My first question was for the survey participants to indicate their preferred online news outlet, the top three preferred news outlets are: 1st place is CNN, 2nd place is northcountrynow.com, and 3rd place goes to Fox news.
For the majority of this summary I will focus on the results of all questions based on the entire field of preferred news outlet responses, and then I will take a brief look at the top 3 results. The remaining other preferred news outlets are Yahoo, Google, MSN which all three placed 4th and the remaining are Bing, Newzjunky, The Onion, and WWNY TV 7.
This first section of the result summary is questions based on the surveyed takers preferred outlet.
1) Do you feel that online opinion polls influence the decision of which news stories your preferred news outlet report? 44% said yes and 56% felt they do not.
2) Do you feel that all of the facts for each news story are fully presented by your preferred news outlet? 26% said yes and 74% felt they do not.
74% is a large percentage of people that feel they are not getting all of the facts from their news outlet. Does that really make you question what is going on?
3) Overall, are you satisfied with the content and quality of the news covered by your preferred online news outlet? 59% said yes and 41% felt they do not.
This next section is questions based on any online news outlet. Any being the key word of these questions:
1) Do you feel that any online news outlets neglect to report news stories that they feel are not important? 85% said yes and 15% felt they do not.
2) Do you feel that any major online news outlets have an agenda other than reporting the total news coverage? An overwhelming 93% said yes and only 7% felt they do not. This was the highest yes results of all of the questions that I asked.
3) Do you feel that any specific news outlets manipulate the news content to support their agenda? I.e. retouch photos for example. 89% said yes and 11% felt they did not. This was the 2nd highest yes results of all of the questions.
This last section is based on the survey takers’ perception of all online news outlets:
1) Do you feel that the facts that all online news sources report are completely objective in the news that they report? 15% said yes and an overwhelming 85% of takers felt they do not.
2) Do you feel that the facts that are presented are presented fairly and without bias? 30% said yes and 70% felt they were not.
This previous section of questions results are the most important to the purpose of this assignment, they are specific to the perceptions of objectivity in all online news outlets. The question that I asked about all online news sources being completely objective in the news that they report revealed an astonishing answer, 85% of online news consumers believed all outlets are not objective. With the majority of the people I surveyed believing that all outlets are not completely objective, it really makes you wonder if these internet users even trust their preferred online news outlet and why do they still look to online news to get their news.
Based on the answer of the objectivity question another astonishing answer was collected from the question about the facts being presented are presented fairly and without bias. With the majority of the surveyed participants; 70% believing that online news is not presented fairly and the facts are bias in their reporting.
That answer reinforces the mystery about why do these people surveyed still look online to get their news. I also believe that the results of this question are closely correlated to the question about any online news outlet having an agenda when they report the news that they report and the result being 93% of surveyed participants agree that there is an agenda.
Based on the result of the agenda question and considering that 89% of the participants believe that the supporting evidence of a story is manipulated to support their agenda. Why do these people surveyed still believe the news they consume?
Overall, I’m pleased with the results of all of these questions. I thought it was a neat experience; it was cool to just see what people think about online news, especially the answers to the questions about the users preferred news outlet.
With the majority of the summary complete I want to just indicate some facts about what the participants believe about their preferred online news outlets. Let’s look at the top three of these outlets that the surveyed people prefer: CNN, Northcountrynow.com, and Fox News. Let’s learn some interesting facts about these top three. You can make your own conclusions.
The interesting facts from the CNN patrons are: 71% of CNN fans believe that online opinion polls do influence the news that they are offered from CNN. 86% of CNN users believe that they are not receiving all of the facts of each news story from CNN. Only 57% of CNN users are overall satisfied with the content and quality of the news they receive.
Northcountynow.com facts: 83% of northcountynow.com fans believe that the news they are offered from northcountynow.com is influenced by opinion polls. 67% of northcountynow.com users believe that they are not receiving all of the facts of each news story. 83% of northcountynow.com users are overall satisfied with the content and quality of the news they receive. This percentage of satisfied patrons by their preferred online news outlet is the highest percentage of all of the top three.
Finally, Fox News facts: 50% of users of Fox news online believe that the news stories they are offered is influenced by opinion polls. The majority of Fox news fans surveyed about their overall satisfaction with the content and quality of the news they receive is 75%. The final fact: 100% of those Fox news fans believe that they are receiving all of the facts of each news story they receive from Fox news.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Comparison of the news sites.
My 4 online news sites are http://www.foxnews.com/, http://northcountrynow.com/, http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/, http://www.abc.net.au/news/offbeat/.
I can compare these sites based on many levels. I’m going to focus on their ease of use, the frequency of updating their sites, and the multimedia content of each site on their first page.
Gretawire.com the blog and foxnews.com are almost identical (they are provided by the same company Fox News.) These two sites have all the same top banners and link tabs on both. All of the headlines/titles for the stories are links; all the images in the stories are links as well. On foxnews.com every featured headline story has accompanying links below and at the side bars of the hook paragraph to link to more information about other stories with similar subject matter as the featured story.
