Abstract
Because of their widespread use on the internet, hyperlinks have become a useful tool in information sharing and knowledge distribution in online communication, particularly in the realm of journalism. Their importance has received little scholarly attention, however. Against the backdrop of the sociology of professions, the purpose of this study is to determine how journalists approach hyperlinks and what they perceive to be their functions in online news. A national survey of newspaper editors and TV news directors in the United States shows that American journalists exhibit a sense of jurisdictional protectionism in online news. They appear to privilege US hyperlinks over foreign ones, especially internal links to their own websites. They are also predominantly against linking to foreign news media that cover the same events or issues. Financial consideration seems to be the main reason behind the journalistic preference.
Keywords
Since its advent in the mid-1990s, hyperlink has become a signature attribute of the World Wide Web on the internet. From the sharing of knowledge (virtual libraries) to the transactions of products and services (e-commerce) to the dissemination of news and information (online journalism), hyperlinks are an essential component of web entities that have formed a complex network of interconnected nodes, ranging from individual bloggers at the micro level to the giant multinational corporations at the macro level (Castells, 2004). Given their widespread presence on the internet, how hyperlinks may be used in the communication process is theoretically and practically significant (Turow and Tsui, 2008; Zimmer, 2009). As Berners-Lee (1999: 23) argued, the connections to establish complex interconnectivity have the greatest potential to create a global consciousness of a shrinking world, thus allowing people the opportunities to escape from ‘the straitjacket of hierarchical documentation systems’ that have dominated the analog mode of information storage and distribution. In the field of journalism, to escape from such a straitjacket means to have access to the news that is neither centralized nor controlled by a few media conglomerates. ‘Online news,’ as Robinson (2006a: 843) put it, can ‘bring citizens a more comprehensive version of the day’s news’.
The internet’s features – interdependency, interconnectivity, interactivity, multiplicity, and immediacy – have created high expectation and enthusiasm in academic circles that digital media would lead to ‘a fundamental transformation’ of the structure of the newsroom (Pavlik, 2001: xiii). In theory, there has been robust discussion of the empowering power of hyperlinks in both journalistic and academic communities. In practice, however, theoretical possibility does not always translate into tangible feasibility. As Deuze et al. (2004: 22) argued, ‘there seems to exist a gap between, on the one hand, online journalists’ perceptions of the internet’s potential and, on the other hand, the actual use of interactive features, hypertexts and multimedia.’ Domingo (2008) called this discrepancy in the daily routines of online newsrooms an uncomfortable myth. Moreover, the hyperlinks present a contest for news organizations because ‘news editors may fear to link to Web sites’ over which their organizations have no control (Tsui, 2008: 70, emphasis added). As Chang et al. (2009: 155) showed, in foreign news the linkage between nations via hyperlinks ‘remains relatively closed.’ Himelboim et al. (2010) also confirmed a highly hierarchical structure of news flow created by foreign stories on the websites. These observations raise a compelling conceptual and practical question: from the journalistic standpoint, what is the relationship between hyperlinks and their uses in online news?
Following the perspective of sociology of professions (Abbott, 1988), the purpose of this study is to determine how journalists approach hyperlinks and what they perceive to be their functions in online news. The epistemological departure point is the larger setting in which hyperlinks are produced because ‘we know little about the social and political factors’ that drive their production (Turow and Tsui, 2008: 21). This study represents a modest attempt to fill in the gap. Specifically, the study seeks to map the cognitive dimension of American journalists in terms of their perceptions of hyperlinks as an attribute in online news. If the internet is ‘an efficacious conveyor of information about foreign countries and their people,’ as Beaudoin (2008: 469) reckoned, how journalists deal with hyperlinks in online news has theoretical and practical implications for international communication.
Theoretically, the connectivity of nations through hyperlinks in online news helps break down geographical, political and psychological barriers that have plagued international communication before the advent of the internet. In cyberspace, countries as nodes are no longer isolated. Practically, the World Wide Web ‘is more a social creation than a technical one’ (Berners-Lee, 1999: 133). Those who are in a position to do the social creation therefore have the power to weave the Web together for the benefits of the larger community. The same can be said of online news. To paraphrase Berners-Lee (1999: 218), if a journalist discovers a relationship in the news, but does not make the link on the Web, he or she may be wiser, but audiences around the world are not. Against this backdrop, this study examines the interplay between journalists’ perceptions of hyperlinks and their perceived impact on online practices.
