Brazilian Journalism Research (Jun 2010)
READERS AS GATEKEEPERS OF ONLINE NEWS: Brazil, China, and the United States
Abstract
The popularity of online news items is calculated by news sites as afunction of reader behaviors, such as clicking on or reading articles,emailing them to others, commenting on or discussing them, andeven linking to them in blogs. Online news sites often provide rankorderedlists of popular articles that are updated throughout theday. Popularity reflects not only the interest of individuals, butit also can represent communication from an individual reader toother people. In the case of emailed articles, recipients may befriends, family or colleagues. When readers add comments belowan article, they may reach anyone on the internet. When readerscommunicate with other readers, they extend the usual gatekeepingprocess but their selections may not reflect the news values of thejournalists who put the sites together. This study compares thenews values of readers in Brazil, China and the United States.
