No Need for Speed in the Public Sphere: How news reporting styles can affect climate change news coverage
Student (#): Nanda Elenbaas (10703160) Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communications Master’s Program Communication Science
Supervisor: Rachid Azrout June 28, 2019 Word Count: 7,456
Abstract
Slow Journalism is a term used to criticize the limitations and dangers of speed in journalistic environments, but research has yet to study its impact on readers’ attitudes. This study is one of the first to investigate under what conditions a news reporting style (Slow or Fast
Journalism) can raise concern for climate change. Its focus is on climate change coverage in mainstream news media in the United States. First, we investigated what news reporting style Americans preferred. Results showed that overall individuals preferred Slow Journalism. This indicates that Americans prefer news that takes the time to find a deeper reflection and/or investigation rather than news influenced by hyper-modern fast journalistic practices. Then, when comparing age and social class, we found that older readers prefer Slow
Journalism more than younger readers do, yet there was no difference between social classes. Our final analysis tested the effect of news reporting styles on concern for climate change. Results showed no significant difference. These findings indicate that there is not as much fragmentation in audiences on the basis of age and social class as well as news reporting preferences, which is beneficial from a democratic point of view.
No Need for Speed in the Public Sphere: How news reporting styles can affect climate change news coverage
The Slow Movement is a cultural revolution known for criticizing the acceleration of modern life (Le Masurier, 2014). It has looked at many sections—most visibly fast fashion and fast food—where speed has transformed its ways of production. This movement began in 1989 with Carlo Petrini protesting against the opening of the first McDonald’s in Rome to protect regional cooking and the pleasures of a slow pace life (Bâc and Aksoz, ca. 2013). Since, it has inspired many scholars to use new research paradigms in order to further understand the effects speed has on our daily life. One branch in particular which is also criticized for succumbing to the trend of “faster is better” is the news media. The 24-hour news cycle fuels the contention of the Slow Movement that faster is in fact not better, which led to the coinage of the concept “Slow Journalism”. As Rob Orchard, co-founder and editorial director of the Slow Journalism Company, states: “[Slow Journalism is the] antidote to the hyper speed of today’s digital news production,” (Orchard, 2014).
Le Masurier (2016) is one of the few scholars attempting to define Slow Journalism; according to her, it encompasses many forms, whether it be print versus digital or text versus photo. This is why she claims it has no key characteristics nor a firm definition; it is simply a term used to describe a type of journalism addressing the limitations and dangers of speed in journalistic environments (Le Masurier, 2016, pg. 405). Erik Neveu’s work is referenced in Le Masurier’s (2016) paper to reinforce the idea that a strict definition does not exist. He suggests that we should see Slow Journalism as explanatory, non-fiction and mobilized, instead of a binary opposition to today’s hyper-modern fast practices, termed Fast Journalism (pg. 406). Yet as much as Neveu and Le Masurier insist on the impossibility of defining the term, a concrete understanding of what constitutes Slow Journalism is necessary to further understand how Slow Journalism functions in the media and public sphere.
To begin, this research will focus primarily on journalism in the form of text. Drok and Hermans (2015) note that there are two ways to understand Slow Journalism in this format: as a genre and as an approach. The former is about style and form used to tell the story. Key features include: “essayistic, long-form formats, and principles of narration” (pg. 541). The latter, on the other hand, goes beyond style and form and instead refers to
underlying principles and methods. Academic literature in this field is not as developed, but, as of now, the general understanding is that Slow Journalism takes the time to find a deeper reflection and/or investigation. This approach benefits issues that require more analysis from and time for journalists to tell the story. As a result, it increases readers’ understanding of the topic. To support this claim, Ricketson (2016) finds that speed in the news has negatively affected readers’ ability to see the connections between various events, issues, and people (pg. 509). By exploring the reporting of two historic American events (i.e. Hiroshima and the Iraq War), he found that immediate news cannot provide enough detail, depth, and
perspective to build understanding and knowledge the way slower forms of journalism can. Similarly, Ball (2016) argues that in order to fully understand one another in the media, time is a necessity; a feature characterizable to Slow Journalism.
Many news topics can benefit from slow forms of journalism (e.g. conflict or war), but current journalistic practices particularly have difficulties reporting the complexity of climate change (Gess, 2012). Gess (2012) argues that since climate change is a complex issue that happens slowly and over time, it should be written about slowly and over time as well: “The context of climate change needs to be built up in such a way that events resulting from it (be they political, social, agricultural, ecological or economic) can be understood within that context,” (Gess, 2012, pg. 62). However, editors often prefer event-driven and
sensationalized stories since these types of articles allow for a higher readership, especially in challenging contexts such as climate change (Park, 2018; Gess, 2012). For these reasons, this
paper will explore whether Slow Journalism is more beneficial to climate change coverage (e.g. changing attitudes, increasing readership) than the speed and sensationalism of Fast Journalism.
Although Slow Journalism is discussed by a handful of scholars, research on this topic remains limited, especially empirical research. Hence, this study intends to examine Slow Journalism as an approach to see whether its principles and methods increase readers’ level of concern in certain news topics more than Fast Journalism does. In addition, we seek to delve even further into the topic and offer a look into specific population groups to determine whether Slow Journalism is preferred by certain demographics, such as older or younger individuals and higher or lower social classes. The fragmentation of news audiences and users cannot solely be attributed to the abundance of choices in today’s media
environment; other factors also play a role (Lindell, 2018), and perhaps type of news reporting is one of them.
