User Rankings and Journalistic News Selection

Abstract

User rankings provide detailed information about the news selection of internet audiences. Due to the difficult economic situation of many publishing companies, newsrooms are increasingly forced to take these data into account. This paper contributes to the debate about an increasing audience orientation in journalism. We conducted a content analysis of various media outlets and user rankings in order to explore current differences between journalistic news selection and selections of the audience. Our comparison criteria include news values and topics. The results show similarities in news values, but differences in preferred topics. Finally, we discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by user rankings for the analysis of audience behavior.