Performing Discourse in Pursuit of Credibility: A Quantitative Content Analysis of Dutch Live Blogs

Sebastiaan van der Lubben*, Yael de Haan, Sanne Kruikemeier, Jaap de Jong, Willem Koetsenruijter

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Live blogs are a popular format for covering crises, breaking news, politics, or sports events. Despite their popularity among journalists and the public, the format has also been subject to scholarly debate regarding the conflict between immediacy versus credibility, resulting in a high degree of uncertainty for producers and consumers. Journalists cope with this paradox by performing discourse: imposing valid and persuasive representations of the social world. One way to do so is by the use and representation of sources. In this paper, we uncover the performative discourse of live blogs through possible patterns of sourcing and discursive strategies among a range of live blogs and the way journalists cope with the mix of speed and uncertainty. Based on a quantitative content analysis of nine Dutch live blogs, we conclude that journalists follow the same conventions and routines as regular (online) articles. Despite the possibilities for polyvocality (more and different voices in live blogs) due to the accessibility by social media, journalists choose predominantly formal sources and report their speech predominantly in a direct way.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournalism Practice
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 28 Aug 2024

Keywords

  • content analysis
  • credibility
  • Live blogs
  • performative discourse
  • reported speech
  • sourcing

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