Many countries could benefit from this research; however, this study focuses specifically on the case of the United States (U.S.). In the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2018, Graves and Jenkins (2018) stated that traditional and digital-born media in the U.S. struggle for audience attention (pg. 112). After Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2016, news coverage in America shifted: news consumption decreased in all forms of media—TV, online, print, and social media—as did news readers’ trust in the American news industry (pg. 112). However, a preference for quality (online) newspapers publishing high-profile investigate reports and a ‘digital first’ strategy was increasing1 (pg. 112). These findings
indicate an interest by Americans for Slow Journalism.
1 i.e. The New York Times’ digital subscription revenues rose by a fifth in 2016 and the Washington Post accumulated for the first time 1 million digital subscribers in 2017 (Graves and Jenkins, 2018, pg. 112).
Modern news media struggle to maintain audience attention (Graves and Jenkins, 2018), despite the fact that it has a great deal of influence in determining which social problems are newsworthy enough to be discussed in the public sphere (Hilgartner and Bosk, 1988), and can affect readers’ attitudes (Ricketson, 2016; Ball, 2016). This can be
problematic for topics that need exposure but are not considered newsworthy enough. Climate change is greatly affected by the lack of substantial exposure due to the influence of editors sensationalizing it and advertisers promoting climate change denial (Park, 2018). Boykoff and Rajan (2007) find that mass media coverage of climate change in the U.S. and U.K. has detrimental consequences for society if not acknowledged, since journalism and public concerns shape decisions in climate science and policy the same way climate science and policy shape media reporting and public understanding. Hence, by investigating the factors influencing media coverage of climate science in the U.S., we gain insight into the way climate change policy is negotiated and action is taken and vice versa (p. 210). In 2018, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication surveyed Americans’ climate change beliefs, risk perception, and policy support, and found that 77% of Americans hear about global warming once a month or less in the media and 64% rarely or never discuss global warming (Marlon et. al, 2018). Considering that climate change is generally known to be the biggest challenge humans are facing in the 21st century (Kunelius, 2019), these numbers seem
very high.
Keeping in mind the shortage of research on Slow Journalism as well as the limited research on how the news media can best approach informing citizens on climate change, it is of the utmost importance to investigate why so few people read up on global warming and climate change and provide solutions. Investigating this issue will not only broaden the academic work in the field of journalism and climate change, but also increase visibility and concern for climate change as a topic of interest in the public sphere. This could enact change
in climate change policy as well as in the societal and economic sphere. As such, the overall theme of this research is to determine whether Slow Journalism is more effective in
increasing the American public’s concern for climate change compared to Fast Journalism. This will provide an understanding of whether Fast Journalism is more generally problematic for news content or not, in particular climate change coverage. Thus, the research question is: RQ: To what extent does Slow Journalism affect the American public’s concern about climate change compared to Fast Journalism?
As a subsection to this question, we also wish to research whether Americans prefer Slow or Fast news reporting depending on age and social class. With the outcome of this research, we can provide further insight to the above questions and potentially help news outlets determine what type of reporting approach to focus on when it comes to writing news articles, and how they should cover climate change in order to increase awareness.
Theoretical Framework
Despite the lack of a clear definition of the concept, a general understanding of Slow Journalism is that it consists of in-depth and investigative reporting. The term has also been defined by how it differs from Fast-Journalistic reporting. As the limited research available shows, Slow Journalism focuses on providing more than just facts (Gess, 2012, pg. 60) and being transparent about how information is obtained (Le Masurier, 2014, pg. 142). This is done through engaging in deeper reflection, investigation, and/or background research (Drok and Hermans, 2015, pg. 542; cf. Neveu, 2016; Le Masurier, 2014, pg. 142). This means providing links between economics, politics, science, and society (Gess, 2012, pg. 62, cf. Neveu, 2016), information relevant to consumers and to the wellbeing of the community (Gess, 2012, pg. 60), and solutions to societal problems (Gess, 2012, pg. 59; cf. Neveu, 2016). Hence, the usual layout of these types of news reports are essayistic, long-form formats, and use principles of narration (Drok and Hermans, 2015, pg. 541); however, these
characteristics are not requirements. The last feature is incorporating the point of view of people involved (Drok and Hermans, 2015, pg. 544). The people involved not only refers to journalists who are experts in the field—a.k.a. monothematic expert journalists—but also individuals actively engaging with the topic, ranging from local communities to non-profit organizations to politicians. See Table 1 for a summary of the accumulated definitions of Slow Journalism.
Table 1
Characteristics of Slow Journalism
1 Provides solutions to societal problems
2 Gathers more than just ‘facts’
3 Provides useful information to consumers relevant to them and the wellbeing of the community
4 Mentions clearly how information is obtained
5 Includes links between economics, politics, and society
6 Uses, but not restricted to, essayistic, long-form formats, and principles of narration
7 Provides a deeper reflection, investigation, and/or background research
8 Includes more points of views of the people involved
Slow Journalism is not a new phenomenon, but it has traditionally been used less due to the popularity of Fast Journalism (Le Masurier, 2014), which has consequently affected our exposure to topics like climate change (Park, 2018; Gess, 2012). Park’s (2018) article is one of the few to look into what factors played a role in establishing the current state of climate change news coverage. He attributes this state to four constituents: (1) editors and
advertisers, (2) climate change skeptics, (3) fossil fuel industry, and (4) journalism industry cut-backs (p. 203).
