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DID YOU GET THE BUZZ?
ARE DIGITAL NATIVE MEDIA BECOMING MAINSTREAM?
Lu WuUniversity of North Carolina-
Chapel Hill
BACKGROUND
• Digital native media were born, and grown entirely online.
• Some started as online content aggregators. • Some digital native media are taking actions
in repositioning themselves to be original content generators.
• They are known for creating viral content online.
• They are popular among Millennials.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK• Digital Native sites are fledgling in the news reporting
business. • They need to build a trustworthy news brand. • Media ecology scholars suggested that nascent media
would adopt organizational forms in order to survive the uncertainty in the media environment (Lowrey, 2012).
Organizational forms
Hiring skilled employeesAdopti
ng routinesCreating rules and regulations Specializ
ing workforces
HYPOTHESES• Some of the changes can be observed, but some are internal
and are embedded. • If the media organization did adapt news production routines, we
can expect to see:– a greater number of sources per story– a greater number of official sources – more hard news than soft news– more political news in hard news format
METHOD
• A content analysis of news articles published by BuzzFeed.
• Two constructed weeks of each year from January 1, 2007 to October 31, 2015.
• The final sample consists of a total of 912 articles.
FINDINGS
2007
2009
2011
2013
2015
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Total Source
Total Source
2007200
8200
9201
0201
1201
2201
3201
4201
50
20406080
100120140160180200
Official Sources
Official Sources
1. Changes in News Sourcing before and after 2012
Topics Years Total Before 2012 (%)
(n=104)After 2012 (%) (n=808)
Politics 52.9 49.8 49.4Economy/business 18.3 10.5 9.5Technology 15.4 5.8 4.6Crime 2.9 10.4 11.4War and related crisis 2.9 4.2 4.3Lifestyle 2.9 2.1 2.0Entertainment 1.9 6.5 7.1Accidents/disasters 1 3.5 3.8Human-interest 1 3.3 3.6Science 1 0.8 0.7Sports 0 1.6 1.9Education 0 1.5 1.7Total 100 100 100
2. Changes in News Topic before and after 2012
Hard News 37%Soft
News64%
Before 2012
Hard New
s 59%
Soft New
s41%
After 2012
3. Changes in News Categories before and after 2012
Hard News 31%
Soft News69%
Before 2012
Hard News 67%
Soft News33%
After 2012
4. Change in Political News Reporting before and after 2012
Source
26%No Source
75%
Before 2012
Source96%
No Source4%
After 2012
5. Change in Political News Sourcing before and after 2012
DISCUSSION
• This study shows that BuzzFeed, though it is in the early stages of establishing status as a news organization, has made significant progress.
• BuzzFeed has gradually adopted routines resulting in more hard news stories, and more official sources.
• The increasing amount of news coverage after 2012 is consistent with the anticipated result from increasing newsroom resources: more beat reporters were hired to cover news in culture, and society; more international bureaus were opened to provide on-the-ground news feeds.
• BuzzFeed News has demonstrated the opposite of the trend toward a “softening of news.”
• This study provides a unique look at the organizational norms and rules adopted by digital news media. It’s promising that they will keep growing into a much bigger force in news business especially online and targeting younger users. It is important to continue learning more about those news organizations and learning about how they will influence the democratic process from time on.
