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User Comments and Public Opinion: Findings from an Eye-Tracking Experiment
... After these modifications, the proposal summary lengths ranged from 168 to 350 words, with an average of 290 and standard deviation of 48. Material length was comparable with a previous study based on news articles [25]. ...
... We recognize that prior knowledge about a topic has been identified as a potentially dominant factor in quality evaluations [25] in work that explicitly seeks follow-up studies illuminating the impact of issue familiarity on the effect of comments [25:71]. Also, people who have more prior knowledge or are more involved do more elaborate information processing, attend to more quality cues, especially intrinsic ones, and may be less extreme but possibly faster in their overall quality judgments [23:315]. ...
... During the task, we specified usage goals (proposal evaluation) and did not add any time pressure beyond what is self-imposed by participants independently of the task (similar to e.g. [25]), permitting an hour for a task which typically took several minutes. ...
Prior work and perception theory suggests that when exposed to discussion related to a particular piece of crowdsourced text content, readers generally perceive that content to be of lower quality than readers who do not see those comments, and that the effect is stronger if the comments display conflict. This paper presents a controlled experiment with over 1000 participants testing to see if this effect carries over to other documents from the same platform, including those with similar content or by the same author. Although we do generally find that perceived quality of the commented-on document is affected, effects do not carry over to the second item and readers are able to judge the second in isolation from the comment on the first. We confirm a prior finding about the negative effects conflict can have on perceived quality but note that readers report learning more from constructive conflict comments.
... Certain variables also appear to be associated with correctly identifying credible online content. For example, those who are older (Steinfeld et al., 2016;Nee, 2019), are analytical thinkers (Pennycook & Rand, 2020), have higher educational attainment, and live in city centers (Murrock et al., 2018) tend to exhibit higher levels of criticality. It was also found that those who frequently use social media, navigate the Internet, and have more experience in photography/digital imaging, are better detectors of fake images in online news (Shen et al., 2019). ...
... On the other hand, specific strategies are related to poor identification of disinformation. These include merely relying on top articles in engine search results to verify information (Leeder, 2019) and accepting only information aligned with one's beliefs (Steinfeld, 2016;Moravec et al., 2019;Tully et al., 2020). Moreover, people who consider high-sounding texts as profound and overclaim their knowledge of events tend to consider false news accurate (Pennycook & Rand, 2020). ...
... Indeed, people can dedicate even more time to reading the comments section than to paragraphs of the main text that are comparable in length (Steinfeld, Samuel-Azran, & Lev-On, 2016). ...
... While the effects of comments on people's evaluation of web news have been extensively documented, recent works have questioned the prominence of such influence, as readers may perceive comments as biased (Steinfeld et al., 2016). Because commenting on news on the Internet is a relatively new concept, we may expect that users' perception of comments, and their corresponding influence, may vary with increasing exposure to such scenarios. ...
This chapter focuses on the use of multiple online sources to seek information in such informal or non-academic contexts. It discusses models relevant to understanding non-academic use of multiple sources on the Internet. Several theories on multiple source use on the Internet have been developed in different disciplines, including educational psychology, communication science, and computer science. The chapter also discusses information problem-solving models; models that help explain how people interact with multiple sources on the Internet. It describes models that address two main facets of the interaction with multiple sources: locating and navigating web pages, and evaluating information on the Internet. The process of information seeking on the Internet has been conceptualized as a problem-solving process driven by an information problem. The evaluation of author characteristics on the Internet is also a challenging issue, as identities and professional background can be easily faked on the Internet.
... First, researchers can report raw eye-tracking data to complement research findings that they investigated through other means. For example, Steinfeld et al. (2016) looked at how users read privacy policy when they received it by default versus by their own choice. They found a link between the duration that users stayed on the privacy policy and how well they understood the consequences of the policy. ...
... Previous research has demonstrated that the eyes are naturally drawn to important or informative areas in visual scenes or text and that cognitive processes influence and are influenced by ocular behavior (Rayner, 2009;Steinfeld et al., 2016). This has led researchers to study eye movements as measurable markers of moment-by-moment cognitive processing and focused attention (Steinfeld, 2016;Steinfeld and Shaked, 2021). ...
Purpose
This study presents an innovative approach to analyzing user behavior when performing digital tasks by integrating eye-tracking technology. Through the measurement of user scan patterns, gaze and attention during task completion, the authors gain valuable insights into users' approaches and execution of these tasks.
Design/methodology/approach
In this research, the authors conducted an observational study that centered on assessing the digital skills of individuals with limited proficiency who enrolled in a computer introductory course. A group of 19 participants were tasked with completing various online assignments both before and after completing the course.
Findings
The study findings indicate a significant improvement in participants' skills, particularly in basic and straightforward applications. However, advancements in more sophisticated utilization, such as mastering efficient search techniques or harnessing the Internet for enhanced situational awareness, demonstrate only marginal enhancement.
Originality/value
In recent decades, extensive research has been conducted on the issue of digital inequality, given its significant societal implications. This paper introduces a novel tool designed to analyze digital inequalities and subsequently employs it to evaluate the effectiveness of “LEHAVA,” the largest government-sponsored program aimed at mitigating these disparities in Israel.
... With regard to reading user comments, Steinfeld, Samuel-Azran, and Lev-On (2016) pointed to considerable differences between both countries. They cited data from a 2008 study suggesting that 84% Koreans read postings at least once a week and a German study showing that in 2012, only 26% Germans regularly read user comments. ...
This paper presents a cross-cultural comparison in the field of spiral of silence online. We investigated the effects of user comments on public opinion perception and users’ opinions and willingness to speak out in two cultural settings. Previous research has indicated that spiral of silence effects are greater in collectivistic versus individualistic cultures. Our study was conducted in South Korea, which is collectivistic and Germany, which is individualistic. To test the conformity and silencing hypotheses, we conducted online experiments using comments on online news sites that were congruent or incongruent with personal opinion. Our findings supported the conformity hypothesis and the impact of context on public opinion perception and personal opinion, which were shaped by comments in both countries. In Germany, effects were confined to highly collectivistic users.
... Nowadays, going beyond reading the news passively, people can actively participate in online news. Users' online participation, such as commenting on online news, upvoting or downvoting, and reading comments, is the main characteristic of online news as well as an important element of participatory journalism (Abdul-Mageed 2008;Steinfeld and Lev-on 2016). Online comments have become popular because they allow the public to express freely their opinions on specific issues without time and space restrictions. ...
Because online news comments have a strong influence on the reader’s perception of public opinion, there is a call for efforts to reduce the adverse impact of online news comments, particularly malicious ones. Although many online news platforms currently use technology to detect malicious comments automatically, there is still a technical limit in identifying malicious comments. To improve detection accuracy, it is necessary to understand not only malicious comments but also malicious commenters. Despite the importance of understanding malicious commenters, there is little empirical research on their characteristics. This study aims to understand the characteristics of malicious commenters and develop a prediction model based on their features using real data of users and commenting activities from Naver, a leading Internet news portal in Korea. This study found that the demographic characteristics of malicious commenters tend to be those of males and older people. In terms of commenting activities, the online news commenters who leave more comments per news article and per day, delete more comments, and leave longer comments tend to be malicious commenters.
... Previous research demonstrated that the eyes are drawn to important or informative areas in a visual scene or text and that cognitive processes influence and are influenced by ocular behavior [47,52,53]. This has led researchers to study eye movements as measurable markers of moment-by-moment cognitive processing and focused attention [54]. ...