Professional jurisdiction, disturbance, and journalistic practices
With its own associations, trade publications, media organizations, occupational workers, division of labor, schools, and codes of ethics, journalism has long established itself as a profession in the United States (Beam, 1990; Johnstone et al., 1976; Schudson, 1978; Weaver and Wilhoit, 1996) and Western Europe (Phillips et al., 2009; Witschge and Nygren, 2009). It has been commonly accepted that journalism has exclusive work jurisdiction, standards of professionalism, specialized knowledge, and technical skills (Deuze, 2005; Robinson, 2006b; Schudson, 2001; Tuchman, 1978; Witschge and Nygren, 2009). In recent years, however, journalism in the US and elsewhere has been increasingly challenged from both domestic and foreign forces with implications for the input and output of news work (Phillips et al., 2009). Domestically, the emergence of citizen journalism has somehow undermined the background belief that journalism possesses a unique body of knowledge and skills that cannot be easily transferred to non-professionals (Domingo and Heinonen, 2008; Gillmor, 2004; Lowrey, 2006; Witschge and Nygren, 2009). Externally, the world of global media landscape is no longer dominated by a few US multinational corporations (Tunstall, 2008), with American journalists facing serious competition at home and abroad. The dual pressures create a social environment that has ramifications for the professional work of American journalists.
In the system of professions, according to Abbott (1988), two sources of disturbances – internal and external – may lead in different ways to jurisdictional contests, resulting in either a reconfiguration of a profession itself or an entry of new groups into the profession. Both kinds of disturbances may affect the structure of a profession or the tasks of the professional. These disturbances may come from the creation of new tasks by changes in technologies and techniques, the emergence of new problems requiring novel solutions, organizational or occupational competition within and between professions, or development of new knowledge and skills. In the case of American journalism, the disturbances could be traced to three areas of new development: digital technology, citizen journalist, and foreign competition (Drezner and Farrell, 2004). The technological and competitive disturbances are not necessarily mutually exclusive and their effects on the professional work are similar. The trends toward deprofessionalization and journalistic convergence in news reporting are true in both the United States and other countries (Phillips et al., 2009; Witschge and Nygren, 2009).
The presence of citizen journalism and the new personal communication devices have penetrated, if not weakened, the exclusive jurisdiction of established journalism. Critics have suggested American journalism can no longer wield an absolute monopoly of journalistic practices; nor can it place effective control over an undivided status of a profession (Deuze, 2005). Although it is unlikely to dismantle journalism as a profession, online journalism has put many newspapers out of business and downsized other media organizations, resulting in losses of tens of thousands of occupational positions in the United States. To protect its jurisdiction, one of the defensive responses from established journalism is to absorb the new task performed by the competitors. The launch of websites for citizen journalism by the New York Times (Strupp, 2009) is a clear indication of its effort and attempt to capture and expand its jurisdiction over the field of journalism. By incorporating citizen journalism in their normal practices, the New York Times and other newspapers try to redefine and appropriate it as part of their proper work. It is an embodiment of the idea that ‘professions sometimes use their abstract knowledge to reduce the work of competitors to a version of their own’ (Abbott, 1988: 36).
While online journalism represents a disturbance to established journalism as a profession, new digital technologies also allow professional journalists to solidify control over the routine work in newsrooms at the expense of their competitors. Hyperlinks offer such an opportunity even though they are not as explicit a defense device as the inclusion of citizen journalism in the daily practices. The opportunistic arrangement lies in the exclusion of access (Sableman, 1999) to journalistic outputs not produced by a media organization itself. Technically, how hyperlinks should be used is not inherent in the technology waiting to be discovered by the professional. It is largely determined by the beliefs of those who are strategically positioned to define the uses. As part of hyperstories (Fredin, 1997), hyperlinks are tasks to be performed one way or the other (Hespos, 2008).