First, editors often believe that their readership struggles with the complexity of the topic of climate change, which is why they prefer event-driven and sensationalized stories, since more people read these (Park, 2018, p. 203). In a literature review on how media covers climate change in different countries, Schäfer (2015) also found that specific events (i.e. Hurricane Katrina) increase coverage given that they have a more newsworthy angle (p. 856). It was also found that editors downplay climate change stories, since they can conflict with the interests of advertisers resulting in the withdrawal of their support (Park, 2018). This is due to the fact that a large portion of media advertisements in the U.S. promote products and services that contribute to the global climate crisis (Park, 2018).
Second, the journalistic norm of balancing sources is a large contributor to the increase in the number of climate change skeptics (Park, 2018). Incorporating both perspectives on an issue is known as balanced reporting and is particularly popular in the U.S. (Park, 2018; Schäfer, 2015; Boykoff and Rajan, 2007) as it is especially helpful when journalists do not have enough time to check the validity of their sources (Boykoff and Rajan, 2007). In the case of climate change coverage, however, this norm ironically leads to
unbalanced reporting, since it gives space and attention to a point of view held by a small, niche group of scientists (Boykoff and Rajan, 2007; Boykoff and Boykoff, 2004). This results in a distortion of the public’s understanding of climate change/global warming; therefore, “balanced reporting” has had a detrimental effect on the coverage of the topic of climate change in the news media.
Third, a large contributor to unbalanced reporting is the fossil fuel industry. It has a significant amount of power and influence in the way the American public understands climate change (Park, 2018). By funding scientists, research, politicians, and organizations
that question global warming, they have assisted in the phenomenon of “false balance”, promoting climate change denial. Additionally, these corporations buy lots of advertising space, which affect how journalists can talk about these corporations and issues caused by them (Park, 2018, pg. 203; Bagdikian, 1995, pg. 107).
Fourth and final, there has been a switch from specialized to general, freelance, or crowd-sourced, unpaid, amateur journalists. As a result, fewer specialized environmental journalists are available to cover climate change (Park, 2018). These decisions made by news companies lead to untrained journalists discussing issues they do not fully grasp and who are not given sufficient time to research and evaluate claims in the light of scientific information (Park, 2018; Boykoff and Rajan, 2007). It has also led to an increase in the news media ignoring climate change (Park, 2018).
Park (2018) is not the only one suggesting modifications in climate change reporting. Kunelius (2019)—professor of journalism at the University of Tampere—also believes that the way journalists discuss climate change in the news needs to transform. He notes that climate change is the biggest challenge for journalism, due to its unpredictability, controversy, and political polarization (pg. 219). Kunelius (2019) believes that climate change coverage is the “forced opportunity” for journalism to reinvent itself, particularly journalistic practice and organizational policy. Thus, he explains three ways in which journalism should change in order to appropriately cover news topics and uses climate change as a leading example.
First, Kunelius (2019) notes that journalistic institutions need to be less autonomous and more collaborative with other institutions, such as with non-profit or activist
organizations, which allows for the exchange of information (pg. 219). Second, he states that journalism should become less nationalistic and more transnational. National interests and national security strongly discipline journalism, which has trickled down to the coverage of
climate change. However, climate change is also a transnational problem, which is why it needs to be reported on not only on the local but also global level (p. 219). Third, he finds that the current “time and rhythm” of journalism will be challenged, meaning that the way we talk about the issue will change. For rhythm, he states that news including more extreme weather events will allow for a new way to validate findings by scientists as well as
communicate facts. For time, he promotes incorporating time scales that begin before the Ice Age to the end of this century, which can be difficult to put into perspective and yet are necessary to accurately discuss the matter (p. 220). If looked at closely, these suggested “forced opportunities” coincide with characteristics of Slow Journalism, such as: reporting more from the point of view of people involved; including links between economics, politics, and society; and incorporating background research.
Similarly, Sack (2019) wrote on the Medium2 that science related topics tend to suffer
under the 24-hour-news-cycle since it fails to put news into context and, “Science news is meaningless in the absence of context” (para. 4). Articles reported using characteristics of Slow Journalism could avoid this issue. With academics and writers suggesting a switch to more Slow-Journalistic reporting, it begs the question of whether the public desires this and whether decreasing Fast-Journalistic reporting in climate change coverage (i.e. false
balancing, sensationalizing, advertising, nationalism) will increase awareness. With these theories in mind, there is much left to understand.
Hypotheses
Before answering the overall research question, it is important to first investigate the sub-question of our study, namely what type of news reporting Americans prefer. In the academic field of journalism, media studies and communications, there has been scholarly
2 The Medium is a news outlet that publishes articles written by writers, thinkers, and storytellers on relevant topics.
research on the role of age and social class in people’s news preferences yet not much in their news reporting preferences. Benaissa Pedrizza (2017) argued that Slow Journalism does not exclusively need to address an elitist, aging audience with a higher education (pg. 141), yet, based on the limited existing research, these groups have a larger preference for Slow Journalism.
