Journalism

#176: Media Systems, Digital Media, and the Hybridity Cycle, with Prof. Daniel Hallin

Professor Daniel C. Hallin, Distinguished Professor of Communication at UC San Diego, shares his thoughts on media systems and how digital media relates to the concept. We discuss the components of a ‘system’ and current debates around the concept of ‘hybridity’ in media studies. This leads to a broader discussion of conceptual stretching, media capture, and how single case studies can be made comparative through dialogue with existing scholarship. 

The recording took place while Prof. Hallin was a Visiting Professor at the Department of Communication and Media at Lund. 

Here are the two articles we discuss in the episode: 

Comparative Research, System Change, and the Complexity of Media Systems (2020)
The Concept of Hybridity in Journalism Studies (2023)

#148: Machine Learning the Facebook URLs Dataset to Study News Credibility, with Dr. Tom Paskhalis

 

Dr. Tom Paskhalis, Assistant Professor in Political and Data Science at Trinity College Dublin, shares his research on applying machine learning to the Facebook URLs Dataset from Social Science One. The project develops a model to label whether a news domain is credible or not based on Facebook interactions data. We discuss the Facebook URLs dataset, what types of machine learning techniques were applied to it, and how the model performed across the US and EU countries. 

#141: Rating News Credibility with Algorithms, with Arjun Moorthy

Arjun Moorthy, co-founder and CEO of The Factual, discusses how machine learning and natural language processing can rank news for credibility. Arjun breaks down the criteria underpinning The Factual’s rating system as well as how it tries to minimize bias. We talk about some of the pitfalls of optimizing news for engagement, as well as how anonymity in a different incentive structure affects discourse around discussing news. Towards the end of the episode, we discuss the current state of AI in the newsroom, and how automation might affect news consumption in the future.


Check out the Unbiased Podcast!

And test out The Factual’s engine at IsThisCredible.com