Measuring and explaining the diversity of voices and viewpoints in the news

Masini, A; Van Aelst, P; Mancini, P; Zerback, T; Teineman, C; Mazzoni, M; Damiani, M; Coen, S

Abstract

News media can be considered to fulfil their democratic role as a “marketplace of
ideas” only if they present a diverse content that gives space to a wider range of ideas
and viewpoints. But how can content diversity be assessed? And what determines
actor and viewpoint diversity in the first place? By employing measurements of actor
and viewpoint diversity at the article and newspaper level, this study provides a
complete overview on the content diversity of immigration news, and it investigates
factors that have an impact on content diversity of immigration newspaper articles in
Belgium, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom (2013-2014). The results of a
multilevel analysis indicate that both the articles’ size and the elite character of a
newspaper play a key role in enhancing news’ multiperspectivalness. Also, the
findings show that these two measurements of content diversity are different yet
related to each other.

Citation

Masini, A., Van Aelst, P., Mancini, P., Zerback, T., Teineman, C., Mazzoni, M., …Coen, S. (2018). Measuring and explaining the diversity of voices and viewpoints in the news. Journalism Studies, 19(15), 2324-2343. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1343650

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Jul 13, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jun 19, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 13, 2019
• Journal: Journalism Studies
• Print ISSN: 1461-670X
• Publisher: Routledge
• Volume: 19
• Issue: 15
• Pages: 2324-2343
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1343650
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1343650
• Related Public URLs: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjos20/current
• Additional Information: Funders : University of Antwerp; Grant Number: GOA 28311