In regards to age, Drok and Hermans (2015) researched the Dutch public and its news style preferences and found that two in three Dutch users aged between 15 and 39 do not show an interest in Slow Journalism (pg. 549). The American Press Institute also found older adults more likely to report reading, watching, or hearing an in-depth news story while younger adults are more attentive to breaking news. Le Masurier (2016) points out that in existing literature younger people have developed a news routine that centers around frequently checking headlines (pg. 543). Huang (2009) too discovered that 78.6% of 15-30-year-old high school and college students tend to only skim newspaper headlines. This indicates that the news consumption preferences of the young respondents generally lean towards Fast Journalism. They want news that is straight to the point, recent, and free of charge (Huang, 2009, pg. 113). With these findings, we predict that older readers prefer Slow Journalism more than younger readers (H1).
Research also shows that class-related factors influence how people orient themselves in the media environment (Lindell and Hovden, 2018). Though the differences are minimal, income is an underlying factor to how Americans follow the news (e.g. how easy they feel it is to keep up with the news) (American Press Institute, 2014). As such, it is important to analyze how news preferences are distributed in the American class structure. Le Masurier (2016) theorizes that Slow Journalism is more relevant to the public with “high cultural (and economic) capital,” (pg. 410). Greenberg (2013) sees Slow Journalism as a counter to
low-cost news organizations and finds that current Slow-Journalistic platforms3 aim to repurpose
news as a luxury good within a luxury market. Ohlsson et al. (2017), as well as Lindell (2018), find that in Sweden, individuals with high levels of economic and/or cultural (e.g. education level) capital tend to find news more worthwhile, compared to individuals with low levels of economic and/or cultural capital. Though these articles discuss a different country and culture than the one studied in this research, empirical research shows that social class can affect news preferences. Though social class is said to affect the way people read news, we do not know whether news reporting style is a differentiating factor. For that reason, bearing the findings in mind, we hypothesize that higher-social-class readers will have a stronger preference for Slow Journalism, compared to middle and lower-social-class readers (H2).
Once it is established what type of news reporting Americans prefer, we can continue our research on the effect Slow Journalism has on the American public’s concern about climate change. In a study looking at how the American and European publics conceptualize climate change, Lorenzoni and Pidgeon (2006) found that for most individuals, climate change is a complex and sometimes misunderstood issue (pg. 87). Just one year later, in 2007, the United Nations Development Program found that Americans, Europeans, and the Japanese are increasingly becoming more aware of and concerned about climate change as well as encouraging mitigation and adaptation policies (Boykoff and Roberts, 2008). Though the particular reason for the increased awareness is unclear4, we can gather that awareness
rose due to exposure to more information. As such, these studies indicate that more knowledge stimulates increased concern about climate change.
3 Examples include Delayed Gratification and San Francisco Panorama
4 A possible explanation could be the release of the documentary made by Al Gore in 2006 called “An Inconvenient Truth”. It was dedicated to showing humans what their actions have caused and what needs to be done to save the planet (Al Gore, 2019).
Brulle et. al’s (2012) looked at three ideas that could potentially influence the public’s concern of climate change: 1. extreme weather events (actively shows seriousness of climate change), 2. exposure to and understanding of scientific information (provides a clear
understanding of climate science), and 3. media coverage (increase in coverage leads to an increase in the public’s concern). The study found that weather events do not influence the overall level of public concern when it comes to climate change, nor does the number of science articles. The former may change the opinions of individuals who experience
disruptive weather events, but it has not yet reached the aggregate level (pg. 178). Brulle et. al (2012) state that weather events can affect opinions nationwide if there is an increase in the number of weather disruption attributable to climate change. The latter is mainly due to the fact that science articles are usually not read by the general public (pg. 181). Media coverage, on the other hand, did have a significant impact on public concern. The more coverage there is, the more the public’s concern grows. This supports the existing literature that repeated stories convey importance (Brulle et. al, 2012, pg. 175).
As such, we assume that the more information people take in, the more knowledge they gather on the topic, which then raises their concerns about climate change. We find similar points discussed in the theory of agenda-setting. Lang and Lang (1966) state that the media can affect public attitudes by telling them what to think about, know about, and have feelings about (pg. 468). Similarly, Cohen (1963) concisely states the success the media have in telling people what to think about. If news places more importance to a particular issue, this will influence the audience to do the same. Yet this concept still differs slightly from our focus. Agenda-setting places importance on a topic through publishing an abundance of articles (quantity) whereas Slow Journalism places importance through reporting in-depth articles (quality). It is the consequence of agenda-setting, namely the abundance of articles affected by sensationalizing, balanced reporting, and advertising—characteristics attributable
to Fast Journalism—, rather than in-depth reporting, that has led to the current state of climate change coverage (Park, 2018) as well as lack of climate science readership (Marlon et. al, 2018). Thus, we hypothesize that Slow Journalism news reports strengthens concern for climate change more than Fast Journalism news reports (H3).
Methodology
We conducted a cross-sectional study using a between-group experimental research design. This will determine what type of news reporting Americans prefer more as well as whether Slow Journalism influences level of concern for climate change more than Fast Journalism.
Design
We tested two groups: the control group (52 respondents) read an article about climate change using key features of Fast Journalism (i.e. short texts, only facts, not linking to other facets) and the experimental group (56 respondents) read an article written about climate change using key features of Slow Journalism (mentioned in Table 1). Respondents were randomly assigned to the conditions.