... Firstly, the relationship between eye-tracking and online news is unique in its shapes and concepts. On the surface, there are many factors in online news including congruity [36], reading behavior [48,49], content selection [50,51], attention and learning content [52], public opinion [53], and media platforms [54]. Next, there are also previous studies on the relationship between eye-tracking and anxiety. ...
Development of the internet as a source of information has penetrated many aspects of human life, which is shown in the increasingly diverse substance of news in online news sources. Previous studies have stated that the presentation of the substance of online news information can have negative impacts, especially the emergence of anxiety in users; thus, managing the presentation of information becomes important. This study intends to explore factors that should be considered as possible anxiety-inducers for readers of news sites. Analyses of areas of interest (AOIs), fixation, and heat maps from respondents’ eye activity obtained from eye-tracker data have been compiled with Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) measurement results to analyze anxiety among newsreaders. The results show that text is the dominant center of attention in various types of news. The reason for the higher anxiety that arises from text on online news sites is twofold. First, there are the respondents’ experiences. Second, text usage allows for boundless possibilities in respondents’ imaginations as a response to the news that has occurred.
... It has flooded into blogs, social network sites and, most importantly, to forums of online media. By commenting on media messages, readers get a chance to apply oppositional decoding, thus altering news framing, and influence the opinions of others (Kim, 2015;Lee & Jang, 2010), however, the evidence in this sphere is mixed and some studies have found that comments have no effect on reader opinions (Steinfeld, Samuel-Azran, & Lev-On, 2016). At the same time, numerous pieces of research have shown that social media can undermine media's monopoly over agenda setting (Sayre, Bode, Shah, Wilcox, & Shah, 2010;Wallsten, 2007), but it should be noted that this was demonstrated mostly for professional-or nearly professionalsocial media content. ...
Media audiences representing a significant portion of the public in any given country may hold opinions on media-generated definitions of social problems which differ from those of media professionals. The proliferation of online reader comments not only makes such opinions available but also alters the process of agenda formation and problem definition in the public space. Based on a dataset of 33,877 news items and 258,121 comments from a sample of regional Russian newspapers we investigate readers’ perceptions of social problems. We find that the volume of attention paid to issues or topics by the media and the importance of those issues for audiences, as judged by the number of their comments, diverge. Further, while the prevalence of general negative sentiment in comments accompanies such topics as disasters and accidents that are not perceived as social problems, a high level of sentiment polarization in comments does suggest issue problematization. It is also positively related to topic importance for the audience. Thus, instead of finding fixed social problem definitions in the reader comments, we observe the process of problem formation, where different points of view clash. These perceptions are not necessarily those expressed in media texts since the latter are predominantly “hard” news covering separate events, rather than trends or issues. As our research suggests, problematization emerges from readers’ background knowledge, external experience, or values.
... While it has been shown to be widely read and popular, user content is also found to be treated very sceptically by the public. 31,32 In this study, a systematic search of online news sources was undertaken and focused on obtaining relevant findings for the objectives of the study and within the parameters set out above. Sixty items were identified, and texts were imported into NVivo (v.11) software for analysis (Table 1). ...
In an attempt to improve organ donation rates, some countries are considering moving from “opt‐in” systems where citizens must express their willingness to be an organ donor, to “opt‐out” systems where consent is presumed unless individuals have expressed their wishes otherwise, by, for example, joining an “opt‐out” register. In Wales—a part of the United Kingdom—the devolved government recently legislated for an “opt‐out” system. For the change to be effective, a public awareness campaign was critical to the policy's success. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, we explored media coverage of the change to better understand the relationship between the state, policy actors, media and the public when such policy changes take place. Our findings illustrate how a state communication campaign can effectively set the media agenda within which we saw a degree of interdependency created with the state using the media to promote policy, and the media relying on the state for credible information. Yet we also found that the media is not uncritical and observed how it uses its autonomy to influence policy setting. Over the period of study, we found that a change in tone and view towards deemed consent organ donation has taken place in the media. However, while this may influence or reflect public attitudes, it is yet to be seen whether the media campaign translates into behavioural change that will result in increases in organ donations.
... Göz hareketlerinin takibi yöntemi, kullanıcıların nereye, ne kadar süreyle, kaç kez baktığına, dikkatinin hedef alan için nerede yoğunlaştığına ve bilişsel durumlarına ilişkin bilgi sağlamak amacıyla kullanılmaktadır (Holmqvist, Nyström, Andersson, Dewhurst, Jarodzka, & Van de Weijer, 2011). Göz hareketlerinin analizi günümüzde psikoloji (Steinfeld, Samuel-Azran, & Lev-On, 2016;Realpe-Muñoz vd., 2018), insan-bilgisayar etkileşimi (Diego-Mas, Garzon-Leal, Poveda-Bautista, & Alcaide-Marzal, 2019), nöroloji (Popa vd., 2015), eğitim (Alemdag & Cagiltay, 2018;Lai vd., 2013), mühendislik (Sharafi, Soh, & Guéhéneuc, 2015) ve pazarlama (Pieters, Erdem, & Martinovici, 2017) gibi alanlarda yaygın bir şekilde kullanılmaktadır. Göz hareketleri ölçümlerinin, diğer fizyolojik ölçümlere göre daha net bulgular ortaya koyması ve uygulamalarının ve analizlerinin nispeten daha kolay olmasından dolayı sıkça tercih edildiği söylenebilir. ...
Türkiye’de üniversite sayılarındaki artış beraberinde üniversitelerin tanıtım ve iletişim faaliyetlerini daha önemli hale getirmiştir. Üniversiteler bu bağlamda öğrenci adaylarına üniversitenin kimliğini ve değerlerini tanıtmak için çeşitli iletişim araçlarından faydalanmaktadır. Benzer şekilde üniversite öğrenci adayları, tercih etmek istediği üniversiteler hakkında birçok kaynaktan bilgi edinebilmektedir. Bunlardan biri çağın vazgeçilmezi olan sosyal medya araçlarıdır. Özellikle üniversite öğrenci adayı olarak nitelendirilebilecek yaş grubunda olan genç yetişkinlerin sosyal medya kullanıcılarının önemli bir oranını oluşturması üniversitelerin pazarlama faaliyetlerine yön verebilmektedir. Yapılan çalışmalar, üniversitelerin sosyal medya içeriklerinin öğrenci adaylarının tercihlerine yön vermede etkili olduğunu göstermektedir. Buradan yola çıkarak bu çalışmanın amacı, göz izleme teknolojisini işe koşarak üniversite öğrenci adaylarının Hacettepe Üniversitesi sosyal medya (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) hesaplarındaki gezinim süreçlerini inceleyerek bu mecraların etkililiğini değerlendirmektir. Bu amaca ulaşmak için öncelikli olarak çevrimiçi formlar aracılığıyla lise son sınıfı ve lise mezunu 120 öğrenciyle ihtiyaç analizi gerçekleştirilmiştir. Ardından katılımcıların üniversitenin sosyal medya hesaplarındaki otantik deneyimlerini ortaya koymak için göz izleme cihazı aracılığıyla uygulama gerçekleştirilmiştir. Göz izleme metriklerinden sıçrama sayısı, odaklanma sayısı ve sıçrama süresinin odaklanma süresine oranı kullanılmıştır. Uygulamanın öncesinde bir pilot uygulama gerçekleştirilerek uygulama esnasında oluşabilecek aksaklıkların önüne geçilmesi planlanmıştır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubu lise son sınıfta öğrenim gören 7 öğrenciden oluşmuştur. Nielsen (2012) 5-15 kullanıcı ile kullanılabilirlik sorunlarının %85-%100'ünün tespit edilebildiğini belirtmiştir. Uygulama Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi İnsan-Bilgisayar Etkileşimi laboratuvarında gerçekleştirilmiştir. Katılımcılar her bir sosyal medya