This study explores the relationship between social commentary and key features of news articles in the context of social media as a new frontier of journalism. It is a descriptive research with content analysis on two online newspapers, OhMyNews and ...
This study explores the relationship between social commentary and key features of news articles in the context of social media as a new frontier of journalism. It is a descriptive research with content analysis on two online newspapers, OhMyNews and Newdaily, taking different ideological stances. According to the research, the key features that lead to quantitative differences in social commentaries are news maker, news topic, and the length of articles. The most commented articles were relatively lengthy, dealt with issues on news makers with higher name value, and had tendency to provoke public anger. The articles for which social commentaries were longest-lasting had to do with public anger over statements by famous politician. The research showed that the articles with the highest level of social commentary did not share a common agenda. From the diversity and rationality standpoint, OhMyNews served as a deliberative public sphere. Moreover, there was no overall difference in healthiness of discussion between the two newspapers while significant difference was observed in the level and frequency of profanity depending on the news maker’s reputation.