Posts Tagged ‘Open University’
“The more wonderful the means of communication, the more trivial, tawdry, or depressing its contents seemed to be”*…
… a little harsh, perhaps– but, as Mane Kara-Yakoubian reports, all-too-consonant with the results of a major new study of news participation around the world…
A massive cross-cultural study reported a 12% decline in overall news participation—including liking, sharing, and commenting on social media, and discussing news offline—a trend spanning 46 countries between 2015 to 2022. This research was published in New Media & Society.
“I was interested in news participation because in recent years many have expressed concerns about dark forms of participation, such as the sharing of ‘fake news’. Yet, what we see on social media isn’t a representative sample of reality,” said Sacha Altay (@Sacha_Altay), a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zürich in the department of political science. “For instance, we know that a small group of very active and vocal internet users drive most forms of dark participation online. I wanted to understand general trends in participation beyond these potentially unusual and unrepresentative cases.”
The research team used data from the Digital News Report surveys conducted by YouGov and its partners, which encompassed responses from 577,859 individuals across 46 countries over an eight-year period. These surveys were designed to be nationally representative, with quotas for age, gender, region, and, in some cases, education and political orientation…
“The main takeaway is that in many countries, news participation is declining,” explained Altay. “For example, people report sharing, commenting, or liking news on social media less. This decline is not only confined to online spaces: people also report talking less about the news in face-to-face interactions with their friends or colleagues. The only form of participation that has increased is news sharing via private messaging applications such as WhatsApp.”
Specifically, sharing news on social media dropped by 29%, commenting decreased by 26%, and offline discussions fell by 24%. Conversely, sharing news through private messaging apps increased by 20%, suggesting a preference for private communication channels.
Participants with higher education levels, younger individuals, women, and those with a keen interest in news were more likely to participate in news activities. However, over time, the decline in participation was more pronounced among women, those without a bachelor’s degree, and individuals with low trust in news. This shift resulted in men eventually participating more than women, a reversal of the trend observed in 2015. Further, political polarization within countries was linked to lower levels of news participation, suggesting that increasing societal divides may discourage news engagement…
“The decline in news participation that we document is likely a symptom of growing negative perceptions of the news: in the last seven years, trust in news has slowly but steadily declined, news avoidance has grown, and interest in news has fallen sharply,” Altay told PsyPost. “I see these trends as worrying given the role that the news plays in informing people and, among other things, holding politicians accountable.”…
If true, it’s worrying news to anyone concerned for healthy civil discourse: “Massive cross-cultural study finds participation with news is declining,” from @ManeYakoubian in @PsyPost.
The open access paper: “News participation is declining: Evidence from 46 countries between 2015 and 2022”, by Sacha Altay, Richard Fletcher, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen.
* Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
###
As we investigate engagement, we might spare a thought for a journalist from a brighter time for the field and a champion of an educated, informed populace, Norman MacKenzie; he died on this date in 2013. After graduating for the LSE, MacKenzie worked for two decades at the New Statesman magazine. But in 1962, Asa Briggs recruited him to teach sociology at the University of Sussex (where he also set up the Centre for Educational Technology). In the mid-1960s he worked with Richmond Postgate of the BBC and the then education minister Jennie Lee on ideas for getting more people into university. He subsequently instrumental in creating the Open University.
Some pens are mightier than others…
More of Timothy Leo Taranto‘s “Literary Puns,” via The Rumpus, here, here, and here.
###
As we rethink our reading lists, we might recall that it was on this date in 1973 that first graduates from the Open University (OU) were awarded their degrees after two years studying from home. Britain’s (and one of the world’s) first “distance learning” universities, Open University opened in 1971 with 25,000 students– at a time when the entire student population of conventional universities in the U.K. was only about 130,000. OU currently has over 250,000 students on its rolls, 50,000 from overseas, and has so far served over 1.5 million learners. It was ranked 43rd (second quartile) in the Times Higher Education Table of Excellence in 2008 (between the University of Reading and University of the Arts London); it was ranked overall as a nationally top forty, and globally top five hundred university by the Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2011; and it has regularly ranked #1 among U.K. universities in student satisfaction.
Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum…
This exploration of the challenges of time travel and five other famous thought experiments (Schrödinger’s Cat, Hilbert’s Infinite Hotel, et al.), all animated in 60 thought-provoking seconds, at the Open University’s “60-Second Adventures in Thought.”
Cogito ergo sum libens…
[TotH to Maria Popova/Brainpickings]
As we lean back in our armchairs, we might recall that it was on this date in 1964 that Sonny and Cher were hitched, if not in fact married.. The duo’s official press information from the early Sixties to the mid-Seventies averred that Sonny & Cher married October 27, 1964 in Tijuana, Mexico. In the event, Cher herself “married” them in the bathroom of their first home, where they simply exchanged rings and vows without the presence of family, friends or witnesses, or a minister.
You must be logged in to post a comment.