Because hyperlinks can link any piece of information that could be accessed through networks (Berners-Lee, 1997), media organizations face a catch-22 (Tsui, 2008) in online news. On the one hand, hyperlinks add further context to news stories by providing linkages to other related websites. On the other hand, hyperlinks clearly expose users to competing news websites, with the potential to undercut a media organization’s audience base and endanger its jurisdiction. Financially, it makes little sense for an online news organization, especially a commercial one, to make competitors available to its users. As Chang et al. (2009: 144) argued, it is ‘unthinkable that the online version of a commercial medium would direct its visitors to other websites by offering external hyperlinks that would take them out of its own space and allow them to delve deeper into cyberspace’. Instead, hyperlinks ‘often take the users to previous stories carried internally by the same news media’ (Chang et al., 2009: 156). Tsui (2008: 71) also found similar results: ‘some major newspapers barely link at all, and others link exclusively to themselves.’
To protect their own turf and to legitimize their own work, media outlets apparently would employ hyperlinks that either restrict or discourage the uses of online connections beyond their own news websites. It is an organizational design that seeks to put the stories in perspective and helps control the flows of links inside an in-house structure. By implication, professional journalists should be expected to share the same conceptual and practical approach to hyperlinks.
A second disturbance to the practices of established journalism in the United States is foreign competition, especially in the arena of international communication. Before the ubiquity of the internet and the rise of communication satellites at the global level, American media had dominated the production, dissemination, and consumption of news in countries around the world, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s (Tunstall, 1977). Since the mid-1990s, however, the expansion of online news websites, particularly those of non-US media organizations, poses a significant contest to the domination of US media in the global arena. These new actors enter the system of international communication by claiming jurisdiction over the tasks commonly performed by American media outlets (Tunstall, 2008). In international/global communication, the rapid appearance of non-US media in the world landscape can be characterized as an increasing disturbance to the status quo.
A case in point is the proliferation of nation-state based 24/7 TV news channels. The past two decades since the rise of Al-Jazeera in 1996 as an influential voice from the Middle East have seen a rush of countries to launch global news channels to report the world from their own perspectives: China’s CCTV-9 (2000), Russia Today (2005), France 24 (2006), Iran’s Press TV (2007), Japan’s NHK World TV (2009), Venezuela’s TeleSur (2010), and the CNC World (2010) of China’s Xinhua News Agency. Whether democratic or authoritarian, these countries have positioned themselves to compete at the global level as to how their own domestic affairs and the rest of the world are to be disseminated. As such, the playing field of international communication has been leveled, changing not only the ways audiences might be exposed to the flow of news across national borders, but also what might be reported by American journalists in the first place. The shifting landscape impelled Tunstall (2008) to declare the decline of US mass media, reckoning national and regional media are stronger than international media.
Foreign competition therefore represents an attack on the jurisdiction of US media to provide news and information to audiences around the world. The disturbance and influences of Al-Jazeera are implied in its recognition as ‘CNN in the Arab world’ or ‘the Al Jazeera effect’ (Seib, 2008). Although available since 2006, most US cable companies have refused to carry the English Channel of Al Jazeera, demonstrating an uneasy relationship between domestic media organizations and their foreign competitors. Similarly, established journalism in the United States has rarely quoted the news and information from Al Jazeera and other media outlets from the developing world. The reluctance of American news media to use news stories reported by foreign media often centers around their lack of professionalism, ideological propensity and irrelevance to audience interest (Seib, 2004). Implicit in such concerns is an unspoken assumption that mainstream media organizations in the US can best serve their clienteles – individuals and the society at large – with their own professional journalists. However, fewer and fewer American journalists have been stationed abroad (Fenton, 2005), leading to the decline of international news in the United States. By some measures, the quantity of international news has dropped significantly since the 1980s (Emery, 1989).
