certain political ideas or stances. Facebook likes and comments are similar to retweeting a story or sharing a YouTube video, since a user's preferences can be seen and read by their friends or followers on the site. In this way, the shared, liked, or commented‐on news story is more likely to appear on the user's social media timeline, allowing their friends and followers to further engage with the story.
In view of the rapid developments in the news industry and new technologies, I argue here that we have in fact entered the era of “News 3.0,” part of “Web 3.0,” a term coined by Manuel Castells to refer to “the cluster of technologies, devices, and applications that support the proliferation of social spaces on the Internet thanks to increased broadband capacity, open source software, and enhanced computer graphics and interface, including avatar interaction in three‐dimensional virtual spaces” (2011, p. xxvii). Many news organizations have recently employed new technologies in producing and disseminating news, taking advantage of advances in algorithmic, automated, and robo‐journalism that often involve the “use of computer software (Natural Language Generation [NLG]) to transform data and other material into a story that resembles a piece of human journalism, by following a pre‐programmed structure and formula” (Harcup 2014). The Los Angeles Times, for instance, was the first newspaper to publish an automated story about an earthquake in 2014 with the help of a robot “journalist.” China's Xinhua news agency introduced artificial intelligence (AI) anchors in 2018 that report news non‐stop to interested audiences (Kuo 2018). ProPublica became the first mainstream media (MSM) organization to create a website on the Dark Web in an effort to diversify its audiences. The New York Times later followed its example. Accessing the Dark Web requires installing a browser like Tor, so it is not as straightforward as accessing the Open Web. The author examined ProPublica's website on the Dark Web and found that it looks exactly the same as the one available on the Open Web, but it seems to be for those users who want to maintain their online privacy. Other new methods have been employed, like using 3D technologies in making and disseminating news (e.g. Sky 3D in the United Kingdom), 360‐degrees news, and Snapchat (Lichterman 2015). Outlets such as RT Arabic and CNN have developed virtual reality (VR) news to micro‐target specific audiences. These and other news organizations have embraced the potential of Web 3.0: innovation fueled by a variety of new technologies, including mobile apps.
Despite all this, news organizations' new practices, as well as the algorithms used by many SNS, do not seem to assist news consumers in being more informed. Instead, consumers and users are increasingly becoming insulated by focusing on personalized content and sensational entertainment. Another drawback is that some of these new technologies can be used against the interests of the public, such as the phenomenon of “deep fakes,” which utilize AI techniques to make fake images and videos look real (Shwartz 2018). The use of online bots or automated accounts can also enhance the problems that exist in spreading fake news on social media (Al‐Rawi et al. 2019). The disinformation problem is exacerbated by the reluctance of social media platforms to act effectively and promptly. For example, Facebook promised after the 2016 US election to act fast to end the spread of conspiracy theories by working closely with fact checkers; however, the results were not satisfactory, prompting many fact checkers to quit when the platform did not implement real changes (Levin 2018). Also, these platforms have themselves become a favorite venue from which to launch attacks against the news media by trolls, political parties, and public figures. For instance, the database of Google's Transparency Report, which includes details on political advertising on Google and YouTube, shows hundreds of content items attacking MSM. As of July 2019, almost all such ads in the United States are paid for by US President Donald Trump and his official political campaign. Facebook Ads Archive, which provides details on paid political ads in several countries around the world, turns up the same issue when searching for ads referencing “fake news” in the United States: the highest number of paid ads associating MSM with fake news are posted by Trump and his official campaign, bringing in millions of dollars for Facebook. Unfortunately, this is another way in which social media outlets are assisting in undermining the credibility of MSM, by providing a venue for attacking journalists and news outlets.
In terms of future news research, there are promising opportunities. Mobile news apps are still highly under‐researched, especially the means by which audiences interact among themselves in a high‐tech version of the comments section. Also, there are many digital tools and online platforms that can be better utilized by researchers for the future study of news. For instance, Facebook Ads Manager is an interesting platform that can be employed to understand the demographics of Facebook news production and dissemination. It can provide detail on international audiences' consumption of news along different variables, including gender, age, geographical location, educational level, ethnicity, interests, and so forth. This tool has recently been employed in many different studies to identify audiences' interests regarding a variety of issues, such as news bias, disease surveillance, migrant monitoring, gender gaps, and schizophrenia awareness, among other things (Araujo et al. 2017; Saha et al. 2017; Zagheni et al. 2017; Fatehkia et al. 2018; Ribeiro et al. 2018). For example, there are 6.7 million users on Facebook, aged from 18 to over 65, who show interest or engagement with the following media outlets: the Globe and Mail, ABC News, CNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, BBC News, CTV Television Network, CBS News, the Washington Times, CNN, Fox Broadcasting Company, NBC, and the Wall Street Journal. To give another example, there are over 13 million people worldwide interested in the Fox News channel, including 6.8 million males and 6.8 million females aged between 18 and over 65. Geographically, there are 110 000 users in the United Kingdom, 67 000 in Australia, and 140 000 in Canada interested in this news channel.
There are many other avenues opening up for future research. The GDELT Project, a global media‐monitoring database associated with Google Jigsaw, offers some interesting areas of news research, though there are limitations in terms of its thematic and visual classification of news stories. It can be used to examine and test several theories and concepts related to news values, biases, agenda setting, and intermedia agenda setting.
References
1 Abdul‐Mageed, M. (2008). Online news sites and journalism 2.0: reader comments on Al‐Jazeera Arabic. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique 6: 59–76.
2 Al‐Rawi, A. (2016a). Assessing public sentiments and news preferences on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya. International Communication Gazette 79 (1): 26–44.
3 Al‐Rawi, A. (2016b). Understanding the social media audiences of radio stations. Journal of Radio & Audio Media 23 (1): 50–67.
4 Al‐Rawi, A., Groshek, J., and Zhang, L. (2019). What the fake? Assessing the extent of networked political spamming and bots in the propagation of #fakenews on Twitter. Online Information Review 43 (1): 53–71.
5 Anderson, C.W. (2011). Between creative and quantified audiences: Web metrics and changing patterns of newswork in local US newsrooms. Journalism 12 (5): 550–566.
6 André, P., Bernstein, M., and Luther, K. (2012). Who gives a tweet?: Evaluating microblog content value. In: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. ACM.
7 Araujo, M., Mejova, Y., Weber, I., and Benevenuto, F. (2017). Using Facebook ads audiences for global lifestyle disease surveillance: promises and limitations. In: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM on Web Science Conference, pp. 253–257. ACM, June.
8 Boczkowski, P. (1999). Understanding the development of online newspapers. New Media & Society 1 (1): 101–126.
9 Braun, J. and Gillespie, T. (2011). Hosting the public discourse, hosting the public: when online news and social media converge. Journalism Practice 5 (4): 383–398.
10 Bright, J. and Nicholls, T. (2014). The life and death of political news: measuring the impact of the audience agenda using online data. Social Science Computer Review 32 (2):
