The Effect of Social Language and a Reporter Photograph on Social Presence in Online News.

As bloggers become an increasingly mainstream source of news and information online traditional media outlets are responding with their own social features. But are they effective? Previous research has shown that participants in online communities develop a strong sense of social presence with other members. This study takes that research to the comparatively noninteractive realm of a single news article. A 2 (language) X 2 (photograph) by 4 (news article) experiment tested whether reporters could encourage feelings of social presence in readers of online news simply by including a photograph of themselves and using a few examples of social language. Participants reported higher levels of social presence in the condition with social language, but the use of a photograph did not have any effect. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]