hesabını 5 dakika süreyle incelemiş ve her bir inceleme sonucunda görüşme gerçekleştirilerek kullanıcıların deneyimleri raporlanmıştır. Her bir katılımcı için uygulama yaklaşık 25-30 dakika sürmüştür. Ayrıca katılımcılardan gezinim sürecinde sesli düşünmeleri istenmiş ve sesli düşünme verileri ayrıca analiz edilmiştir. Süreç sonunda demografik verilerin de yer aldığı memnuniyet anketi uygulanmıştır. İhtiyaç analizi bulgularına göre öğrenciler üniversite sosyal medya hesaplarında sosyal ve kültürel etkinlikleri, üniversite tanıtımı içerikli bilgileri, kampüste yaşam olanakları gibi paylaşımları görmek istediklerini belirtmişlerdir. İhtiyaç analizi bulguları dikkate alındıktan sonra göz izleme yöntemi kullanılarak Hacettepe Üniversitesi sosyal medya hesaplarının etkililiği değerlendirilmiştir. Göz izleme ve diğer yöntemlerden elde edilen bulgulara göre içerik bakımından en kullanışlı Hacettepe Üniversitesi sosyal medya hesabının Instagram olduğu bulunmuştur. Ayrıca katılımcılar Facebook hesabını kullanışsız bulmuşlardır. Bununla birlikte katılımcıların sıçrama ve odaklanma sürelerine bakarak en verimli gezinimi Twitter ortamında gerçekleştirdikleri görülmüştür. Katılımcılar bu mecralarda üniversitenin akademik etkinliklerine ilişkin daha çok paylaşım yapılmasının daha verimli olacağını belirtmişlerdir. Katılımcıların en çok ilgisini çeken mecra ise Instagram olmuştur. Katılımcılar buna gerekçe olarak kendi yaş grubunun en çok bu mecrayı kullandıklarını belirtmişlerdir. Memnuniyet anketi sonucunda katılımcıların genel olarak sosyal medya hesaplarında paylaşılan içeriklerin yararlı olduğunu ancak yeterli olmadığını belirttiği dikkati çekmektedir. Ayrıca katılımcıların en çok ilgisini çeken taraf üniversitenin kültürel etkinliklere değer vermesi olmuştur. Bu çalışma farklı yöntemler kullanılarak bir üniversite öğrenci adayının sosyal medya hesaplarında gezinerek nasıl bir bakış açısı sunmakta olabileceğini göstermekte olup bu açıdan alanyazına ve uygulayıcılara katkı sağlayıcı olacağı düşünülmektedir. Üniversitelerin tanıtım faaliyetlerinin önemli bir diğer hedef kitlesi öğrenci adaylarının velileridir. Dolayısıyla bundan sonraki yapılacak çalışmalarda öğrenci adaylarının yanı sıra velilerin de sosyal medya hesaplarına ilişkin görüşleri ve otantik deneyimleri incelenebilir.
... Lee and Chun [8] conducted two experiments and found that the effects of online comments and public opinion polls interact with the individuals' prior attitudes toward a corporation. Steinfeld et al. [21] used an eye-tracking experiment to study the popularity of user comments, and the effects of pre-existing opinions, readership patterns and the tone of user comments on the evaluation of news articles. Ren and Ji [17] empirically explored a neural network model to learn about the document-level representation for detecting deceptive opinion spam. ...
... Furthermore, studies show that in some countries, the great majority of Internet news readers read other readers' postings at least once a week (Na and Jun 2008) and an international poll conducted by Kantar Media research group (2012), comparing user comment readership, found that between 26% and 47% of readers worldwide read user comments regularly, although the figures vary from country to country. In Israel, between 32% (Shalev 2007) and 50% (Pereg 2008;Steinfeld et al. 2016) of online news readers report reading user comments. ...
... Ces dernières études, en partie contredites par les résultats de Steinfeld, Samuel-Azran et Lev-On (2016) 8 , abordent l'influence des commentaires sur les opinions relatives aux sujets traités et ne portent jamais sur les questions de langue. Pourtant, la crainte que des commentaires négatifs sur la langue des journalistes aient une incidence sur les représentations du public est exprimée par un administrateur rencontré : ...
... Through sorting out, the qualitative research on dissemination and evolution of Internet public opinion focuses on the hot spot law of public opinion, the evolution characteristics of public opinion, etc. In 2016, scholar Steinfeld [9] argued that network users' comments in complex networks had a very important impact on the dissemination of public opinion information. Huang [10] believed that if we analyze the user's retrieval behavior, we can predict the retrieval steps and goals, and then control the dissemination process of public opinion information. ...
... Xiong Fproved that public opinion changes as an exponential mixture form in both homogeneous and heterogeneous networks [9] .Leemann L introduced multilevel regression with synthetic poststratification (MrsP), which extends its use to countries without census data [10] . Eye-tracking device was used to study the factors effecting online new evaluation.More than 40% read the user comments.Readers' prior opinions were the strongest predictor of articles' evaluation.Readership and comment tone had no effect on the articles' evaluation [11] .Nip J Y M foundsound evidence of networked framing [12] .The differential collection and use of information ,by policymakers reflect varying strategic calculations [13] .Busanelli Sobtained experimental results show that an effective cross-network information dissemination service can entirely rely on smart-phone-based communications [14] . Therefore, in this paper, the" Xiongan New Area "is selected as the research object, and the related public opinion data is selected to study the propagation law of the information from the self media network. ...
With the emergence and popularization of computers, human society has entered the media age. On the one hand, it is beneficial to balance the supervision of public opinion and the construction of judicial responsiveness mechanism; on the other hand, false news increases the pressure of the government, and is not conducive to the establishment and enhancement of the government’s public trust. Therefore, it is very important for the whole society to study the law of the spread of Internet public opinion and then to control it.In this paper, we study the propagation law of Internet public opinion with the object of “ Xiongan New Area ”. Since the media network public opinion has the similar process of exponential growth in the communication process, and will be influenced by external capacity constraints, we establish the Logistic equation, introduce the τ operator time delay differential equation, and finally establish the improved delay differential equation, which can describe the propagation trend of network news from the self media. It provides certain reference for the government to study the development of public opinion.
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... In the current period of information, free expression of one's opinion is inseparable from a modern, democratic image of society. Technologies open opportunities for communication without walls; commentaries available in media are listed as one of essential means for expression of own position ( [18], [19]); these commentaries influence the formation of the public opinion concerning a certain organisation/ speciality ( [31], [32], [33]). The performed analysis of commentaries to the articles on pedagogues published in the most popular Lithuanian Internet portal "Delfi" (published over 2017) and its categorised data (Fig. 3) reveal negative aspects of the image of pedagogues, positive aspects of their reputation in society and highlighted assessment of the decisions made by education policy. ...
The problem of the image of pedagogues becomes a relevant object of social research when the educational paradigm is undergoing changes and pedagogues must meet the increasing needs of society, i.e. to be leaders, continuously developing professional educators. However, the data of the research studies conducted in Lithuania reveal that the profession of a pedagogue in society is assessed negatively, has ceased being respected and trusted ([1], [2]). This transformation raised a lot of problems in education and society: teachers do not want to work for low salaries and they are tired from work overload and difficult psychological circumstances; the students are free to evaluate the education process and the teachers work; society is changing its opinion about pedagogues due to mass media information that forms the stereotypes about profession; the politicians try to raise the motivation of pedagogues but lack the political will in this context. The article presents the opinions of students of Lithuanian comprehensive education schools on the image of pedagogues as well as the data of the analysis of political articles and their commentaries published in media revealing the reputation of pedagogues in society.
