Atsushi Shibata

Bio: Atsushi Shibata is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: The Internet & News media. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 35 citations.

Exploring Online News Credibility: The Relative Influence of Traditional and Technological Factors

Abstract: This study investigates a range of traditional and technological factors that contribute to credibility perceptions for three categories of online news sources. These sources include mainstream (usatoday.com, nytimes.com), independent (thedrudgereport.com, axisoflogic.com), and index-type (news.google.com, yahoo.news.com) websites. While traditional dimensions of credibility remain influential, results suggest that the hypertextuality of index-type online news sources is of particular importance. Multimediality and interactivity did not influence credibility perceptions. These results support the perspective that online media differ based on credibility and users' perceptions are in part based on the technological affordances of media. A major contribution of this research lies in the empirical demonstration of the relationships between technological characteristics of various online news sources and subsequent credibility assessments. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Legitimating a platform: evidence of journalists’ role in transferring authority to Twitter

Abstract: Studies suggest a growing interdependence between journalists and Twitter. What is behind this interdependence, and how does it manifest in news texts? We argue that social media platforms (and Twi...

Scientists, the Media, and the Public Communication of Science

Abstract: The relationship between scientists and journalists has evolved in recent years with the advent of numerous sociocultural changes and drastic shifts within the media ecosystem. Media professionals have traditionally been the gatekeepers of scientific information, but new media technologies grant scientists more power than ever before to be proactive about their public communication. In this article, I provide an overview of the science–media relationship and scientists as public communicators. Specifically, I recount the relationship that has traditionally existed between scientists and media professionals, explain how this relationship has evolved over recent years, and highlight what I believe are some of the most salient and exciting areas for future research examining scientists' efforts to engage with the public.

Networked Press Freedom and Social Media: Tracing Historical and Contemporary Forces in Press-Public Relations

Abstract: This paper analyzes how mainstream, online news organizations understand press autonomy in their relationships to audiences. I situate the press in terms of neo-institutional sociology, seeing its autonomy as a distributed, field-level phenomenon involving "boundary work" among distributed actors. I then trace press-audience relations through two historical examples letters to the editor and ombudsmen, showing how the press has historically both separated itself from and relied upon audiences. Examining eight news organizations' social media policies, I analyze the "inside-out" and "outside-in" forces through which the press distinguishes itself from audiences, concluding with a discussion of how such guidelines structure the types of control that news organizations have, or might have, as they use social network sites in their news work.

Liquid gold or Russian roulette? Risk and human milk sharing in the US news media

Abstract: The exchange of human breast milk, a common and well-established practice, has become a site of public controversy in the US. There is controversy over the use of the internet to facilitate milk exchange and public interest in the practice has been stimulated by a research article published in the journal Pediatrics that identified high levels of potentially harmful bacteria in breast milk sold online. In this article we use feminist critical discourse analysis to critically examine how breast milk sharing is represented in a sample of 30 articles from US print newspapers published in 2010–2013. We found complex and contradictory images of human milk, with medically supervised milk banks represented as a life-saving entity, nature’s ‘liquid gold’, whereas peer sharing of breast milk was represented as dangerous, and in this context breast milk was represented as a potentially life-threatening substance. Women who donated milk to milk banks were represented as altruistic and those who obtained their babies...