This paucity of foreign news in the offline media translates into the lack of linkage in the online news. As Chang et al. (2009: 155) found, inside cyberspace countries and media organizations ‘are mostly detached from one another. This configuration of online international communication flow closely resembles the landscape before the arrival of the Internet.’ They attributed the absence of hyperlinks in foreign news to the impacts on the bottom line. In the United States and other capitalistic societies, a media organization is first and foremost a business. What businesses care about are ‘whatever furthers or impedes their commercial purposes,’ not the activity for its own sake, nor wisdom or truth (Sableman, 1999: 561). Accordingly, for the business in cyberspace, ‘the goal is not sharing of information per se, but sales and growth’ (Sableman, 1999: 561, emphasis added).
Understandably, hyperlinks serve the same purpose by avoiding direct competition in order to protect one’s own commercial interests. Although the evidence is limited, US media organizations rarely set any external links to websites outside the country (Chang et al., 2009; Himelboim et al., 2010). In the context of professional jurisdiction and its protection, such practice constitutes a form of journalistic exclusion to preempt foreign competition in online news. Like the responses to internal disturbance, established journalism in the United States should be expected to take a similar view toward hyperlinks in online news: an unwillingness to provide links to competitors from abroad. Based on the above discussion, the following hypothesis is formulated:
H1: American journalists would prefer providing hyperlinks to related stories reported by their own outlets, but not by foreign news media.
Considering the bearings of both internal and external disturbances on the uses of hyperlinks in online news, it can be reasoned that American journalists would favor hyperlinks to US websites rather than foreign websites. Hence, it is proposed that:
H2: American journalists would prefer providing hyperlinks to related websites of US government agencies/organizations reported in the news over those of foreign government agencies/organizations.
Methods
A national survey of American newspaper editors and TV news directors (American journalists hereafter) was conducted between mid-December 2007 and early March 2008. Proportionate to the circulation size for newspapers and the Designated Market Area for TV stations, the random samples were selected from the 2006 Editor & Publisher International Year Book and the 2007 Broadcasting & Cable Yearbook. A total of 1380 respondents, roughly half of the sampling population, were initially selected: 702 newspapers and 678 TV stations. After removing duplicates, non-deliveries and ineligibles, the final sample stood at 875 respondents. The three mailings and an online option generated a total of 337 respondents for a response rate of 38.5 percent. With 15 refusals, the cooperation rate was 36.8 percent.
The relatively low response rate warrants discussion, though it is not entirely unexpected. The rate actually is consistent with the trend of declining cooperation for national surveys among the US general population. The overall response rate of consumer attitudes deteriorated from 60 percent in 1996 to only 48 percent in 2003, for example, with an average decline of 1.5 percentage points a year (Curtin et al., 2005). Moreover, according to Dey (1997: 216), ‘mail surveys have, on average, a much lower rate of response than that associated with other modes of survey data collection.’ As a specialized population, American journalists are highly busy and hence more difficult to reach by mail in an organizational setting. At the same time, this low response rate may not be as problematic as one might assume. While the non-response bias might affect point estimates for frequencies of individual variables, Dey (1997) has noted that the relationships between the variables tend not to be affected. Further, studies by the Pew Centre in the United States, have found ‘that dwindling participation rates have not reduced the accuracy of political polling’ (The Economist, ‘Still Worth Reading,’ October 9, 2010: 44). Nonetheless, the response rate in the present study is not ideal, suggesting generalization of the results should be exercised with caution.
A questionnaire composed mostly of multiple-choice items was mailed to the top editor of newspapers and the news director of TV stations. The 12-page questionnaire asked the offline journalists, among other things, to indicate the extent to which they agreed with seven statements about hyperlinks, based on a five-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). These statements dealt with providing hyperlinks to related stories previously reported, websites of foreign news media, websites of US organizations, websites of US governmental agencies, websites of foreign organizations, and websites of foreign governmental agencies (see notes in Table 2 for the full statements).
To ascertain their beliefs about the rationale for providing hyperlinks in online news, American journalists were also asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement with the following seven factors (see notes in Table 3 for the full statements), based on a five-point scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree): technical difficulty, financial imprudence, alternative perspectives, background information about foreign government agencies, additional information about the event or issue, better understanding of the event or issue, and practices of other similar media organizations. Moreover, respondents were asked to rate the importance of the following seven factors in online news coverage (1 = not at all important, 5 = very important): immediacy of wire news releases, availability of technical staff with web design skills, importance of providing breaking news, audience interest in latest news, audience ability to understand the details of the story, reliability of news sources, and need to update news regularly.