... In the current period of information, free expression of one's opinion is inseparable from a modern, democratic image of society. Technologies open opportunities for communication without walls; commentaries available in media are listed as one of essential means for expression of own position ( [18], [19]); these commentaries influence the formation of the public opinion concerning a certain organisation/ speciality ( [31], [32], [33]). The performed analysis of commentaries to the articles on pedagogues published in the most popular Lithuanian Internet portal "Delfi" (published over 2017) and its categorised data (Fig. 3) reveal negative aspects of the image of pedagogues, positive aspects of their reputation in society and highlighted assessment of the decisions made by education policy. ...
Interruptions of various types, such as breaks, distractions, interventions, or intrusions, are ubiquitous in our daily lives. Interruption science is an interdisciplinary research field dedicated to the systematic investigation of interruptions, which have become a prevalent phenomenon in the economy and society in recent years. To lay the foundation for a better understanding of human neurophysiology related to the human perception of interruptions, we conducted an umbrella review to examine the applied neurophysiological measurements for different interruption types. We identified 72 empirical studies using a rigorous literature search process. Our analyses revealed three main measurement domains (brain imaging methods, autonomic nervous system activity measurements, and hormone measurements). We describe these three domains with respect to the applied neurophysiological measurements and four interruption types (break, distraction, intervention, and intrusion). Overall, this review provides methodological insights to advance interruption science research from a neurophysiological perspective.
Purpose
The study aims to pioneer an innovative approach for the evaluation of government portal websites (GPWs) by introducing an eye-tracking-based method. The research meticulously pinpoints and analyses the distinct usability issues and challenges that users encounter while navigating and interacting with GPWs.
Design/methodology/approach
This study devises an eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation approach, which focuses on the major functions (i.e. government information disclosure, government services and interactive responses) of GPWs. An Entropy Weighted Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (EW-TOPSIS) method is employed to process eye-tracking indicator results for deriving GPW usability results.
Findings
The proposed approach is demonstrated to assess the usability of 12 GPWs in pilot smart cities in China, and it is found that most GPWs have lower-than-average usability. GPWs with low usability require more cognitive load that exhibit increased fixation and saccade. The comparisons among the GPW usability results from (1) the eye-tracking experiment, (2) questionnaire surveys and (3) the ready-made performance evaluation report validate the effectiveness of eye-tracking-based GPW usability evaluation.
Originality/value
The work contributes to shifting the GPW usability evaluation approach from a subjective judgment paradigm to an objective paradigm, as well as provides implications for enhancing GPW usability, including improving search function, reducing website complexity and prioritizing user needs.
Although previous studies examined the role of digital literacy in successful identification of misinformation, scant scholarly attention has been given to users’ attention to metadata as informative areas that attest to message credibility. This study introduces a novel approach and methodology to contribute to our understanding of how users evaluate and identify misinformation, and the relationship between users’ ocular attention to metadata, misinformation identification, and digital literacy. In an eye-tracking study, participants were asked to rate the credibility of online messages posted on social media and web pages. Throughout the session, participants’ eye movements were recorded. The results indicate that digital literacy predicts successful identification of online misinformation, as well as webpage scan patterns, specifically devoting attention and focusing gaze at metadata areas that provide cues attesting to the credibility of the messages. In addition, successful identification of misinformation is positively linked to ocular attention to information metadata. In other words, technology-savvy users devote more attention to information metadata, which leads to better identification of misinformation, and they are also directly more successful at identifying misinformation online.
Purpose
This study applied eye-tracking techniques and questionnaires within the framework of the Stimulus-Organism-Response Model (SOR) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), to investigate the influencing factors of the public acceptance of 5G base stations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a combination of eye-tracking experiments and questionnaires. The data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).
Findings
(1) The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) could be used to explain the effects on public acceptance of 5G base stations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The public's perceived usefulness and ease of use of 5G base stations positively affects public acceptance of 5G base stations. (2) The public's perceived risk of 5G base stations has a negative influence on the public acceptance of 5G base stations. (3) The public's visual attention to the different valence information about 5G base stations positively impacts the perceived ease of use while having negative impacts on perceived risk. (4) Visual attention to various valence information of 5G base stations can indirectly influence public acceptance through the perceived risk.
Originality/value
Applying the SOR and TAM to data obtained from eye-tracking experiments and questionnaires, this study analyzed the factors and mechanisms influencing public acceptance of 5G base stations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Online comment streams today are often vigorous, even violent places of public engagement. This study uses the Sociotechnical Influence Model (SIM; Van Der Heide & Schumaker, 2013), a dual-process approach to the study of computer-mediated persuasion and compliance gaining, to examine how argument strength and heuristic cues associated with uncivil user comments generate different attitudinal, cognitive, and behavioral responses from readers. In a web-based experiment, participants (N = 205) read a political news article followed by uncivil comments that present either strong or weak arguments and different proportions of like/dislike feedback cues. Consistent with the model, strong arguments in uncivil comments elicited more favorable evaluation of comment content, more thought generation pertaining to news content (i.e., news elaboration), and more corrective action against incivility. More likes than dislikes of incivility further enhanced news elaboration when comments contained strong arguments, while the absence of any like nor dislike cues led to increased corrective action against incivility accompanying weak arguments. Findings validate novel operationalizations of the SIM framework and suggest practical strategies for mitigating online incivility.
In diesem Systematic Review wird der Versuch unternommen, einen Überblick über zentrale Charakteristika der englischsprachig veröffentlichten Forschung zu Wirkungen digitaler Wissenschaftskommunikation zu erarbeiten. Dazu wurde eine systematische Analyse englischsprachiger Forschungsarbeiten durchgeführt, die zwischen 1990 und 2019 in Peer-Review-Journals publiziert wurden. In einer vertiefenden Analyse wurden zudem gezielt Studien analysiert, die in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz entstanden. Die Ergebnisse erlauben wichtige, grundlegende Aussagen zu zentralen Merkmalen der Forschungsliteratur: Seit den 2000ern nahmen die Publikationsaktivitäten stetig zu, sodass der Forschungsstand heute einen nennenswerten Umfang aufweist. Die analysierten Literaturausschnitte kennzeichnen dabei eine nordamerikanische Prägung, eine Dominanz quantitativer Methoden, ein Fokus auf Medizin- und Gesundheitsthemen, ein Fokus auf die Untersuchung von Effekten bei Laien, eine Diskrepanz zwischen Forschungspraxis und tatsächlichem Interesse bzw. Nutzungsverhalten von Laien, eine große Vielfalt an Untersuchungskontexten und -designs sowie ein Fokus auf Glaubwürdigkeitsbewertungen, Risikoinformationsvermittlung und Effekte verschiedener Evidenzarten (international) bzw. auf Wissenschaftskommunikation unter Laien, Wirkungen von Online-Wissenschaftsberichterstattung und Glaubwürdigkeitsbewertungen (DACH-Region). Unterdessen weist die Forschung mehrere Desiderata und Schwachstellen auf. Trotz einiger Limitationen bietet dieser Review einen umfassenden, aufschlussreichen Überblick über zentrale Charakteristika der englischsprachig veröffentlichten Forschung zu Wirkungen von Wissenschaftskommunikation in digitalen Medien – und liefert damit Anhaltspunkte, die sowohl für Forschende wie auch für Praktizierende im Bereich der digitalen Wissenschaftskommunikation zukünftig von hohem Wert sein können.
