Abstract

News media act as a window to the world. This window is now believed to be shrinking due to developments in digital media such as algorithmic personalization which restricts people to echo chambers in turn affecting citizens’ views on society. It is an example of the moral panics surrounding digital media and obfuscating underlying social dynamics at play. This article seeks to address this issue by looking at news use through the lens of news repertoires. Building on a representative survey of Dutch-speaking Belgian citizens, we identify four archetypical news repertoires (Limited – Panoramic – Traditional – Casual) and investigate how these relate to civic attitudes including civic (dis-) engagement, individualism, and ethnocentrism. In line with previous research, our study shows that age and socio-economic status significantly predict the constellation of one’s news repertoire. Furthermore, variances in news repertoires translate into small but significant differences in views on society, particularly between the media-rich Panoramic and media-poor Limited news repertoires regarding ethnocentrism. Finally, we discuss how in order to appease moral media panics, it is not only necessary to substantiate debates on media power with empirical insights on news use, but also to imagine news audiences in a more nuanced way.

摘要

新闻媒体是通向世界的窗口。由于算法个性化等数字媒体的发展，这一窗口现在被认为正在缩小，算法个性化将人们限制在回音室，进而影响公民对社会的看法。这是围绕数字媒体的道德恐慌和模糊潜在的社会动态的一个例子。本文试图通过新闻节目的镜头来看待新闻使用来解决这个问题。在对讲荷兰语的比利时公民的代表性调查的基础上，我们确定了四种典型的新闻节目（有限 - 全景 - 传统 - 休闲），并调查这些与公民态度的关系，包括公民（不）参与、个人主义和民族中心主义。与以往的研究一致，我们的研究表明，年龄和社会经济地位显着预测了一个人的新闻曲目。此外，新闻节目的差异转化为社会观点的微小但显着的差异，特别是在媒体丰富的全景和媒体贫乏的有限新闻节目中关于种族中心主义。最后，我们讨论了如何为了平息道德媒体恐慌，不仅需要用对新闻使用的经验见解来证实关于媒体权力的辩论，而且还要以更细致入微的方式想象新闻受众。