News media in The Netherlands show great variety in the extent and ways, in which they realize media accountability online in terms of actor transparency, product transparency and feedback opportunities online. It is suggested that even those news rooms that seem to adhere to transparency and public accountability still need to explore the functionality and application of media accountability instruments (MAI). Both in terms of potentials and pitfalls, news rooms need to consider about what they want to be transparent and in what ways. To the extent that online innovations are visible, traditional news media seem to experiment, as is the case with newsroom blogs or the project of hyper local journalism Dichtbij.nl, part of the Telegraaf Company. Various news media have on-going projects on audience participation, online applications and distribution models. However, since many projects merely aim at finding new applications, processes, platforms and business models, it remains to be seen assess whether projects are indeed reasonably innovative and feasible at the same time. The development of an online and therefore immediate, archived, personalized and interactive context, offers practical and ethical challenges to Dutch journalism. These challenges bring shifts in its role and responsibility to society. It means that changes occur in what journalists are accountable for, as well as ways in how they are accountable. The Dutch media landscape lodges various professional accountability instruments like the press council and both profession-wide and news media specific codes of ethics, but some of these instruments receive only moderate support. Proactive openness is more an exception than the rule and may well be a distinctive indicator for quality journalism. Although news media often acknowledge the importance of media accountability offline and online, they often lack the resources or courage to use them or have different priorities. This ambiguous position may indicate that in relation to media accountability online, Dutch news media are between hope and fear: that it will either improve their relationship with the public and fuel professional quality, or ask too much of resources with too little benefit.
Full text beschikbaar met HU-account. Sinds de opkomst van sociale media spelen de toepassing en het bereik ervan in toenemende mate een rol, ook bij rampen en crises. De vraag rijst dan hoe daar in de crisiscommunicatie en het crisismanagement effectief mee om te gaan. Uit literatuuronderzoek en een analyse van een viertal Nederlandse casus blijkt dat, hoewel sommige officiële instanties nog steeds verrast kunnen worden door de snelle stroom van berichten en de effecten die dat met zich meebrengt, er al veel is geleerd over het omgaan met en benutten van sociale media in crisissituaties. Professionals dealing with crises are more or less forced to a next level of crisis communication and crisis management. This is because of the influence of social media. Messages on Twitter, Facebook and other social media can have a significant impact on the course of developments during a crisis. Sometimes in a positive way, when help is mobilized quickly and people can be informed almost instantly. On other occasions the impact is more negative, when for instance rumors lead to false accusations or threats. In the past several years, crisis management authorities have built up more experience with the use and application of social media and monitoring tools. There are still cases where officials and professionals are taken by surprise because of the shift stream of messages and their impact on public opinion and crisis control. But also lessons have been learned, e.g. in terms of online and offline reactions, cooperation with the public, and rumor control. This article gives an overview of research results in literature and summarizes the outcomes of a case study research project
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As part of my PhD research, I investigate the factors of student success and the influence of the use of social media by first year students in higher education. For this I use the insights provided by the highly influential and leading integration theory of Tinto and diminished the amount of variables by only using the best predictive ones. Hereby, avoiding the capitalization of chance and establishing a more easy to use model for teachers and management. Furthermore, I enriched the model with the use of social media, in particular Facebook, to better suit students’ contemporary society in the developed world. Principal component analysis on Facebook usage provided different integration/engagement components, which I coined peer-engagement and knowledge engagement. Both consisted of various purposes of Facebook use (information, education, social and leisure) and the use of different pages amongst students. To uncover if these latent variables play a significant role in student success or if Facebook is a multi-distracting platform, two models were compared using structural equation modeling with SPSS AMOS; one with and one without the peer-, and knowledge engagement variables. The fit of both models are compared using the normed fit index (NFI), the comparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). In addition, the direct influence and indirect influence of all variables are compared to provide a better insight into what kind of influence social media can have upon student success.
