Grafieken kunnen verduidelijken, maar ze kunnen ook misleiden. Er zijn verschillende manieren om misleidende grafieken effectief te debunken, blijkt uit ons onderzoek dat zojuist verscheen in het ...Show moreGrafieken kunnen verduidelijken, maar ze kunnen ook misleiden. Er zijn verschillende manieren om misleidende grafieken effectief te debunken, blijkt uit ons onderzoek dat zojuist verscheen in het Journal of Science Communication. Nieuwscheckers geeft zelf het goede voorbeeld met de nieuwe rubriek Grafiekpolitie. Show less
Article in Dutch on the fictitious Acts of Pilate mentioned by Eusebius. Outcome of a Research Trainee project at Leiden University on the circulation of manipulated official documents in the Roman... Show moreArticle in Dutch on the fictitious Acts of Pilate mentioned by Eusebius. Outcome of a Research Trainee project at Leiden University on the circulation of manipulated official documents in the Roman world. Show less
Steen, B.S. van der; Burger, J.P.; Wijk, M. van 2021
Commercially motivated junk news–i.e. money-driven, highly shareable clickbait with low journalistic production standards–constitutes a vast and largely unexplored news media ecosystem. Using... Show moreCommercially motivated junk news–i.e. money-driven, highly shareable clickbait with low journalistic production standards–constitutes a vast and largely unexplored news media ecosystem. Using publicly available Facebook data, we compared the reach of junk news on Facebook pages in the Netherlands to the reach of Dutch mainstream news on Facebook. During the period 2013–2017 the total number of user interactions with junk news significantly exceeded that with mainstream news. Over 5 Million of the 10 Million Dutch Facebook users have interacted with a junk news post at least once. Junk news Facebook pages also had a significantly stronger increase in the number of user interactions over time than mainstream news. Since the beginning of 2016 the average number of user interactions per junk news post has consistently exceeded the average number of user interactions per mainstream news post. Show less
Focussing on the perpetrators, this paper investigatesnews media framing of clergy sexual abuse in the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The results show that the four national... Show more Focussing on the perpetrators, this paper investigatesnews media framing of clergy sexual abuse in the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The results show that the four national presses vary in the way they construct the crime and its perpetrators, depending on cultural differences in the way the church is embedded in society. Every nation's media frame the crisis in a way that fits their own rhetorical goals. The Netherlands and the UK share a focus on the Catholic Church as an institution and, in the case of the UK, on the Pope as holding ultimate responsibility. In Belgium and Ireland the offenders are portrayed as individuals. In all four countries the media need to come to terms with what we call the dual offender: the individual priest and / or the institute that failed to control its employees and show compassion to their victims. Show less
The study of newspaper legends emerged as a vital research topic in the nineteen fifties and has so far focused on the past half century. The present study explores the potential of digitized... Show moreThe study of newspaper legends emerged as a vital research topic in the nineteen fifties and has so far focused on the past half century. The present study explores the potential of digitized newspaper archives to analyze the discursive construction of newspaper legends in Dutch dailies during the years 1850-1950. Emic concepts of Dutch journalists are contextualized in shifts regarding content, genre and work routines of the Dutch daily press. During this period, the most frequently used label for traditional stories of uncertain veracity was zeeslang, i.e. sea serpent. These stories were said to be particularly frequent during the slow news season in summer, the so-called komkommertijd (lit. ‘cucumber time’). Identifying and condemning these stories as false or unreliable served the rhetorical function of bolstering the journalists’ ethos as a credible professional. Discussing sea serpent and cucumber stories, journalists demarcated their routines and output from those of less professional news purveyors (Gieryn’s ‘boundary work’). The most commonly named scapegoat were allegedly money-driven American journalistic practices. Show less
At the intersection of applied linguistics and journalism studies lies media linguistics. This emerging subdisciplinary label is an umbrella term for the study of mass mediated language use, which,... Show moreAt the intersection of applied linguistics and journalism studies lies media linguistics. This emerging subdisciplinary label is an umbrella term for the study of mass mediated language use, which, for the purposes of this chapter, is restricted to news media: public or private institutions of mass communication that produce and spread public information commoditized as news. Two issues stand out in the literature on media linguistics (and beyond). The first is the shifting ecology of contemporary journalism: in an always-on, digital mediascape, the craft of journalism is increasingly defined by screenwork. The second is the perspective of mediatization, which highlights the central role mediated communication plays in high modern societies. This chapter discusses two responses to the mediatization of society: the cultural authority of journalists as knowledge creators and knowledge brokers in fluid, heteroglossic media environments, and satirical responses to the proliferation of news discourse. Show less
News media and web-based discussion forums frequently feature crime stories so monstrous that they defy belief and are classified as crime legends. The present study focuses on the rhetorical means... Show moreNews media and web-based discussion forums frequently feature crime stories so monstrous that they defy belief and are classified as crime legends. The present study focuses on the rhetorical means employed by journalists and forum users to convince their audience of the veracity and value – or the lack thereof – of these recur¬rent stories about horrendous crimes. Two cases were studied: stories featuring the motif Drugged and Abused (1885-2008) and the tale type of the Smiley Gang (2003). It is argued that approaching crime legends as rhetorical constructions instead of essentially untrue stories opens new windows for the analysis of both news and vernacular discourse and as a point of departure for critiquing journalistic practices Show less