Procedure
Users of Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk)—a crowdsourcing marketplace— interested in taking our survey were redirected to Qualtrics where they spent an average of 9 minutes answering 30 questions and reading the stimulus material. After, they were
redirected back to mTurk where they could collect their payment.
First, respondents were notified that their participation was voluntary and that they could terminate their session at any point. During the survey, we first asked background information for each respondent in order to gather data for our independent variables: age and social class. We also asked questions that pertained to Slow Journalism preferences,
gathering data on respondents who did not read or follow instructions, we placed the following attention check question: “To ensure participants are actively reading the
questions, we ask you to please select "Disagree" from the answer choices below”. Failing to answer correctly, terminated their session. The remaining respondents were shown an article written about the report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018 regarding the dangers of a 1.5C temperature increase. After, we included a
manipulation check to make sure respondents read the articles. Following that, we tested if increase in Slow Journalism characteristics resulted in an increase in concern for climate change. For copyright purposes, we provided the author and news outlet of the article during the experiment, and the URL of the article in the debriefing.
Respondents
We chose to focus this research on the U.S. news media, hence, our respondents were American citizens. We gathered our respondents through Amazon Mechanical Turk (mTurk). mTurk is a crowdsourcing marketplace used for individuals and businesses to distribute virtual tasks to a workforce. Using mTurk requires paying the respondents, for that reason, we paid 105 dollars of which 20% went to mTurk.
Sample characteristics. We surveyed a total of 164 respondents. The only
respondents excluded from this number afterwards were those who answered the attention check question incorrectly (12 respondents) and those who spent less than 40 seconds on the stimulus material (44 respondents). Removing respondents who answered the attention check incorrectly allowed us to ensure a higher likelihood of honest answers. This left us with 108 respondents (41.7% females, n=45). The average age of the overall sample was 38.18 (SD=12.91) and the most frequent class position was middle class (50.0%).
Considering this research focuses on news in the form of text, we presented respondents with a news article. In 2018 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published their latest annual report predicting that an increase in 1.5°C by 2030 will cause permanent damage to the planet if necessary action is not taken (Masson-Delmotte et. al, 2018). Seeing the urgency in these findings, we chose this news topic for our material. We exposed both groups to the same news article written by Coral Davenport called “Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040” from The New York Times. The original text fulfills the characteristics this research paper uses to define Slow Journalism, since it provides a deeper reflection, investigation, and background research on the report. It does so by including solutions to societal problems and links to politics, economy and society.
To make the length of the material compatible for a 15-minute survey, certain
sections were shortened but the overall ideas remained. Word count usually differs between a Slow-Journalistic article compared to a Fast-Journalistic article, hence we needed to ensure that the amount of time respondents stayed on the stimulus material was as equal as possible. The experimental group read one article (658 words) and the control group read two articles (414 words total). We divided the Slow Journalism text into two parts (i.e. one focused on getting rid of coal and the other focused on transforming the economy), which became the two articles for the control group. The author of the experimental group’s article was the original author, Coral Davenport while the control group had the original author for one of the articles, and another New York Times environmental reporter, Nicholas Casey, as the other author.
Overall, both articles needed to have similar information. We only implemented necessary differences to achieve a successful manipulation. The Fast Journalism group did not receive information that linked to other countries nor discussed immigration. The reason
for this was to ensure that links between economics, politics, and society was stronger for the Slow Journalism group than the Fast Journalism group. In addition, the beginning of the Slow Journalism article began using story-telling techniques (i.e. personification), whereas the Fast Journalism article used none. Both articles comprised of only one fabricated sentence: "In a statement, Cornell University's leading environmental scientist, Katie Waker, noted that, "coal still has a role in the foreseeable future". The actual name of the source was Katie Warrick and she is the interim chief executive of The World Coal Association. We labelled her a scientist to avoid appeal to authority, since the countering argument to Warrick’s statement was that of a scientist.
Finally, we wanted the news article to look visually realistic, therefore, we created a layout similar to The New York Times (See Appendix A).
Manipulation check
To test our manipulation check we included statements like: “What I just read was: Diverse in sources and perspectives” (1: Strongly Agree – 7: Strongly Disagree). Appendix C shows all 7 items used. Those who had the Fast Journalism article should have lower scores for the items asking whether the article contained certain characteristics familiar to Fast Journalism and higher scores for items asking about Slow Journalism characteristics. The results should be the opposite for those who read the Slow Journalism article.
Respondents exposed to the Fast Journalism text thought there were more Slow Journalism characteristics (M=3.40; SD=1.21) than Fast Journalism characteristics (M=3.78; SD=1.11) in their article. Respondents shown the Slow Journalism text also thought their article showed more Slow Journalism characteristics (M=3.14; SD=1.24) than Fast Journalism characteristics (M=3.78; SD=1.43). Overall, two separate independent t-tests showed no significant differences between conditions when looking at Slow Journalism characteristics; t(102.86)= -.008, p = .99 and Fast Journalism characteristics; t(106)= -1.11, p
= .27. Though the manipulation failed, it provides insight on American news readers, which we will reflect on in our discussion.
Measures
The independent variables in our research were type of journalism (Slow vs. Fast), age and social class, and the dependent variables were news reporting preference and concern for climate change.