Because online news is pervasive and online comments provide space for people to express their opinions and participate in open discussions, they affect public opinion. However, at least in Korea, male users seem not only to be more active in consuming online news but also in commenting online. Many previous studies have investigated the gender imbalance in news consumption of not only traditional media but also online media. Although a few studies explored gender differences in online comments on news, no study has investigated such gender differences using actual data on the basic profiles of commenters. To fill the gap between previous studies and reality and address the gender imbalance in online news comments and public opinion, this study examined the differences between male and female online news commenters. Furthermore, using actual data provided by Naver, the dominant Internet portal in Korea, this study analyzed the characteristics of female news commenters and those of news content where female users most actively commented. This study found that—at least in Korea—fewer women comment on news, they are less active than men, and that there is a difference between younger and older women. This study also found that people write more comments in a day as their age increases and the gender differences decrease with age.
The development of an infrastructure megaproject is closely related to society and the public community. It is necessary to pay enough attention to public opinions that generally have a significant impact on megainfrastructure's performance. As the longest sea-crossing bridge in the world, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) receives extensive attention from both the industry of bridge construction and the general public. Every individual is a potential user of this megaproject. Ignorance of public opinion may inhibit the final success of the HZMB. Based on two dimensions of stage and region, this study aims to devise an analytical framework for topic modeling and sentiment analysis of the megainfrastructure in the data-rich era. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) as a flexible generative probabilistic model was adopted for topic extraction, and the measure of perplexity was used for determining the optimal number of topics in every stage or region. Rule-based sentiment analysis was conducted for identifying sentiment polarity and calculating sentiment intensity values of the validated data set. The results denoted that topics varied in four stages and three regions directly connected to the bridge. Positive comments occupied the largest proportion in every stage or region. According to sentiment polarity and intensity, the proposed approach for sentiment analysis had a higher ability to recognize positive comments from four stages and three regions. This study contributes to public opinion analysis of megainfrastructures within the context of sufficient social media data, which provides new opportunities for data-driven infrastructure management and governance. Management recommendations can be obtained to guide similar infrastructure's public opinion management in future.
Koreans mainly consume online news through a few Internet portals, so issues such as manipulation of online news comments can become significant social problems in Korea. To respond to the May 2018 Druking opinion-rigging scandal, Naver—the leading Internet portal in Korea—changed its rule of ordering online news comments from most reactions to chronological, with the latest appearing first. This study examined the impact of the new rule of ordering online news comments by using online news comments data from before and after Naver's rule change. Difference-in-difference estimation was conducted to examine the consequences of the new rule of ordering online news comments. Although the results show that the rule change did not impact the number of online news comments, the number of upvotes and downvotes significantly decreased, and the distributions of upvotes and downvotes were spread evenly rather than skewed to one side.
תכנית להב"ה היא הגדולה בישראל לגישור על אי-השוויון הדיגיטלי. במסגרת המחקר נסקרה הספרות אודות משתנים הקשורים לאי-השוויון הדיגיטלי ותכניות המיועדות לגישורו, נבדקו המאפיינים של הפונים למרכזי להב"ה (פרק 3), וכיצד המשתתפים נתרמים מהפרויקט בטווח הזמן הקצר (פרקים 4 ו-5). כמו כן נבדקו התפיסות של המשתתפים שסיימו את הקורס לפני שנה ומעלה, אודות התרומה של הקורס במגוון היבטים (פרק 6).
NeuroIS is a field in Information Systems (IS) that makes use of neuroscience and neurophysiological tools and knowledge to better understand the development, adoption, and impact of information and communication technologies. The fact that NeuroIS now exists for more than a decade motivated us to comprehensively review the academic literature. Investigation of the field's development provides insights into the status of NeuroIS, thereby contributing to identity development in the NeuroIS field. Based on a review of N=200 papers published in 55 journals and 13 conference proceedings in the period 2008-2017, we addressed the following four research questions: Which NeuroIS topics were investigated? What kind of NeuroIS research was published? How was the empirical NeuroIS research conducted? Who published NeuroIS research? Based on a discussion of the findings and their implications for future research, which considers results of a recent NeuroIS survey (N=60 NeuroIS scholars), we conclude that today NeuroIS can be considered an established research field in the IS discipline. However, our review also indicates that further efforts are necessary to advance the field, both from a theoretical and methodological perspective.
In little over a decade, essential concepts in research on communication have become zombie concepts (Beck & Willms, 2004) and are no longer effective for understanding the profound transformation that has taken place with the arrival of the internet. Public sphere, deliberation, audiences, public... the academic literature has oscillated between an initial optimism about the potential for strengthening democracy of communication technologies to a critical scepticism. This text reviews the academic literature with regard to the forms of social deliberation adopted in the context of the media and social networks and its impact on the public sphere.
In little over a decade, essential concepts in research on communication have become zombie concepts (Beck; Willms, 2004) and are no longer effective for understanding the profound transformation that has taken place with the arrival of the internet. Public sphere, deliberation, audiences, public... the academic literature has oscillated between an initial optimism about the potential for strengthening democracy of communication technologies to a critical scepticism. This text reviews the academic literature with regard to the forms of social deliberation adopted in the context of the media and social networks and its impact on the public sphere.
Eye tracking offers researchers an opportunity to collect an objective assessment of visual behavior. Visual behavior—referring broadly to metrics and measures of gaze positioning and movement—has been used to assess variables including exposure time, cognitive processing, prominence, and (visual) attention. Over the past decade, communication science researchers have increased their use of eye-tracking methods in published articles. During that same period, technological innovations have made eye-tracking units more affordable and accessible to interested researchers increasing the likelihood that eye-tracking research will continue to increase in the field. In this article, we provide information on eye tracking in hopes of improving the quality and reporting of eye-tracking research in communication. The article first provides an overview of basic eye-tracking information followed by a systematic review on the reporting of eye-tracking methods in communication-relevant research. We then provide eye-tracking research reporting recommendations and some ideas about how eye tracking might be integrated into scholarly work moving forward with the aim of improving the transparency and replicability of eye-tracking research in communication science.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the publicity around the implementation of the Zora robot in elderly-care services in Lahti, Finland. The aim is to discover opinions concerning the use of robots in elderly care as well as the arguments and justifications behind those opinions. Zora is a humanoid robot intended to promote mobility and rehabilitation. The Lahti pilot was the first Zora pilot in Finland in public elderly-care services. It received much publicity, both regionally and nationally.
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on an empirical case study on the implementation of the Zora robot in elderly-care services. The data consist of interviews with personnel who operated Zora and comments from the general public about the “Zora” robot. Two data sources were used: 107 comments were collected from online and print media, and the personnel (n=39) who worked with Zora were interviewed. The data were analysed by means of interpretative content analysis.
Findings
The results show that public opinion is mainly negative, but that the commentators apparently have little information about the robot and its tasks. The personnel had more positive views; they saw it as a recreational tool, not as a replacement for their own roles.
Originality/value
There is clearly a need for more information, for a better informed discussion on how robots can be used in elderly care and how to involve the general public in this discussion in a constructive way.
Pre-print available at: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2018122051383
The widespread view that the refugee crisis has sparked unprecedented levels of European Union politicisation has rarely been backed by systematic empirical evidence. We investigate this claim using a novel dataset of several thousand user comments posted below articles of German regional media outlets on Facebook. Despite considerable European Union authority in the policy area, extensive media coverage of the crisis and the rise of a populist party in Germany, our results suggest that the politicisation of Europe remains low among social media users, especially when compared to national and subnational levels of governance. When talking about Europe, users hardly refer to European Union institutions or policies. Instead, other member states and notions of the geographic or cultural space dominate the debate.