In addition to demographic variables, respondents were also asked to indicate the number of full-time editorial staff members whose responsibility is principally reporting or editing online news, the news services to which their news organization subscribe, the number of years they have worked for a news organization on a permanent, full-time basis, and whether their news organization use software to automatically add hyperlinks to related stories or websites.
The mean age of respondents (n = 297) was 48 and the median age about 49, with the range between 23 and 68. They worked as permanent, full-time members in their news organizations (n = 304) for an average of about 25 years (M = 24.6), varying from 1 to 45 years. Almost all of them (n = 306) had a college degree (60.5% with an undergraduate degree and 34.6% with some graduate school education or graduate degree). The remaining (4.9%) had some college education. As a result of such a high degree of homogeneity in education, this variable was not included in the subsequent analysis. In terms of gender (n = 304), the newsrooms were still more heavily populated by men (73.4%) than by women (26.6%). The gender distribution fits the rough pattern of American journalists.
Results
Because newspaper editors and TV news directors did not show any significant differences in their responses to the perceived uses of hyperlinks in online news, they were treated as one group. More than two-thirds (72.3%) of the respondents (n = 310) indicated that their news organizations offered hyperlinks to related stories or websites. Among those who provided a specific year when the hyperlinks started (n = 175), the earliest was in 1990, with the majority (52.1%) doing so after 2005. Of those who answered the question (n = 185), about a quarter (23.8%) reported that their news organization used software to automatically add hyperlinks to related stories or websites while most of them (76.2%) did not. Comparison between these two groups (automatic hyperlinks vs. no) shows that having an automatic linking mechanism does not affect how the respondents perceived the hyperlinks (p >.05 for all items): related stories reported by same organization (M = 4.30 and M = 4.30), websites of US governmental agencies (M = 3.74 and M = 3.72), websites of US organizations (M = 3.60 and M = 3.56), websites of foreign organizations (M = 3.42 and M = 3.34), websites of foreign governmental agencies (M = 3.37 and M = 3.30), and websites of foreign news media (M = 3.33 and M = 3.01).
The respondents (n = 307) reported their news organizations subscribed to, on average, 2.18 news services, with the number varying from zero to six. The average number of full-time editorial staff working principally online was 6.6. More than two-thirds (68.5%) of the news organizations (n = 302) had one to 10 staff members reporting or editing online news whereas nearly one in five (18.9%) had none, with the rest (12.6%) having 11 to 200 staff members.
As reported in Table 1, the respondents overwhelmingly (96.7%) considered providing breaking news as the most important factor in online news, followed by reliability of news sources (93.0%), audience interest in the latest news (92.4%), need to update news regularly (91.5%), immediacy of wire news releases (80.0%), audience ability to understand the details of story (60.3%), and availability of technical staff with web design skills (58.2%). Although there are variations among the seven factors, particularly the last two, the respondents held an almost consensus view about online news. Such homogeneity explains why their views on online news are not significantly related to their views on hyperlinks (see Table 4).
American journalists’ perceptions of the importance of factors in online news.
Five-point scale, with ‘not at all important’ = 1, ‘very important’ = 5.
Entries in parentheses are the standard deviation.
Entries represent the percent importance of those who indicated the factor is important or very important.
A significant number of the respondents (80.7%, Table 2) indicated they agree (M = 4.24) that ‘Online news media should provide hyperlinks from current stories to related stories previously reported by the same organization.’ More than half of the journalists also agreed that online news media should provide hyperlinks to websites of US governmental agencies (60.5%) and US organizations (53.2%) mentioned in the news (M = 3.70 and M = 3.55, respectively). Those who did not agree with providing hyperlinks to such websites are obviously in the minority. Intriguingly, official websites appear to fare better than commercial websites in the United States.
American journalists’ perceived uses of hyperlinks.
Five-point scale, with ‘strongly disagree’ = 1, ‘strongly agree’ = 5. The complete statements are as follows:
Online news media should provide hyperlinks from current stories to related stories previously reported by the same organization.