News Preference. We wanted to test what type of news preference was highest for
Americans (Slow Journalism or Fast Journalism). Then, we tested to see whether there was a difference in preference between different ages (H1) and social classes (H2). To test “News Preference”, we provided a selection of two statements and asked on a seven-point Likert scale which one they preferred more (1-3: prefer Fast Journalism; 4: neutral; 5-7: prefer Slow Journalism). The statements were based on the definitions the literature provided on Slow Journalism (Drok and Hermans, 2015; Le Masurier, 2014; Neveu, 2016; Gess, 2012). Appendix B shows the 6 paired statements used. With a factor analysis, we found that all items fell under one factor. However, the question asking whether “‘News should just provide facts’ OR ‘News should more often be explained’” had a low association to the variable with a factor loading of .419. Hence, we removed it. A scale was then created, averaging the 5 remaining items, resulting in a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.70 (See Table 2). We then combined the items into one variable by taking the mean (M=4.90; SD=1.11).
Concern for Climate Change. We wanted to test which news reporting style
increased concern for climate change more (H3). To test “concern for climate change” we first asked respondents how important particular world issues were to them, whereby climate change was one of the options (1:Extremely Important–5:Not at all important). The answers were reverse scored to fit the scale of the second variable testing concern for climate change. The second variable came after the stimulus to determine whether there was an effect and it
asked how worried respondents were about climate change (1:Not at all worried–5:Extremely worried).
Background Information. The background variables of interest to this study
included the respondent’s age and (family) class position. Age was divided between young (1: 18-37) and old (2: 38+) and class position was divided into lower class (1: Working class– Upper-Working Class), middle class (2: Middle Class), and higher class (3: Upper-Middle Class–Upper Class).
Plan of Analysis First, the independent variable “Type of Reporting” was divided
into two groups (1: “Slow Journalism”; 2: “Fast Journalism”). Then, to ensure randomization in the sample, we verified whether the experimental (Slow Journalism) and control (Fast Journalism) group had comparable conditions. We did so by examining age, social class, education (1: low; 2: middle; 3: high), and knowledge of climate change (1: low knowledge; 2: high knowledge), namely factors that could generate variation between the groups. To test this, we ran a crosstabs analysis for all conditions, considering all variables are categorical. For our manipulation check, we did an independent t-test. For our main analyses, we used a one sample t-test to determine the news reporting style Americans generally prefer. Then, we used an independent t-test to test the effect of respondents age on “News Preference” (H1) and a one-way ANOVA to test the effect of social class (H2). To test whether the items for the dependent variable “News Preference” fit the latent concept, we did a factor analysis. To detect the overall difference between related means, in this case concern for climate change before and after exposure, we used the variable testing concern for climate change prior to exposure as the control variable, allowing us to use a one-way ANOVA to see if Slow Journalism increases concern for climate change more or less than Fast Journalism (H3).
Results Randomization
To check that the sample was randomly assigned, we verified whether the control (Slow Journalism) and experimental (Fast Journalism) groups had comparable conditions. We looked at age, social class, education, and knowledge of climate change. All results were not significant: age, χ2(1, N=108) = 1.20, p = .27; social class, χ2(2, N=108) = 2.97, p = .23; education, χ2(2, N=108) = 1.79, p = .41; and knowledge of climate change, χ2(2, N=108) = 1.15, p = .56. This indicates a successful randomization of respondents between the groups.
Reporting Preference of Americans
Our first aim was to determine which type of news reporting Americans generally preferred, namely Slow or Fast Journalism. In order to determine this, we conducted a one sample t-test using the midpoint5—meaning a neutral stance for “News Preference”—as our
test value. Results showed that there is a large effect size and a significant difference, meaning respondents do have a reporting preference, t(107) = 8.43, p <.001, 95% CI [4.69, 5.11], d = 0.81. The average reporting preference of the respondents in the sample (M=4.90; SD=1.11) lies with 95% certainty between 4.69 and 5.11, indicating respondents tended to lean more towards preferring characteristics of Slow Journalism. Then, through looking at age and social class, preferences became more nuanced.
To begin, we compared “News Preference” between young Americans (n=68) and older Americans (n=40). Considering the higher preference for Slow Journalism, we conducted a one-sided independent t-test. There was a significant difference in reporting preference between the young (M=4.74; SD=1.13) and old (M=5.16; SD=1.03); t(106) = -1.93, p = .03 (See Table 3). When looking at reporting preferences, older respondents preferred Slow Journalism more than younger respondents. Thus, age affected reporting preference, resulting in support for H2.
5 A 7-point Likert scale was used with the midpoint = 4: 1-3: prefer Fast Journalism; 4: neutral; 5-7: prefer Slow Journalism
Then, we used a one-way ANOVA to determine whether social class played a role in news preferences. Results showed a non-significant difference between groups, F(2,105) = 2.02, p= .19, ηp2 = .03 (See Table 4). A post-hoc test indicated that there were no significant
differences between subjects. These results do not support H3. We did notice that all three social classes preferred Slow Journalism over Fast Journalism. A mean score above 4 meant a higher preference for Slow Journalism, and the data shows that those who positioned
themselves in the middle (M=5.09; SD=0.93) and low (M=4.72; SD=1.36) social classes had the highest preference for Slow Journalism compared to those who positioned themselves in a higher social class (M=4.67; SD=0.96).
