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As misinformation has become a prominent topic in U.S. politics, Americans have become increasingly concerned about the problem that misinformation poses. Correspondingly, people have become weary of news media, with some actively avoiding news media and political information. While many situational and contextual factors contribute to news avoidance, this study considers how the feeling of being misinformed online might to contribute to related news attitudes and behaviors, like active news avoidance and news fatigue. Using panel data from a three-wave survey of U.S. adults collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we find that feeling misinformed online is a widely felt phenomenon in the U.S. that is associated with increased active news avoidance and news fatigue overtime. We also find that strong partisans in the U.S. asymmetrically shift their news media use when they feel misinformed online; with strong Democrats relying more on non-partisan news media and strong Republicans using less news media overall, including less conservative news media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spread of (hyper)partisan alternative media has sparked renewed scholarly interest in their political role, but the relation between these outlets and political parties has only recently received scholarly attention. This study explores this relationship using a novel design that directly compares the news agendas and source balances of two Danish alternative media to those of two national dailies, and to the political agendas of two political parties the alternative media have ties to. In total, 576 news articles and 1012 social media posts were analyzed. The study identifies four ways in which the alternative media favor the political parties but finds that the favoritism is markedly more pronounced in one of them. The case study contributes with the general theoretical insight that within the group of partisan alternative media it might be fruitful to distinguish between party-political and ideological partisanship and that alternative media can be more or less party-politically or ideologically partisan. The study concludes with a recommendation that future studies empirically investigate whether such distinctions are also relevant in other media systems as this is important for understanding the political roles different alternative media can play in the media and political systems they enter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the question of asymmetry/symmetry regarding the use of language in partisan media outlets in the US. Some research has suggested that conservatives and conservative media are unique in how they present information to their audience, positing that conservatives use simpler, more uncivil language. Others have noted that some of these matters, such as use of uncivil language, applies to both conservative and liberal outlets. The current study adds to this literature by examining whether the ideological leanings of news sources correlate with reading ease, level of negativity (sentiment), and level of formality (tone). Specifically, we examine whether only conservative outlets use simpler, negative, and less formal language or if these trends appear for media outlets across the ideological spectrum. Our findings find support for the symmetry hypothesis. Indeed, our findings suggest that ideological extremity and partisanship strength correlate with use of easier-to-read language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the growth of new alternative media has brought greater editorial choice and diversity to political coverage in many advanced democracies. But their coverage of mainstream media and portrayal of professional journalism has been subject to little academic attention. This study examined the role alternative political media play in advancing public debate about the value and editorial standards of a national media system. Drawing on a longitudinal content analysis of UK alternative media between 2015 and 2018 (N = 3452), we found that mainstream media was often crticised—particularly in left-wing sites—and that disapproval of professional journalism intensified over time, most strikingly during the 2017 general election campaign. We also discovered that BBC news was often singled out for its political reporting, with criticism directed at its perceived bias and lack of impartiality. Overall, we argue it is the dominant characteristics of mainstream media in national media systems that help shape the editorial agenda of alternative media and the nature of criticism directed at professional journalism. We conclude that more comparative research is needed about how alternative media represent professional journalism, and whether they are influencing people's understanding of politics and public affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]