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Emotionalization is increasingly used in the daily news. However, communication scholars have only just begun to explore how journalists use emotionalization in coverage of scientific and environmental topics. This study contributes to filling this research gap by investigating emotionalization in reporting on honey bee colony losses. The aim of the study is to analyze the amount of emotionalization that took place, as well as to observe changes over time. Emotionalization is assessed in two ways; by analyzing to what extent journalists (1) explicitly mentioned discrete emotions in news stories (joy, hope, fear, anger, etc.) and/or (2) used rhetorical devices to evoke emotions (affective vocabulary, metaphors, colloquial language, superlatives, etc.). Results from a quantitative content analysis of four Austrian newspapers in 2010/2011, 2013/2014, and 2017/2018 show that the coverage is highly emotionalized across all three time periods studied. Emotionalization occurs far more often by using rhetorical devices than by explicitly mentioning positive or negative emotions. Interestingly, the incorporation of emotional elements and scientific expertise in the news items do not exclude one another. Hence, there seems to be no strict dichotomy between rational/objective and emotional reporting.

For two decades, convergence culture has been an important motivator for change in journalism worldwide. Journalism research has followed these developments, investigating the dimensions of change that define convergence as a cultural shift in the newsroom. Research in the European context has mostly been comprised of national case studies of flagship media outlets whereas comparative, let alone quantitative, studies are scarce. In response to these shortcomings, we present a comparative survey among newspaper journalists in managerial positions on convergence strategies in newsrooms from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, and Portugal. Results show that there is still a dominant print culture present in newsrooms across Europe; however, a shift toward convergence journalism is evident in the strategic implementation of editorial routines and practices as well as in the encouragement of journalists to join convergence developments. Furthermore, newsrooms in Mediterranean countries are more advanced than those in North/Central Europe when it comes to embracing convergence culture because of a stronger audio-visual than print news tradition and a higher motivation among journalists. Our study reveals that after two decades of European convergence journalism, cultural change moves slowly but steadily toward a news production that makes use of the possibilities emerging from convergence.