Effect of News Reporting on Concern for Climate Change
The main question this paper aimed to answer was whether Slow Journalism would increase concern for particular issues, mainly focusing on climate change. Before respondents were shown a news article, we found that the average respondent found climate change somewhat/very important (M=3.51; SD=1.36). After they were exposed to the stimuli, we asked how worried they were about climate change; answers still leaned towards
somewhat/very worried (M=3.59; SD=1.13). To test whether there was a main effect between respondents concern for climate change before and after exposure to their respective news article, we conducted a one-way ANOVA, using the variable “How important is climate change?” as our control variable. By using importance as a control variable, we were able to have both variables testing for “Concern for Climate Change” begin at the same point and see if there is a difference after respondents read the news article. The one-way ANOVA
determined a small, non-significant difference between groups, F(1,105) = 0.45, p = .51, ηp2 =
.004 (See Table 5). These results indicate that reading a Slow or Fast-Journalistic article did not affect concern for climate change between respondents. Thus, we conclude no support for
H3 that Slow Journalism will increase concern for climate change more than Fast Journalism. See Figure 1 for a visualization of the results.
Figure 1. Level of concern for climate change before and after exposure to a Fast-Journalistic article compared to a Slow-Fast-Journalistic article.
Discussion and Conclusion
In this study we aimed to provide a clearer understanding of the type of news
reporting the American public prefers as well as insight into the effects Slow Journalism has on news coverage. With climate science often being misrepresented (Kunelius, 2019; Park, 2018) and misunderstood (Sack, 2019; Gess, 2012), and arguably one of the most important catastrophes in need of coverage (Kunelius, 2019), we focused on news reporting styles on this news topic. First, we hypothesized that an individual’s news reporting preference is affected by age and social class, mainly based on the work of Lindell and Hovden (2018), Le Masurier (2016), Drok and Hermans (2015), Greenberg (2013), and Huang (2009).
Furthermore, we hypothesized that concern for climate change is affected by the type of reporting style an individual is exposed to (Kunelius, 2019; Park, 2018; Brulle et. al, 2012). By publishing a survey on Amazon Mechanical Turk, we were able to sample different ages and social classes from the United States. All results, whether they supported our hypotheses
3 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 4
Before Exposure After Exposure
Concern for Climate Change
Before & After Exposure
Fast Journalism Slow
or not, provided interesting findings that were lacking in the field of journalism and climate science.
Many scholars exploring Slow Journalism lacked empirical research to back up their claims (Le Masurier, 2016; Neveu, 2016), leaving a gap in the literature. As such, this study adds evidence that news with characteristics of Slow Journalism is of higher interest to Americans than those of Fast Journalism. By focusing on specific demographics, particularly age and social class, we also found that both younger and older individuals show interest for Slow Journalism (Drok and Hermans, 2015), and that contrary to scholars’ theories, it is not necessarily a “luxury good” (Greenberg, 2013) only suitable for the elite (Benaissa Pedrizza, 2017). This study supported our H1 and existing literature that older readers prefer in-depth news stories more than younger readers (Drok and Hermans, 2015; American Press Institute, 2014; Huang, 2009). However, the results disputed H2, contradicting our assumption and that of the limited research available (Lindell, 2018; Ohlsson et al., 2017; Le Masurier, 2016; The American Press Institute, 2014; Greenberg, 2013;). That is, we found that in-depth and “quality” news reporting is not of higher interest to higher social classes, but of (even higher) interest to those coming from a middle or lower social class. These results are beneficial from a democratic point of view considering that media repertoires may differ amongst social class (Lindell, 2018) and age (American Press Institute, 2014), yet there is not as much audience fragmentation when it comes to news reporting style as predicted. This shows that despite an individual’s age and social class, people want their news to be informed and well-researched to keep them up to date.
It should be noted that for both variables (age and social class) the average news style preference was closer to a neutral preference than a strong Slow Journalism preference. Moreover, the manipulation check showed that respondents were not able to distinguish whether their article entailed more characteristics of Slow or Fast Journalism. A plausible
explanation for this is the lack of knowledge of what a Slow-Journalistic article should encompass, especially considering a universally accepted definition does not exist (Le Masurier, 2016; Neveu, 2016). This demonstrates that more effort should go into engaging the public in open discussions about what makes a well-researched and in-depth news article. Ignoring this could be problematic not only for news but democracy culture in general. In the case of climate change coverage, this means that individuals may think they are being
informed by a well-researched, investigative report, yet the lack of monothematic journalists and abundance of balanced reporting to avoid fact-checking (Boykoff and Rajan, 2007) is all too present in climate change coverage (Schäfer, 2015).
Furthermore, we tested the effect news reporting style has on raising awareness for climate change. We wanted to find a solution that was not focused on publishing an abundance of articles on the topic, as we see with agenda-setting (Lang and Lang, 1966; Cohen, 1963), but rather providing well-researched, in-depth news. As mentioned in the introduction of this research paper, Boykoff and Rajan (2007) conclude that investigating the factors influencing media coverage of climate science in the U.S. and U.K. help us better understand the way climate change policy is negotiated as well as how action is taken (pg. 210). The whole concept of Fast Journalism does not incorporate all the necessary
information to fully inform citizens since, “news quality has suffered, ethics are
compromised and user attention has eroded,” (Le Masurier, 2016). A large reason for the lack of discussion lies in the hands of the media, given that they make up a large section of the public sphere that discusses social problems (Hilgartner and Bosk, 1988).
