Journalists and Online Sources: No Ref Required

Without a doubt my favorite Christmas movie is “The Ref”, which puts the fun back into dysfunctional family holiday movies.   Cat burglar Gus (Denis Leary), after an attempted robbery goes awry, abducts a woman Caroline (Judy Davis) and her husband Lloyd (Kevin Spacey) who simply can’t stand each other. They bicker constantly, even when threatened at gunpoint by Gus (one of my favorite lines from Gus: From now on, the only person who gets to yell is me. Why? Because I have a gun. People with guns get to do whatever they want. Married people without guns – for instance – you – DO NOT get to yell. Why? NO GUNS! No guns, no yelling. See? Simple. Little. Equation!).   Caroline and Gus are joined at their holiday “celebration” by their overbearing mother Rose, who lords over them because they owe her money (Gus: “I know loan sharks who are more forgiving than you. Your husband ain’t dead, lady. He’s hiding”), meek brother Gary, domineering sister in law Connie (“The spirit of Christmas is either you’re good or you’re punished and you burn in hell.”) and rebel son Jesse, who is blackmailing his teacher at military school.  The highlight of the movie is when the family is sitting around the dinner table celebrating a Scandinavian Christmas wearing wreaths with lit candles, eating inedible Scandinavian holiday treats, and arguing with each other as Gus, pretending to be Caroline and Gus’ marriage therapist Dr. Wong, needs to serve as a referee to keep everyone from going at each other’s throats.

Why bring up “The Ref” as a prelude to discussing Liesbeth Hermans’ and Maurice Verger’s recently published Journal of Computer Mediated Communication article “Internet in the Daily Life of Journalists,”  a study revisiting the question of journalists’ adoption of new media technology and factors that influence that adoption?  Well, this IS the holiday season. Second, “The Ref” might remind some of you of dysfunctional family holidays from your past that you would rather not revisit. Third, while there have been important studies of journalists adoption of new technology by Bruce Garrison and others, most of these studies are six to 10 years old. With the growth of new tools for journalists, from blogs and RSS feeds to more prevalent data bases, the topic of what technologies journalists use and why is one worth revisiting—with or without  a referee.  And if you are wondering at this point why I am trying to draw a tenuous connection between a Christmas black comedy and a study of journalists’ Internet adoption, then you haven’t been reading this blog very often.

Hermans and Verger examine adoption of 12 Internet components among journalists in the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking Belgium (How do you say “Waffle” in Dutch? Wafel). Only three components were used on a regular basis.  E-mailing, visiting websites and employing search engines were used by Dutch journalists almost daily, while blogs, RSS feeds and chats were used once a week—if that.  These results surprised me.  A recent study by Kaye Sweetser and associates suggests that journalists in the United States use blogs considerably more often. Studies as early as 2004 found about 44 percent of journalists had used instant messaging or chat as part of their job duties.

Not surprisingly, Hermans and Verger found that perceived utility was a strong predictor of whether journalists relied heavily on online sources.  Those who judged it useful to find new sources, ideas or information relied on Internet sources as did those who perceived it as an efficient way of gathering information.

The researchers were surprised that those who relied on Internet components the most viewed them to be the least credible.  They shouldn’t have been surprised.  The original Online News Association study discovered this paradox way back in 2002.  Journalists were (and still are) suspicious of online sources (and rightly so when they came from individuals rather than reputable organizations), but that didn’t keep them from seeking out online information.

I want to know what you journalists or former journalists think.  Were you surprised with these results and if so what surprised you?  What differences do you think would you find if you conducted this study in the United States?  Like Denis Leary I will try to add insightful comments (there is always a first time!), but unlike his character Gus I won’t serve as referee.