The outcome of the EU referendum 2016 and its significance have been widely debated in online forums across different countries and cultures. Examining media coverage and discussions of Brexit in Israel using online trend-tracking software, we found that Brexit and the referendum were mostly covered and discussed in Israel in the financial press, and were mentioned on Twitter much ue than on Facebook, confirming that it was discussed mostly by the elite, possibly due to its perceived limited political effect on Israel. Finally, a user-comment analysis identified that the few discussions on mainstream media included domestication of the news about Brexit with an interpretation of the event from a national perspective. From a theoretical perspective, then, these findings contradict the global-village notion and indicate that Brexit was instead ‘glocalized’.
NeuroIS is a field in Information Systems (IS) that makes use of neuroscience and neurophysiological tools and knowledge to better understand the development, adoption, and impact of information and communication technologies. The fact that NeuroIS now exists for approximately ten years motivated us to comprehensively review the academic literature. Investigation of the field’s development provides insights into the status of NeuroIS, thereby contributing to identity development in the NeuroIS field. Based on a review of N = 164 papers published in 55 journals and 11 conference proceedings, we addressed the following four research questions: Who published NeuroIS research? What kind of NeuroIS research was published? Which major thematic orientation was chosen by NeuroIS researchers? How was the empirical NeuroIS research conducted? Based on a discussion of the findings and their implications for future research, we conclude that today NeuroIS can be considered as established research field in the IS discipline.
The current paper investigates reader commenting on news sites as one facet of journalism 2.0. Specifically, the themes, frequency, and regional coverage of readers’ comments—and in general, their activity levels and distribution—are considered, with a goal to increase knowledge of convergent media and computer-mediated communication (CMC), as well as shed light on the interactivity strategies adopted by influential news producers. The corpus is collected from the Arabic news site of the controversial Middle East-based, bilingual network Al Jazeera. Reader commenting was found to be a regular occurrence on the site but distributed unevenly across stories. The stories focused mostly on themes related to military and political violence, politics, and foreign relations, and covered events related to the Arab world more than other regions. Also, patterns of commenting varied according to day of the week and position of the story on the web page. Overall, these findings suggest that citizen journalism—journalism is performed by lay persons—on Al Jazeera tends to be shaped by the coverage and layout of the news site. Moreover, citizen participation in online news sites such as Al Jazeera is still far from ideal, in that commenters are given neither the access nor the facilitation to use modalities other than written text. These limitations are critiqued in light of contemporary discourses about media convergence and journalism 2.0.
Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand. The author reviews evidence of such a bias in a variety of guises and gives examples of its operation in several practical contexts. Possible explanations are considered, and the question of its utility or disutility is discussed.
As with all forms of advertising, exposure is a necessary prerequisite for Internet banner ad effectiveness. However, exposure does not guarantee a user's attention, an issue especially relevant to the Internet, where ad avoidance occurs most frequently. And if an ad is noticed, the message may or may not remain in the consumer's memory after cognitive processing. However, even if the advertising message is not consciously remembered, the exposure can be unconsciously processed and subsequently change the user's affective state. To investigate how attention levels influence users, this study uses eye tracking to measure the level of attention that results from an advertisement exposure and explores how different levels of attention influence users in conscious and unconscious ways. Also, we examine the effect of animation-one of the most popular attention-grabbing tools-on attention and how it moderates cognitive processing. By measuring and analyzing users' actual eye-movement data, we found that animation in banner ads not only attracts less attention than static ads but also reduces the positive effect of attention on memory. In addition, although more than half of the participants could not recognize the advertised brand, the animated banner ad was unconsciously processed and did influence attitudes toward the brand. The results suggest that animation in banner ads does not necessarily increase user attention, but that even if a user does not consciously notice a banner ad, the user's attitude toward the brand is influenced.
Many have attributed anti-American sentiment within Arab countries to a highly negative information environment propagated by transnational Arab satellite TV news channels such as Al-Jazeera. However, theoretical models and empirical evidence evaluating the linkages between media exposure and opinion about the United States remains scant. Drawing on theories of media effects, identity, and public opinion, this article develops a theoretical framework explicating how the influence of transnational Arab TV on opinion formation is contingent on competing political identities within the region. Employing 5 years of survey data collected across six Arab countries, we empirically test several propositions about the relationship between Arab TV exposure and public opinion about the United States generated by our theoretical framework. Our results demonstrate significant associations between transnational Arab TV exposure and anti-American sentiment, but also show these associations vary substantially by channel and political identification. The theoretical and policy implications of the study are discussed.
Confirmation bias, as the term is typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations, or a hypothesis in hand. The author reviews evidence of such a bias in a variety of guises and gives examples of its operation in several practical contexts. Possible explanations are considered, and the question of its utility or disutility is discussed. When men wish to construct or support a theory, how they torture facts into their service! (Mackay, 1852/ 1932, p. 552) Confirmation bias is perhaps the best known and most widely accepted notion of inferential error to come out of the literature on human reasoning. (Evans, 1989, p. 41) If one were to attempt to identify a single problematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirma- tion bias would have to be among the candidates for consideration. Many have written about this bias, and it appears to be sufficiently strong and pervasive that one is led to wonder whether the bias, by itself, might account for a significant fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misun- derstandings that occur among individuals, groups, and nations.
This chapter features the concept of ascribed epistemic authority offered as a unique perspective on source effects in social judgment. It assumes that both the self and external sources may be assigned different degrees of epistemic authority in different domains and that this determines the ways in which individuals process information, make decisions, and undertake actions. The present framework traces the socio-developmental aspects of epistemic authority assignments and considers individual differences in the distribution of authority assignments across sources. The chapter conceives of epistemic authority ascriptions as meta-cognitive beliefs about a source of information. It introduces a perspective on source effects framed from the subjective standpoint of the information's recipient. This perspective highlights the developmental, individual differences, self-related, and applied aspects of source phenomena. The treatment of source effects in several major models of persuasion is reviewed. A final discussion highlights the unique properties of the epistemic authority and considers its implications for the place of source effects in notions of information processing and human judgment.
Contributes to research on media credibility and media use by surveying politically-interested Web users online to examine whether they view Web publications as being as credible as their traditionally-delivered counterparts. Finds online media tended to be judged more credible than their traditional versions, but that both online and traditional media were only judged as somewhat credible. (SR)
Based on the largest content analysis of its kind, this article analyses the ways in which public opinion and citizenship is referenced or invoked on television news in the United States and Britain. The study is discussed in the context of the debate about declining citizen participation in representative politics. One of the study's main findings is that citizenship and public opinion are generally represented as passive, rather than engaged. This suggests that showing an engaged citizenry conflicts with current journalistic practices, and that any attempt to encourage more engagement will require rethinking those conventions.
Interviews with twenty executives and editors of Dutch broadcasters and newspapers indicate that the contribution of user-generated content (UGC) like comments, blogs, photos and videos to journalism were rather modest. In contrast to other studies, however, the reason seems to be a lack of interest or skills by the audience; amateur journalism is hard to find and difficult to practice. While journalists define their work in terms of news, website users seem to have a different opinion. Readers seemed much more devoted to non-news material, which seemed to be beneficial to the websites: committing and attracting readers.
The authors thank Kettering Foundation for their support of this project, Emily Haas for her diligent coding and insightful observations, and Eddie Roth for fruitful discussions that helped inspire this research.
