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Information represents an essential input in social processes influencing human sentiment, attitudes, and behavior. With the rise of internet, information consumption habits have changed. The standard process of consuming news via traditional mass media (such as newspapers, radio and television) is now substituted, or complemented by news consumption via online sources. We study the effects of this behavioral change on environmental attitudes in Europe. More precisely, we ask whether this change has contributed to increased polarisation in environmental attitudes. We utilize a large-scale survey data across multiple European countries in the period from 2002 to 2010. We find evidence that traditional media (television, radio and newspapers) consumption, as well as internet use is associated with pro-environmental attitudes. Importantly, we also show that political preferences of an individual moderate the manner in which internet use is related to environmental attitudes. Among progressive and green voters, greater internet use is positively correlated with environmental attitudes. Among conservative voters, internet use appears to be negatively related to environmental attitudes. The pattern is similar, but much weaker, for TV consumption which constitutes a similar high-choice environment (compared to radio and newspapers). These results support the notion that internet use tends to strengthen people's pre-existing beliefs (measured by voting behavior), much beyond the effect of TV viewership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online media consumption has been radically transformed by how media companies algorithmically recommend content to their users. Public service media (PSM) have also realized the potential of recommender systems and are increasingly using these technologies to personalize their online offering. PSM are on the other hand required to disseminate diverse content, which can be incompatible with the logics of commercial recommender systems that primarily seek to drive up media consumption. Drawing on previous research on selective exposure and media diversity, this study presents the results from interviews with ten PSM informants across Europe, revealing that data scientists within these organizations are highly aware of the effects recommendations have on media consumption, and design the PSM online services accordingly. This study contributes with in-depth knowledge of how diversity has been interpreted at operational levels in PSM and how recommender systems are being adapted to a non-commercial setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The newspaper publishing industry in Europe is undergoing a transition and is confronted with serious challenges from the increasing role of the Internet and the hereto-related changes in media consumption habits. Europe is a region, where Internet usage not only has been on a relatively high level but also increased substantially with likely effects on newspaper publishing. This article analyses the development and determinants of the profitability of newspaper publishing sectors of 12 European markets. The average profitability of newspaper publishing is shown to vary both across countries and over time. The results from the econometric estimation prove the assertion that the price-cost margins can not only be explained by the increasing uptake of Internet but also by factors reflecting scale economies and the degree of the competitive pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mediatisation of young people daily lives constitutes a significant subject due to the expressive use of media in their daily routines. In this article, we resort to a representative sample of 3609 online respondents aged between 14 and 30 years old from nine European countries (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Poland and Portugal), in order to perceive the impact new (and "old") media have in these youngsters daily media consumption activities. The results of this online survey show complementary uses between networked and traditional media, but also highlight a gradual substitution of "old" by "new" networked individualized media when leisure and newsrelated activities are at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of mass COVID-19 vaccination campaigns in 2021, significant differences in vaccine skepticism emerged across Europe, with Eastern European countries in particular facing very high levels of vaccine hesitancy and refusal. This study investigates the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal, with a focus on these differences across Eastern, Southern and Western Europe. The statistical analyses are based on individual-level survey data comprising quota-based representative samples from 27 European countries from May 2021. The study finds that demographic variables have complex associations with vaccine hesitancy and refusal. The relationships with age and education are non-linear. Trust in different sources of health-related information has significant associations as well, with people who trust the Internet, social networks and 'people around' in particular being much more likely to express vaccine skepticism. Beliefs in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines have large predictive power. Importantly, this study shows that the associations of demographic, belief-related and other individual-level factors with vaccine hesitancy and refusal are context-specific. Yet, explanations of the differences in vaccine hesitancy across Eastern, Southern and Eastern Europe need to focus on why levels of trust and vaccine-relevant beliefs differ across regions, because the effects of these variables appear to be similar. It is the much higher prevalence of factors such as distrust of national governments and medical processionals as sources of relevant medical information in Eastern Europe that are relevant for explaining the higher levels of vaccine skepticism observed in that region., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)