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Filtering by: Creator Hemphill, Libby Remove constraint Creator: Hemphill, Libby Discipline Social Sciences Remove constraint Discipline: Social Sciences

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  • Supplemental Data for PNAS Nexus paper titled "How Digital Paywalls Shape News Coverage"

    work
    Creator:
    Dhillon, Paramveer, Panda, Anmol, and Hemphill, Libby
    Description:
    The internet has significantly transformed how news is produced, consumed, and distributed. As a result, the news industry has transitioned from ad-supported to subscription-based models regulated by digital paywalls. In light of this disruption, it’s crucial to investigate not only how news consumers adapt to this change but also how economic incentives shape content coverage. We analyzed the staggered adoption of digital paywalls by 17 regional U.S. newspapers over 17 years in a difference-in-difference framework to examine the impact of paywall adoption on topical news content coverage. Our results reveal a small but significant decrease in local and soft news coverage, with varying effects across different urban contexts. Specifically, local news coverage experienced a more substantial decline in smaller cities (population < 500,000) and regions experiencing an influx of younger residents (age < 40 years). Conversely, soft news coverage increased in areas with a younger demographic influx, indicating a strategic shift by newspapers to cater to digital-savvy audiences and adapt to changing consumption patterns. Our findings underscore the delicate balance between financial imperatives and editorial choices in the newspaper industry and highlight the need for ongoing research into the effects of digital monetization strategies on journalistic content creation, media plurality, and civic accountability.
    Keyword:
    news media; paywalls; causal inference
    Discipline:
    Social Sciences

  • Personal and Social Media Data Survey

    work
    Creator:
    Hemphill, Libby
    Description:
    Social media data offer a rich resource for researchers interested in public health, labor economics, politics, social behaviors, and other topics. However, scale and anonymity mean that researchers often cannot directly get permission from users to collect and analyze their social media data. This article applies the basic ethical principle of respect for persons to consider individuals’ perceptions of acceptable uses of data. We compare individuals' perceptions of acceptable uses of other types of sensitive data, such as health records and individual identifiers, with their perceptions of acceptable uses of social media data. Our survey of 1018 people shows that individuals think of their social media data as moderately sensitive and agree that it should be protected. Respondents are generally okay with researchers using their data in social research but prefer that researchers clearly articulate benefits and seek explicit consent before conducting research. We argue that researchers must ensure that their research provides social benefits worthy of individual risks and that they must address those risks throughout the research process.
    Keyword:
    social media, data ethics, and data reuse
    Discipline:
    Social Sciences