundred countries worldwide. Our sub-project investigating journalism in Sweden was funded by the Anne-Marie och Gustaf Anders Stiftelse för mediaforskning and supported by the Swedish Federation of Journalists (SJF). The current data show, for example, how prevalent threats of hate speech, intimidation, and public discrediting of journalistic work are from the perspectives of journalists and how great their concern is that perpetrators will not be held accountable for these.

Another project, funded by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), examines research routines of Swedish and Ukrainian journalists in situations of conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Conducted in cooperation with colleagues from Sweden and Ukraine, the study revealed that digital fact-checking tools are not used in either Swedish or Ukrainian newsrooms. In traditional journalism, which operates at the marginal productivity of individuals, time allotted for research is a crucial “crunch zone” (including, of course, the time required to introduce new technology). In addition, the rather individualistic style of work in journalism can lead to confirmation bias coming through in research and narration. The first results of the study have been published in the Central European Journal of Communication.

Another focus of our unit is the investigation of selection routines in journalists’ professional gatekeepeing. In the course of digitalization and an increase in the importance of social media as a means of accessing news content, the question arises as to whether news presented journalistically on social media differs from the respective websites of established news outlets due to specific selection mechanisms. This could result in a lower level of informedness of those recipients who rely predominantly on social media as a news source. A recent study investigated this question by combining expert interviews with an input-output comparison of news articles distributed by journalists on social media (Wehden, 2022). The findings indicated that the news presented on social media is, in general, quite diverse, although some topics rarely make it to Facebook and Twitter. News factors also seem to be less important for the journalistic selection of articles for social media than certain formal aspects. In addition to the selection of news for social media, we engage in research on journalistic selection in other contexts, such as sports journalism (e.g., Wehden & Schröer, 2019).

(2) (Dark) Participation in journalism

In a digitalized society, journalism research can hardly ignore the “audience turn”. The analysis of the significance of audience preferences for journalistic selection and presentation routines as well as the contributions that users make to professional journalistic products are, therefore, also on our research agenda. One example is crowdsourcing, an innovative tool used by some newsrooms to source—and sometimes even to verify—input for news content (Springer, 2019). Research shows that journalists should know exactly what it is they want to find out from their audiences so that crowdsourcing can be used efficiently. Here, journalistic and quantitative social research methods resemble each other, as the methodological approach and implementation in the form of questionnaires at ProPublica, for example, show. An overview of relevant research is provided by a systematic literature review on participation in online journalism (Engelke, 2019).

One of the most common—but also polarizing—tools of journalistic audience engagement strategies is certainly the comment function. We have identified coping with cognitive dissonance as a key motive for people to comment on news: I cannot leave uncommented what I read here—I beg to differ! (Springer, Engelmann, & Pfaffinger, 2015). Therefore, we also analyze the contributions user comments can make to viewpoint diversity in the public sphere. A study of news and user comments on the financial crisis showed that additions do occur: While news primarily focuses on structures and collective actors (such as governments), users heatedly point to the responsibility of individuals. They also draw analogies and rely on folk wisdom (Baden & Springer, 2014). On the one hand, there is a lot to be learned from comments. On the other, much has happened with this user-generated phenomenon, especially in the last few years; often pointed out is how problematic some users’ comments are, including comments by those who misuse the tool for strategic manipulation (Ksiazek & Springer, 2020). Therefore, we investigate communicative violence against journalists (Springer & Troger, 2021) as well as the spread of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories.

A COST network in which we are involved has recently been funded in this area (CA21129). In the coming years, the OPINION network will focus on how to automatically analyze opinionated contributions posted to the internet. The network will engage in theory-building and operationalization work to develop a toolkit for analyzing the most diverse forms of opinion expressions in online discourse.  

In addition to the question of who is participating in the production, dissemination, and discussion of journalistic content, researchers and professional practitioners are equally interested in who actually receives, shares, likes, and comments on information and news articles—and who does not—and for what reasons. One research project in this area, for example, used automated content analysis of the Twitter accounts of German newspapers to investigate how their followers are distributed geographically and what factors increase a newsroom’s chances of reaching audiences outside the physical distribution area of its own print product via social media (Wehden & Stoltenberg, 2019). Another study (Engelke, 2020) explored the audience perspective on the deliberative character and potential of comments by using qualitative guided interviews with German media users to investigate their reasons for the active and passive (non-)use of comments, how they evaluate comments, and what personal and social significance comments have for them.

Final theses at the department

Have our topics aroused your interest and can you imagine writing your thesis with us? If so, the following documents will inform you about the process of supervision with us and give you ideas for finding a topic.

Info sheet bachelor thesis

Info sheet master thesis

Suggested topic