Is There a Gap between the News Choices of Journalists and Consumers? A Relational and Dynamic Approach

Abstract

This article examines whether there is a gap between the news choices of mainstream journalists and those of their public. It looks at the choices of both groups in relation to each other and explores whether these choices vary in connection with the occurrence of major political events. The heuristic value of this approach is demonstrated through a mixed-method study of the news choices of journalists and consumers in the main Argentine online sites. A content analysis of the top stories chosen by journalists of that country’s two leading sites and the stories that consumers of these sites click most often yields two key results. First, during periods of relatively normal political activity, journalists choose stories about political, international, and economic subjects substantively more than consumers. Second, during periods of heightened political activity, consumers increase their interest in these stories, and the gap with the choices of journalists either disappears or narrows. Furthermore, interviews with journalists and with news consumers show that the presence of this gap during ordinary political times and its change during extraordinary periods are shaped by divergent and dynamic interpretive logics.