Online news media should provide hyperlinks to websites of foreign news media that report the same events or issues.
Online news media should provide hyperlinks to websites of US organizations mentioned in the news.
Online news media should provide hyperlinks to websites of US governmental agencies mentioned in the news.
Online news media should provide hyperlinks to websites of foreign organizations mentioned in the news.
Online news media should provide hyperlinks to websites of foreign governmental agencies mentioned in the news.
Entries in parentheses are the standard deviation.
Entries represent the percent agreement of those who indicated they agree or strongly agree with the statement.
The opposite is true for foreign websites. The respondents were less inclined to use hyperlinks to foreign websites, especially those of foreign news media. Only about one in three respondents (31.0%) indicated online news media should do so (M = 3.02) while the majority were either non-committal (34.3%) or against it (34.7%). Although a slightly higher number favored linking the news to websites of foreign organizations (39.7%) and foreign governmental agencies (36.3%), most of them did not support providing linkages to these websites. The respondents seem more reluctant to offer hyperlinks in online news to websites of foreign governmental agencies than those of foreign organizations. The reversed pattern suggests some reservation toward foreign news media and foreign governments as to how hyperlinks in online news might be extended beyond US borders.
Hypothesis 1 proposed that American journalists would prefer providing hyperlinks to related stories reported by their own outlets, but not by foreign news media. As shown in Table 2, responses to the two questions indeed overwhelmingly lend support for the hypothesis: eight out of 10 journalists agreed with the internal hyperlink while less than one-third of them would do so with links to foreign news media. A paired samples t-test (M = 1.24, SD = 1.19) indicates that American journalists responded to the two hyperlink practices differently (t(298) = 18.10, p = .00). The effect (Eta2 = .52) suggests that 52 percent of the variance of their responses is due to the difference of the practices involved. The evidence is therefore in line with the hypotheses.
Hypothesis 2 postulated that American journalists would prefer providing hyperlinks to related websites of US government agencies/organizations than those of foreign government agencies/organizations. Although Table 2 reports a clear pattern among the respondents over the uses of hyperlinks between US and foreign websites, 1 a further analysis was conducted to determine whether the differences were significant. The two items involving websites of US governmental agencies and US organizations were combined to form a composite scale (Cronbach’s alpha = .89). So were the two items related to foreign organizations and foreign governmental agencies (Cronbach’s alpha = .92). The two composite scales were considered as latent constructs that underline American journalists’ perceptions toward the uses of US (M = 3.61, SD = .98) and foreign (M = 3.21, SD = 1.04) hyperlinks in the news. A paired samples t-test (M = .40, SD = .70) shows a significant difference (t(299) = 9.99, p = .00, Eta2 = .25) between US and foreign hyperlinks, suggesting an apparent inclination among American journalists toward the uses of the former. The evidence hence supports hypothesis 2.
The above analysis reveals why newspapers like the New York Times, USA Today, and Washington Post linked predominantly to their own stories, while major blogs provided hyperlinks beyond their own sites (Tsui, 2008). Such a tendency ‘raises fascinating questions about the commercial and professional imperatives that might be causing those differences’ (Turow, 2008: 9, emphasis added). This study asked a number of questions regarding technological, financial, and professional factors that might influence the way newspapers and TV stations used hyperlinks in the news (Table 3).
Beliefs about hyperlinks among American journalists.
Five-point scale, with ‘strongly disagree’ = 1, ‘strong agree’ = 5. The complete statements are as follows:
Providing hyperlinks in online stories to websites of relevant organizations is technically difficult.
Providing hyperlinks in online stories to websites of relevant organizations is financially unwise.
Providing hyperlinks in online stories to websites of foreign news media that report the same events or issues offers alternative perspectives.
Providing hyperlinks in online stories to websites of foreign governmental agencies involved in the news adds background information.
Providing hyperlinks in online stories to website of relevant organizations gives more information about the event or issue involved.
Providing hyperlinks in online stories to website of relevant organizations allows for better understanding of the event or issue involved.