However, the results showed no difference in concern for climate change between those who read a Fast-Journalistic news article or a Slow-Journalistic news article, signifying no support for H3. This is unexpected given that the work of Kunelius (2019) and Park (2018) intimated a different outcome. As such, despite our intention to provide a possible
solution to increase the low number of individuals reading about global warming and climate change news (Marlon et. al, 2018), this was not possible. Nevertheless, targeting the
limitations present in the study can provide more substantial evidence portraying Slow Journalism as a potential journalistic practice to increase climate science readership and concern for climate change.
Limitations. First, a larger sample could provide a more conclusive understanding and outcome for both the research and sub-research question. Second, the stimulus material could have affected the level of concern for climate change. Perhaps including more explicit content pertaining to Slow Journalism (i.e. incorporating a narrative writing style, linking other facets, or providing more perspectives from people involved) could have increased concern. Third, Gess (2012) stated that the effects of climate change are not immediately noticeable, which is why it should be a slowly developing story. Due to limited time and resources, this study only showed one text at one point in time, when in fact a longer study could determine the true effects Slow and Fast-Journalistic articles on climate change have on a news reader’s concern for climate change. As such, the external validity may not be as strong in this study as hoped. Fourth, Slow Journalism is seen as a more expensive form of journalism considering it takes more time to produce the content (Greenberg, 2013). Thus, including a question asking whether individuals would pay for Slow Journalism could affect their preferences depending on their social class. For example, someone in a lower social class may want Slow-Journalistic articles but may not have the resources to pay for it. Fifth, reading articles averaging 6 minutes can be demotivating for respondents—especially with the amount of compensation—, and it could have played a role in how respondents continued the survey. A larger compensation could help solve this issue.
Although our research is not free from limitations, our study contributes to the further understanding of the largely understudied topic of Slow Journalism and offers findings
significant to news outlets and climate science. There is much left to understand on the topic, which is why a longer study can help researchers further understand the impact of Slow Journalism, especially for complex news topics like climate change, in need of a
transformation in journalistic reporting. Perhaps then will we notice politicians, governments, and corporations making the change necessary to decrease or at least slow down this self-induced crisis.
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Table 2
Factor loadings and scale reliability of the items measuring “News Preference”
Measure Items Factor
loadings Cronbach’s α News Preference (Drok and Hermans, 2015; Le Masurier, 2014; Neveu, 2016; Gess, 2012)
"News should be made available to the public quickly" OR "News should have more in-depth reporting";
"Journalists should provide entertainment and relaxation" OR "Journalists should provide news contributing to solving societal problems";
"News should be made to the public quickly" OR "News should contain more diversity in sources and perspectives"; "News should be reported from the
perspective of any journalist available (ex. freelance, general journalist)" OR "News should be reported from the perspective of the people involved (ex. specialized journalist)";
"Journalists should focus on being the first to bring the news" OR "Journalists should be focused on a deeper reflection and/or investigation of the news".
.733 .780 .752 .521 .701 .70
Table 3
Results of independent t-test and descriptive statistics for news preference by age
Age 95% CI for Mean Difference Young Old M SD n M SD n t df News Preference 4.74 1.13 68 5.16 1.03 40 -0.85, .01* -1.93 106 *p = .03
Table 4
Results of one-way analysis of variance testing news preferences between social class (N = 108)
Sum of Square df Mean Square F p ηp2
Social Class 4.04 2 2.02 1.68 0.19 .03
Error 126.64 105 1.21
Table 5
Results of one-way analysis of variance testing concern for climate change between conditions using “importance of climate change” as control variable (N = 108)
Sum of Square df Mean Square F p ηp2
Conditions 0.41 1 0.41 0.45 0.51 .004
Error 95.68 105 0.91
Appendix A
Stimulus material used for the control group. They were exposed to news articles using characteristics of fast journalism.
Stimulus material used for the experimental group. They were exposed to a news article using characteristics of slow journalism.
Appendix B
These are the statements used to measured “News Preference”. We used a 7-point Likert scale and asked which statement they preferred more over the other (1-3: prefer Fast Journalism; 4: neutral; 5-7: prefer Slow Journalism):
1. "News should be made available to the public quickly" OR "News should have more in-depth reporting";
2. "Journalists should provide entertainment and relaxation" OR "Journalists should provide news contributing to solving societal problems";
3. "News should be made to the public quickly" OR "News should contain more diversity in sources and perspectives";
4. "News should just provide facts" OR "News should more often be explained"; 5. "News should be reported from the perspective of any journalist available (ex.
freelance, general journalist)" OR "News should be reported from the perspective of the people involved (ex. specialized journalist)";
6. "Journalists should focus on being the first to bring the news" OR "Journalists should be focused on a deeper reflection and/or investigation of the news".
Appendix C
This question measured whether the manipulation succeeded or not. Using a 7-point Likert scale (1: Strongly Disagree – 7: Strongly Agree), we presented them with the following statement: “What I just read was…” and 7 items:
1. “Diverse in sources and perspectives” 2. “Contributing to solving societal problems” 3. “In-depth reporting”;
4. “More than just facts”;
5. “Including links to economics, politics, and society”; 6. “Useful and relevant to wellbeing of community”; 7. “Quick, basic reporting”;