Public authorities are increasingly using information and communication technology (ICT) to engage citizens in the politics, in particular through internet discussion forums. This paper reports findings from a large-scale online randomised controlled trail of 6,009 participants that aims to test the effect of online deliberation on policy preferences. Participants were randomised between four treatment groups and two control groups. All four treatment groups were exposed to the same information and participants were able to post their views. However, in only two of the treatment groups were participants able to read and respond to the postings of others. The analysis uses Compliance Average Causal Effects (CACE) models to show the impact of deliberation. The paper finds that deliberation shifts participants’ views on youth anti-social behaviour, but that participation in online deliberation tends to reinforce extant political inequalities.
Retrospective Think aloud (RTA) is a usability method that collects the verbalization of a user's performance after the performance is over. There has been little work done to investigate the validity and reliability of RTA. This paper reports on an experiment investigating these issues with a form of the method called stimulated RTA. By comparing subjects' verbalizations with their eye movements, we support the validity and reliability of stimulated RTA: the method provides a valid account of what people attended to in completing tasks, it has a low risk of introducing fabrications, and its validity isn't affected by task complexity. More detailed analysis of RTA shows that it also provides additional information about user's inferences and strategies in completing tasks. The findings of this study provide valuable support for usability practitioners to use RTA and to trust the users' performance information collected by this method in a usability study.
Several on-line daily newspapers oer readers the opportu- nity to directly comment on articles. In the Netherlands this feature is used quite often and the quality (grammatically and content-wise) is surprisingly high. We develop tech- niques to collect, store, enrich and analyze these comments. After giving a high-level overview of the Dutch 'commento- sphere' we zoom in on extracting the discussion structure found in flat comment threads; people not only comment on the news article, they also heavily comment on other com- ments, resembling discussion fora. We show how techniques from information retrieval, natural language processing and machine learning can be used to extract the 'reacts-on' re- lation between comments with high precision and recall.
Following information scent has been established as a metaphor to describe user’s behaviour while navigating an information space by successively selecting hyperlinks. This metaphor suggests that users assess the profitability of following a particular hyperlink based on its perceived semantic association with their goal. The purpose of this paper is to study how information scent, this important attribute of hypermedia navigability, influences concurrently four aspects of users’ behaviour while exploring a website: a) distribution of attention, b) confidence in choice of link, c) efficiency, and d) effectiveness. It was found that in webpages with high scent, users were significantly more focused, confident of their choices, efficient and effective compared to webpages with ambiguous scent. The findings of the study are discussed in comparison with results obtained from a previously conducted analysis using InfoScent Evaluator (ISEtool), a tool that has been proposed to facilitate scent evaluation of websites. This comparison provided support for the effectiveness of ISEtool in indicating potential scent-related navigability problems. We argue that such a tool-based approach can facilitate hypermedia design by reducing the resources and expertise required, and by providing the necessary flexibility for practitioners.
Generation Y (age 18–31) is a very large and economically powerful generation, containing eighty-two million people and spending $200 billion annually. It is not surprising that companies are interested in gaining the patronage of this group, particularly via the web. Surprisingly, very little research into making web pages appealing to this important demographic has been done. This paper addresses this need through two separate studies. The first, an online survey, provides evidence that our proposed score for predicting the visual appeal of web pages reflects the self report measure of what pages Generation Y likes. To refine these findings, an eye tracking study is conducted using the pages that were most and least liked in Study I. Participants’ eye movement is tracked while browsing these pages, providing evidence of what attracts their attention. The results of these two studies suggest that Generation Y may prefer pages that include a main large image, images of celebrities, little text, and a search feature. This research has important implications.
What and how we eat are two of the most persistent choices we face in everyday life. Whatever we decide on though, and however mundane our decisions may seem, they will be inscribed with information both about ourselves and about our positions in the world around us. Yet, food has only recently become a significant and coherent area of inquiry for cultural studies and the social sciences. Food and Cultural Studies re-examines the interdisciplinary history of food studies from a cultural studies framework, from the semiotics of Barthes and the anthropology of Levi-Strauss to Elias' historical analysis and Bourdieu's work on the relationship between food, consumption and cultural identity. The authors then go on to explore subjects as diverse as food and nation, the gendering of eating in, the phenomenon of TV chefs, the ethics of vegetarianism and food, risk and moral panics. © 2004 Bob Ashley, Joanne Hollows, Steve Jones, Ben Taylor. All rights reserved.
Eye tracking is a technique whereby an individual’s eye movements are measured so that the researcher knows both where a person is looking at any given time and the sequence in which the person’s eyes are shifting from one location to another. Tracking people’s eye movements can help HCI researchers to understand visual and display-based information processing and the factors that may impact the usability of system interfaces. In this way, eye-movement recordings can provide an objective source of interface-evaluation data that can inform the design of improved interfaces. Eye movements also can be captured and used as control signals to enable people to interact with interfaces directly without the need for mouse or keyboard input, which can be a major advantage for certain populations of users, such as disabled individuals. We begin this article with an overview of eye-tracking technology and progress toward a detailed discussion of the use of eye tracking in HCI and usability research. A key element of this discussion is to provide a practical guide to inform researchers of the various eye-movement measures that can be taken and the way in which these metrics can address questions about system usability. We conclude by considering the future prospects for eye-tracking research in HCI and usability testing. Purchase this chapter to continue reading all 9 pages >
This paper examines reading behaviour in readers of printed and online newspaper media. The aim is to identify how much reading behaviour is dependent on various presentation factors, and how this dependence and its magnitude are related to output media. The work is based on review and analysis of empirical studies, primarily those employing methods using eye-tracking. The results show that some factors, such as text-based elements, size and placement, are an important guide to salience in both media. Images, on the other hand, have mostly been found not to elicit major visual attention online, affecting, for example, how ads are perceived. Reading behaviour is, however, a complicated process, and eye-tracking research does not consistently point in one direction.
New media techniques have changed the conditions for user-participation. Traditional publicists are reluctant towards letting go of control and generally let the audience into certain areas where contribution is controlled. This study investigates attitudes towards UGC and user-contribution within professional journalism on Swedish news sites. A mail survey to representative Swedish sample of 3000 persons carried out in fall 2008 points to the fact that also the audience is reluctant. Only a few contribute and they are mostly young. Contribution to a large extent means that the users are reacting to existing content rather than expressing own opinion. The attraction for reading other users' comments is bigger than posting of your own, but the overall attitude towards UGC is that it is not of any great importance.
Using the work of deliberative democratic theorists, this paper investigates and critiques the criteria letters editors at newspapers use to construct their column. Deliberative democratic theory values egalitarian public discussion on matters of common concern, and worries about providing the conditions for this discussion. The paper identifies four rules for selection; referred to as the rules of relevance, brevity, entertainment and authority. First, the rule of relevance refers to the demand for the content of the letter to be "relevant", or respond to issues and events already on the agenda. The rule of brevity, in turn, encapsulates the requirement to write short, punchy letters that state the reader's view in less than 300 words. Thirdly, the rule of entertainment highlights how editors prefer spectacular, punchy letters. Finally, the rule of authority captures the rejection of ungrammatical writing, and letters written in unconventional styles. The paper demonstrates that the rules of selection are not entirely in line with the visions of deliberative democrats, because they privilege particular forms of expression. Nevertheless, these rules make it practically possible to open up a site for public discussion in the newspaper.
