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Drs. Michaël Opgenhaffen Information: Interactions and Impact RGU – Aberdeen, 26/06/07

Online news media and interactivity: studying control, conversation, self-production and hyperlinks from a cognitive and methodological approach. Drs. Michaël Opgenhaffen Information: Interactions and Impact RGU – Aberdeen, 26/06/07. PhD-project.

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Drs. Michaël Opgenhaffen Information: Interactions and Impact RGU – Aberdeen, 26/06/07

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  1. Online news media and interactivity: studying control, conversation, self-production and hyperlinks from a cognitive and methodological approach Drs. Michaël Opgenhaffen Information: Interactions and Impact RGU – Aberdeen, 26/06/07

  2. PhD-project • Lessius University College – Catholic University Leuven, Belgium • Multimedia, interactivity and hypertext in online news: effect on objective and subjective knowledge • 2006-2009

  3. INTERNET Engines, blogs, Usenet, fora, … MEDIATED INFORMATION RETRIEVAL MEDIATED INFORMATION PROCESSING INFORMATION NEEDS KNOWLEDGE OUTCOME General model of retrieving and processing INTERNET

  4. Mediated information-processing • What happens once the news is retrieved? • Effect of interactivity on information-processing and knowledge outcome? • Theories from cognitive psychology / media studies

  5. Purpose of this presentation Methodological + cognitive approach • What do we study? • What are online news media? • What is interactivity? • What is information-processing? • Limited capacity model • Effect of interactivity and hyperlinks • Measuring information-processing

  6. What do we study?

  7. What do we study: online news media What’s an online news medium? • Internet is not one, big, homogeneous medium • Convergent meta-medium (e.g. internet, online newspaper, news site, …) Divergent sub-media (e.g. news page, forum, web-tv, blog, RSS-feeds, news alerts, …) Studying divergent sub-media Sampling messagesfrom sub-media

  8. Defining a medium: production • Kozma (1991): • Sign system • Technology • Processing possibilities • Hoogeveen (1997): • Perceptual (text, audio, video, …) • Technological (mpeg, jpeg, wmv, mp3, …) • Fysical (computer, television, mobile phone, …)

  9. Defining a medium: consumption • Survey in June, 2007 with 890 students between 18-22 years • Digital divide in use by homogeneous group • 100% online newspaper (convergent) • 100% news site (divergent) • 45% blogs (divergent) • 31% videos (divergent) • 28% audio (divergent) • 27% discussion forum (divergent) • 14% picture tray (divergent) • 9% polls (divergent) • 8% RSS-feeds (divergent) • 6% newsletters (divergent) • …

  10. What do we study: interactivity • “the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time” (Steuer, 1992).  Control • “the expression of the extent that in a given series of communication exchanges, any third (or later) transmission is related to the degree to which previous exchanges referred to even earlier transmission” (Rafaeli, 1988, p. 111). Conversation • “the possibility to ad information online (Heeter, 1989)”  Publication

  11. What do we study: hypertext Hypertext makes control, conversation and publication possible • Internal hyperlinks  refer to other texts (or sections) within the news medium • External hyperlinks  refer to texts or media located outside the news medium

  12. Content analysis • Online coverage of municipal and federal elections in Belgium in 2006 + 2007 • Convergent + divergent news media • Digital newspapers, television and radio news sites, ‘online onlies’, alternative news media. • ° classification / operationalisation of interactivity + hypertext

  13. Interactivity ready for operation (1) CONTROL - Number of articles - Choice of modalities (yes/no) - Choice of frequence (obliged – optional – not) - Choice of category (obliged - optional - not) - Choice of chronology (obliged - optional – not) - Search by word (obliged – optional - not) - Personalisation (obliged - optional – not) - Adaptivity (obliged – optional – not) - Accessibility (push – pull) - Archiving (yes/no) - Print (yes/no) - Read later (yes/no) - Pay section (obliged – optional – not) - Advisory cues (yes/no)

  14. Interactivity ready for operation (2) CONVERSATION - Contact author (yes/no) - Contact other actors (yes/no) - Send to (yes/no) PUBLICATION - publish message (yes/no) - Adapt message (yes/no) - React on message (yes/no) - Poll/survey (yes/no)- Rate information (yes/no)

  15. Hypertext ready for operation • Number of clicks to full article • In article: • Number of text-internal links • Number of medium-internal links • Number of related external links • Number of non-related external links

  16. Information-processing Learning from the news

  17. The black box • Exposure  knowledge (S – R) • Exposure  information processing  knowledge (S – ? – R) • Studying the ‘black box’ between exposure en knowledge

  18. Model MULTIMEDIA Multimedia INFORMATION-PROCESSING INTERACTIVITY HYPERTEXT KNOWLEDGE

  19. Limited Capacity Model (Lang, 2000) • “News consumer is a news processor with limited cognitive capacities” • News processing • Encoding • Storage • Retrieval  Interactivity and hypertext both stimulates and hampers these processes

  20. Positive Involvement Evaluation Negative Selective scanning desorientation time-consuming cognitive overload Implications of interactivity on IP Control + communication + publication

  21. Positive Structural isomorphism Evaluation Negative desorientation cognitive overload Implications of hypertext on IP Internal / external links

  22. Assessment of effects

  23. Typology Flemish online news media

  24. Measuring information-processing E.g. ? External hypertext  desoriëntation  Decreased knowledge ? ? Self-production of content • High involvement • High evaluation • Increased knowledge ?

  25. Measuring information-processing • First step (October 2007): Think-aloud protocol / thought-list procedure “asks a subject to report all his or her thoughts while doing some task. The goal is to capture what actually goes through a person’s mind as he or she performs a task.” (Shapiro, 1994) Using Morae-software to record voice and face expression during online news consumption  Degree of desorientation, evaluation, maintenance, cognitive overload, … / interactive and hypertextual feature

  26. Measuring information-processing (2) • Second step (January 2008): Measuring IP retrospectively by measuring type of knowledge after consumption of manipulated news media (cfr. Lang, 2000) (High – medium - low interactive) (High – medium – low hypertextual) Recognition = encoding Cued recall = storage Free recall = retrieval

  27. Summary • Internet as infrastructure, as a complex of convergent and divergent media • Besides content, form and structure is important • Interactivity and hypertext are multidimensional • Exposure is not an adequate predictor of knowledge • Combination of methodes/measures needed in order to measure the information-processing and the knowledge outcome

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