On northcountrynow.com the entire page is set up like a newspaper, only there are interactive elements included. All the ads on the page are links to the companies specific WebPages. The body of the page is immensely filled with hyperlinks. The entire left edge of the page are lists of links to the basic parts of any newspaper: Classifieds, News (which is redundant because it contains links to the other parts of the website that you can find in the main body of the page), Your Views, Recreation and Entertainment, Local Websites, Hometown Photos, Explore Northern NY, and About NCNow. The interesting part of these link categories on the left side is they break down into more specific links, for example under News there are the following more specific links: (NCNow News, Local Obituaries, Engagements, Weddings, Anniversaries, Weather, Local Business, News Links, Sports Links, NC This Week.) A unique difference between all of the other pages and NCN.com is on this page the headlines of the stories are not links themselves, there are links under every headline that says where the news was found; for example the link of a headline of a story from Watertown Daily Times goes directly to watertowndailytimes.com. In the body of the page are titled sections with even further links; these sections include New Today, NCNow Survey, Local Sports, Opinion, Featured Blogs and Forums, Obituaries & Services, Recently Added Videos, and Recently Added Websites.
Finally, my specialty news site is the ABC News – Offbeat. Although it does not actually say what ABC represents I think it is hosted from the Australian Broadcast Channel. So anyway this is the simplest site for ease of use. Like foxnews.com and gretawire.com, this site has top banners and link tabs. The only other links on the page are the titles of the news story, and the related tags listed in a line under the hook sentences of each story. So if you see a headline you like, click it to read the story or if you are further interested in the subject you can click on the listed tags.
Gretawire.com, foxnews.com and northcountrynow.com are the most frequently updated news sites of the four. ABC – Offbeat is least frequently updated because it is more difficult to find new strange news stories so often. Gretwire.com is the next least frequently updated because this is a blog and it is not concerned with updating breaking news. But, the reason it is more frequently updated than ABC – Offbeat is all of the new threads that are being created all day long. The foxnews.com and northcountrynow.com sites are the most frequently updated because these sites focus on breaking news.
The multimedia content on the first pages of these websites differ greatly. The Fox News site contains streaming video and images. All of the images and the videos are clickable links. On gretawire.com most of the multimedia content is in the form of videos, but also the limited number of still images on the page are clickable links. On northcountrynow.com there is limited multimedia content, the content on this page are in the form of still images as well as all of these images are clickable links. On ABC News – Offbeat there is no multimedia content on this page at all.
I can compare these sites based on many levels. I’m going to focus on their ease of use, the frequency of updating their sites, and the multimedia content of each site on their first page.
Gretawire.com the blog and foxnews.com are almost identical (they are provided by the same company Fox News.) These two sites have all the same top banners and link tabs on both. All of the headlines/titles for the stories are links; all the images in the stories are links as well. On foxnews.com every featured headline story has accompanying links below and at the side bars of the hook paragraph to link to more information about other stories with similar subject matter as the featured story.
On northcountrynow.com the entire page is set up like a newspaper, only there are interactive elements included. All the ads on the page are links to the companies specific WebPages. The body of the page is immensely filled with hyperlinks. The entire left edge of the page are lists of links to the basic parts of any newspaper: Classifieds, News (which is redundant because it contains links to the other parts of the website that you can find in the main body of the page), Your Views, Recreation and Entertainment, Local Websites, Hometown Photos, Explore Northern NY, and About NCNow. The interesting part of these link categories on the left side is they break down into more specific links, for example under News there are the following more specific links: (NCNow News, Local Obituaries, Engagements, Weddings, Anniversaries, Weather, Local Business, News Links, Sports Links, NC This Week.) A unique difference between all of the other pages and NCN.com is on this page the headlines of the stories are not links themselves, there are links under every headline that says where the news was found; for example the link of a headline of a story from Watertown Daily Times goes directly to watertowndailytimes.com. In the body of the page are titled sections with even further links; these sections include New Today, NCNow Survey, Local Sports, Opinion, Featured Blogs and Forums, Obituaries & Services, Recently Added Videos, and Recently Added Websites.
Finally, my specialty news site is the ABC News – Offbeat. Although it does not actually say what ABC represents I think it is hosted from the Australian Broadcast Channel. So anyway this is the simplest site for ease of use. Like foxnews.com and gretawire.com, this site has top banners and link tabs. The only other links on the page are the titles of the news story, and the related tags listed in a line under the hook sentences of each story. So if you see a headline you like, click it to read the story or if you are further interested in the subject you can click on the listed tags.
Gretawire.com, foxnews.com and northcountrynow.com are the most frequently updated news sites of the four. ABC – Offbeat is least frequently updated because it is more difficult to find new strange news stories so often. Gretwire.com is the next least frequently updated because this is a blog and it is not concerned with updating breaking news. But, the reason it is more frequently updated than ABC – Offbeat is all of the new threads that are being created all day long. The foxnews.com and northcountrynow.com sites are the most frequently updated because these sites focus on breaking news.
The multimedia content on the first pages of these websites differ greatly. The Fox News site contains streaming video and images. All of the images and the videos are clickable links. On gretawire.com most of the multimedia content is in the form of videos, but also the limited number of still images on the page are clickable links. On northcountrynow.com there is limited multimedia content, the content on this page are in the form of still images as well as all of these images are clickable links. On ABC News – Offbeat there is no multimedia content on this page at all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)