Other news organizations similar to mine often provide hyperlinks in online stories to other relevant or related sites.
Although the same scale was used to measure the two negative statements (items 1–2), the two statements are relatively independent and do not appear to be opposite ends of the same dimension as other positive statements (items 3–7). A hierarchical regression analysis with the two negative items reverse-coded shows the results in Table 4 unchanged.
Entries in parentheses are the standard deviation.
Entries represent the percent agreement of those who indicated they agree or strongly agree with the statement.
In terms of technical and financial considerations, the respondents did not think it was technically difficult (M = 2.17, SD = 1.14) or financially unwise (M = 2.10, SD = .96) to provide hyperlinks to websites of relevant organizations. Only a small number of respondents (15.7% and 9.6% respectively) thought so. The main factors appear to be professional: providing more information (75.2%), offering alternative perspectives (71.2%), allowing better understanding of events or issues involved (67.7%), and adding background information (60.2%). Peer pressure also seems to be relatively important (41.2%). The irony is that while more than two-thirds of the respondents agreed that hyperlinks to foreign news media offer alternative perspectives, less than one-third of them indicated that online news media should do so (see Table 2). Such inconsistency demonstrates a predicament in the uses of hyperlinks: a journalistic conflict between a professional imperative to make alternative perspectives available online and possible uncertainties toward foreign news media. It also highlights the political and ideological undertones of the hyperlink structure (Turow, 2008).
Table 4 attempts to further ascertain the relationship between individual and organizational factors and the perceived uses of hyperlinks. Demographic (age and years of experience) and organizational (number of full-time staff and number of news services) variables do not appear to explain much of the variance over the uses of hyperlinks in online news. Neither do the respondents’ general views on online news. Their beliefs about hyperlinks in terms of functions and practices, however, turn out to be significant predictors of hyperlinks. Particularly, financial consideration emerges as the sole factor with a negative impact on the perceived uses of hyperlinks. Respondents who believed providing hyperlinks to relevant organizations ‘is financially unwise’ were less likely to endorse that online news should offer hyperlinks to other websites.
Hierarchical regression analyses predicting perceived uses of hyperlinks.
Entries are standardized coefficients. Bold coefficients are significant at p < .05. See notes in Table 2 for the complete items.
Organizational factors were also included here.
p < .05.
Equally interesting is the impact of other news organizations’ practices on how hyperlinks might be connected to websites of both US and foreign governmental agencies and organizations. It implies a demonstration effect of hyperlink uses in online news and constitutes a form of competition in what Webster (2008) called the ‘marketplace of attention’ or what Bourdieu (1999: 22) considered ‘circular circulation of the information’ in that how stories might be reported tends to be based on what other journalists have done. Another predictor of how hyperlinks might be used in online news is American journalists’ belief that links added background information to foreign governmental agencies. The more they believed so, the more likely they were to agree that online news media should provide hyperlinks to foreign news media, US governmental agencies, and foreign organizations as well as foreign governmental agencies mentioned in the news.
Conclusion and discussion
Since the mid-1990s, the ‘industrialization’ of hyperlinks has greatly expanded the power of link creators ‘to privilege certain ideas over others’ (Turow, 2008: 3, 4). What is less known is how those who are in a position to provide links view their functions and what they might do with them. Although a handful of studies have specifically examined hyperlinks in online news (Barnhurst, 2002; Chang et al., 2009; Dimitrova et al., 2003; Dykehouse and Sigler, 2000; Gao and Vaughan, 2005; Tremayne, 2005; Tsui, 2008), ‘the norms and strategies that the people who edit news . . . have toward links’ remain largely unexamined (Tsui, 2008: 75). As part of a news philosophy that has impacts on the techniques journalists use to tell their stories (Phillips et al., 2009), such norms and strategies deserve closer observation. This national survey of American journalists is a modest attempt to document how they look at hyperlinks and what their utilities are in online news.
In the age of the internet, the pressures on journalism to change are deeply felt not only in the United States, but also in other parts of the world. Journalists in many countries face similar challenges and opportunities in the world of online news (for comparative discussions, see the entire issue of Journal of Media Business Studies, volume 6, issue 1). If the findings of this study are any guide, several conclusions can be drawn. They contribute in part to a better understanding of the economic, political, and social values ‘that drive the creation of particular links and not others’ (Turow, 2008: 5).