Online content providers, such as news portals and social media platforms, constantly seek new ways to attract large shares of online attention by keeping their users engaged. A common challenge is to identify which aspects of online interaction influence user engagement the most. In this article, through an analysis of a news article collection obtained from Yahoo News US, we demonstrate that news articles exhibit considerable variation in terms of the sentimentality and polarity of their content, depending on factors such as news provider and genre. Moreover, through a laboratory study, we observe the effect of sentimentality and polarity of news and comments on a set of subjective and objective measures of engagement. In particular, we show that attention, affect, and gaze differ across news of varying interestingness. As part of our study, we also explore methods that exploit the sentiments expressed in user comments to reorder the lists of comments displayed in news pages. Our results indicate that user engagement can be anticipated predicted if we account for the sentimentality and polarity of the content as well as other factors that drive attention and inspire human curiosity.
Uncivil discourse is a growing concern in American rhetoric, and this trend has expanded beyond traditional media to online sources, such as audience comments. Using an experiment given to a sample representative of the U.S. population, we examine the effects online incivility on perceptions toward a particular issue—namely, an emerging technology, nanotechnology. We found that exposure to uncivil blog comments can polarize risk perceptions of nanotechnology along the lines of religiosity and issue support.
What kinds of people place their greatest trust in television, or radio, or the newspaper, as a news medium? This study shows differences due to age, sex, education, place of residence and socioeconomic status. and socioeconomic status, as well as political preference.
The present experiment investigated if and how other readers’ reactions to news on Internet portal sites affect individuals’ perceptions of public opinion, assessments of media influence, and their personal opinion. In so doing, others’ responses were shown as either individual comments or aggregate approval ratings of the article, and the individual’s need for cognition (NFC) was considered as a potential moderator of their relative effects. High NFC individuals relied more on the approval ratings than individual postings in estimating media influence on general public, but low NFC individuals’ presumption about media influence remained unaltered, regardless of how others’ reactions were presented. However, exposure to dissenting comments led both high and low NFC individuals to perceive the public opinion as more discrepant from the news position, with no corresponding effect for approval ratings. Others’ comments significantly affected participants’ personal opinion, but only for those less prone to engage in analytical thinking.
This essay argues that the television audience is composed of a wide variety of groups or subcultures, and that in order to be popular a television program must be polysemic so that different subcultures can find in it different meanings that correspond to their differing social relations. The dominant ideology is structured into the text as into the social system, but the structure of both text and society allows space for resistance and negotiation. A close analysis of two scenes from Hart to Hart demonstrates the textual devices which bear the dominant ideology and those which offer opportunities for resistance to it. To understand the popularity of television with its diverse audiences, the critic must look for contradictions and openness in the television text, not unity and closure.
Science journalists are increasingly confronted with the ability of audiences to comment on science stories, create and share multimedia content, and blog about science. Yet, there is a surprising lack of literature exploring the narrative impacts of such changes on science journalism. To fill this gap, this article draws on the concept of the ‘unfinished’ science story to provide a narrative analysis of story-commentary sets from a Canadian newspaper (the Globe and Mail). It shows how the authority to ‘finish’ a scientific narrative now faces: (1) the opening up of science journalism narratives to raw experience; (2) the reframing of issues by audience comments; (3) the emergence of a journalists–audience ‘stress test’; and (4) the heavy existence of negative commentary.
This study tests the effects of online discussions about a company in an online news forum on people's perception of the corporate reputation of the company. The study is a 2 (tone of comments: negative versus positive) by 2 (number of comments: one versus five) factorial design experiment (n=80). We found significant interaction effects between the two factors (tone versus number of comments) with regard to people's perception of the company's social responsiveness and employee treatment.
This article draws on recent work in lay epistemology to reformulate the audience autonomy debate in epistemological terms. It outlines a model of the audience member as a lay theorist who develops a hierarchically structured theory system that is based on‐and continuously tested against‐everyday experience, including experience supplied by the mass media. The lay epistemic framework provides a common language into which competing claims about audience autonomy can be translated and then compared. The translation reveals that the views of the “pessimistic” and the “optimistic” sides of the debate are in significant ways complementary and compatible, disagreeing primarily on an empirical matter.
The seminal work that led to the "Yale Studies in Attitudes and Communication," reporting a series of experiments on communicator credibility, general persuasibility, role playing, fear arousal, order of presentation, and group norms. Much of the later work in attitude change flows directly from this early volume. Harvard Book List (edited) 1971 #487 (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Web search services are among the most heavily used applications on the World Wide Web. Perhaps because search is used in such a huge variety of tasks and contexts, the user interface must strike a careful balance to meet all user needs. We describe a study that used eye tracking methodologies to explore the effects of changes in the presentation of search results. We found that adding information to the contextual snippet significantly improved performance for informational tasks but degraded performance for navigational tasks. We discuss possible reasons for this difference and the design implications for better presentation of search results.
Eye-tracking research is increasingly used to supplement usability tests in both commercial and academic practice. However, while there has been research into links between eye-tracking metrics and usability problems, this has so far fallen short of establishing a general correlation scheme between the two. Consequently, practitioners are left to make subjective judgements when interpreting eye-tracking data. We address the lack of general guidance by proposing an initial correlation scheme based on data from an exploratory study which aimed to find a wide range of possible correlations between usability problems and eye-tracking patterns. User testing of two websites was conducted and a set of diverse usability problems was extracted from the data; these were then analysed and some were correlated with users' eye-tracking patterns. In addition to this initial correlation scheme, a further finding from this study is that usability problems are connected to not just a single eye-tracking pattern, but to a specific sequence of patterns. This sequence of patterns seems to arise from different coping strategies that users develop when a problem is experienced.
This study utilized eye-tracking technology to determine the impact of redundant onscreen text information on viewers’ cognitive processes with respect to multimedia information. Sixteen college students participated in the study and their eye-movement data and self-reported cognitive load ratings were collected as they viewed three web pages into which different forms of verbal explanations of thunderstorm systems were integrated. A repeated measure design was utilized to support the research purposes. The eye-tracking data showed that viewers relied on text information as the main information resource for determining meaning. Students’ cognitive load reports reflected a redundant effect from the on screen text on their cognitive load level when both onscreen and narrative verbal messages were presented. However, eye-movement data revealed that viewers spent less time on the onscreen text when there was a narrative message presenting the same information. When the pictorial information was accompanied by both onscreen and narrative formats of verbal information, viewers seemed to be able to filter out redundant information. Additionally, replacing onscreen text with a voice-over seemed to globally orient viewers’ eye fixations toward the illustration. Discussions on results and suggestions for future studies are provided in this paper.
A sample of contents: HCI principles and concepts The multidisciplinary nature of HCI Design and interaction Usability engineering and usability evaluation Creativity and innovation possibilities with HCI CSCW Various applications User interfaces and technological applications New advances and future research directions.
The effect of online news story comments on other readers' attitudes: Focusing on the case of incongruence between news tone and comments
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Ahn, H. (2011). The effect of online news story comments on other readers' attitudes:
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Study: Cellular doesn't cause cancer. Ynet Available at: http://www.ynet.co.il/articles
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Citizen Journalism: Latin America takes the Lead Available at: www.globaltgi.com/news/citizen-journalism-latin-america-takes-the-lead1
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A study on readers' comments: Changes in the online news usage pattern and the implications for discursive public
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Active surfing: 75% of online users read forums, some 50% read users' comments. Globes Available at: www.globes
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Eyetrack III: Online news consumer behavior in the age of multimedia
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User comments and the transformation of participatory space
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A new survey finds: Most Internet users do not read users' comments
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Shalev, A. (2007). A new survey finds: Most Internet users do not read users' comments. Ynet. November 7. Available at: www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,/7340,L-3468737,00.html (Hebrew).