First, American journalists appear to privilege US hyperlinks over foreign ones, especially links to their own internal websites. They are also predominantly against linking to foreign news media that cover the same events or issues. From the editorial perceptions to the actual uses of hyperlinks as documented in the literature, such a consistent pattern seems to be a conscious organizational design to keep users of the news websites in-house and domestically bound. It suggests an ethnocentric journalistic practice that directs audience attention to US sites presumably more worthy than others located in remote settings.
Second, there is a sense of ambivalence among American journalists toward providing hyperlinks to foreign news media. On the one hand, they reject the idea of linking from their own news stories to those of their counterparts in other countries. On the other hand, they believe linking to foreign news media would offer alternative perspectives, a common belief similar to that among journalists in Western Europe (see e.g., Phillips et al., 2009). These seemingly contradictory positions underscore the uneasy tension between professionalism as news imperative and implicit concerns over the credibility and trustworthiness of foreign news media in cyberspace. This paradox poses challenges to professionalism. As Chang et al. (2009: 156) argued, ‘it is difficult to imagine why media organizations would not take advantage of the availability and connectivity of online news by providing hyperlinks to similar stories reported in different countries.’ It should be useful to explore how journalists in other parts of the world look at the uses of hyperlinks.
Third, while most American journalists do not consider providing hyperlinks to related websites to be financially unwise, it transpires to be a persistent factor that negatively predicts how hyperlinks might be used in online news. The main driving force behind the creation of hyperlinks seems to be the bottom line because the internal links keep the visitors within the same URL domain whereas the external links open the door to many possibilities and risks, including losing visitors to competitors in the market. Outgoing hyperlinks to competitors, whether domestic or foreign, therefore amount to a financial miscalculation for any news organization that relies heavily on advertising revenues built on a large number of audience base. Although limited, the finding provides empirical evidence supporting the political economic logic of hyperlinks. As Napoli (2008) argued, the links become a powerful tool for big media corporations to gain effective content control in cyberspace.
Fourth, given the ease of technical and technological creation of hyperlinks, it is probably unconvincing that the inadequacy of hyperlinking in online news could be attributed to factors other than how it might be used by those who are in a position to do so and for what purpose. This study finds that individual idiosyncrasies do not matter much in the making of hyperlinks. Like other practices in the United States and elsewhere, hyperlinks in online news are part of the larger production process that is primarily subject to the influences of organizational and journalistic concerns. Newspaper editors and TV news directors are collectively situated in the top managerial echelons of the newsroom and wield decisive power to shape the flow and direction of hyperlinks. What they see in hyperlinks and how they use them to establish connections between nations as nodes in the networked society (Castells, 2004) become a critical component in the form and content of global communication.
This study picks up where Turow and Tsui (2008) left off in the United States and other related studies in Western Europe (Phillips et al., 2009; Witschge and Nygren, 2009). In the age of online news, the jurisdictional protectionism shown by American journalists in the present study raises serious questions as to the empowering potential of the internet to level the playing field of international communication across national borders. However, given the rapid changes in the world of cyberspace, particularly the immense popularity of various social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the use of hyperlinks has allowed news media and their practitioners to venture into territories beyond the ecology of online news. As such, the perceptions and usage patterns of hyperlinks among US news media might be shaped by the fast-changing internet landscape over time and across space. This is especially relevant and worthy of further investigation considering that a variety of social media (e.g., SNS, YouTube, and blogs) have become legitimate sources for online news in recent years. Although the present study helps shed light on how American journalists perceived the hyperlinks, the data did not necessarily capture the wide range of practices in online news gathering. More such investigations should be conducted to monitor how and why journalists use hyperlinks in ways that have implications for creating synergy in online news.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
This study is supported by the Grant-in-Aid from the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities awarded to Tsan-Kuo Chang and Brian Southwell when they both were on the faculty in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. They wish to thank Professor Albert Tims, director of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, for additional financial support in data collection.