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Residents of South Florida have been living with the effects of climate change in the form of flooding due, in part, to sea level rise, for more than a decade. However, previous research has characterized news coverage of climate change impacts as concerning distant events in terms of time and place. In this study, we look at coverage of climate change at The Miami Herald from 2011-2015, a time period significant in terms of increased temperatures and flooding levels on city streets. Through a content analysis of 167 articles, this study argues that news coverage of climate change in The Miami Herald was largely pragmatic, linked to a news peg, locally focused and presented via opinion pieces rather than news articles. Furthermore, Miami Herald coverage links distant hypotheses of climate change with local realities, invokes a network of editorial responses, and emphasizes local impacts, particularly in more affluent areas. Findings from this study contribute to understanding how news coverage of climate change as a local story may provide a useful model for engaging the public in adapting to and mitigating against the impact of climate change, and creating social acceptance of climate change policy.

This paper examines the relationship between television station ownership characteristics and local news and public affairs programming through an expanded analysis of data from the Federal Communication's Commission (FCC's) recent study of Big Four broadcast network affiliates. The results indicate that the FCC's conclusion that network‐owned and operated stations provide more local news and public affairs programming than other affiliates, and that stations with newspaper holdings provide more local news and public affairs programming than stations without newspaper holdings holds up only when these two program types are analyzed in combination. When these two program types are analyzed independently, and when additional explanatory factors are taken into consideration, these ownership characteristics are positively related to news programming, but not to public affairs programming.

Focusing on the sociological clarification based on structural pluralism, this study explores the degree to which social media users who comment on the news posts of local newspapers use uncivil remarks and words that reflect their moral foundations.

This computer-assisted data collection produces three types of datasets that include numerous social media comments. To explore the association between moral foundations and incivility, both quadratic association procedure (QAP) and multiple regression QAP (MRQAP) are implemented.

The findings suggest that social media users who comment on the news posts of urban-located newspapers tend to use more uncivil words compared to social media users who comment on the news posts of suburban and rural-based newspapers. Individuals who comment on the news posts of urban-based newspapers tend to show a wider range of moral foundation spectrums than those who comment on the posts of rural and suburban newspapers. Lastly, there are significant associations between moral-vice components and incivility in response to urban- and suburban-located newspapers' social media posts.

The employed bag-of-words may not completely capture incivility given that social media users can use nuanced and metaphoric terms instead of explicitly uncivil terms. Even though this study systematically selected local newspapers' social media accounts, the contextual factors of other newspapers in politically slanted communities could be different.

The findings of this study provide meaningful and practical implications for journalists and news reporters. The inherent rudeness and aggressiveness of social media users can drive them to use uncivil and moral-harm words against a particular person or group.

Under the circumstance that fake news and politically slanted news content are widely distributed in the United States, social media users may easily express negative emotions toward news stories or the journalists who post the stories.

Structural pluralism particularly specializes in explaining why and how the contextual factors of news stories differ depending on community complexity. Building on the reasoning of structural pluralism in the social media context, this study investigates the degree to which social media users who comment on the news posts of local newspapers employ uncivil remarks and moral foundation words.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2020-0522.

The purpose of this paper is to explore issues and approaches for collection and management of born digital local news. Much local news – important documentation of local history – is being lost. The fact that a lot of news media is now available digitally presents new opportunities but also new challenges for such preservation.

Several specific bottle‐necks for implementing this project are examined. For instance, the size of the problem is estimated by approximating how much local news is generated in one US state. Then the difficulties in capture, storage requirements, selection, access, and sustainability are considered, focusing on difficulties in selection. Finally, a number of business models for handling these challenges are explored.

Currently, there is no large‐scale effort under way to preserve local television and newspaper news stories, and as a result this part of history is being lost. Many practical difficulties to a comprehensive system have been found but there would be value even in a system which was not the ideal. Newspaper web sites and streaming radio stations should be downloaded. The possibility of capturing video from cable distribution points could be explored.

While none of the business models offers an ideal solution for the preservation of local news, especially not for multimedia sources, it is believed that some of them provide partial answers which should be tried.

Recent research on local bias provides evidence that investors' portfolios include a non‐negligible allocation to stocks in firms that are geographically proximate to the investors. The reasons postulated for local bias include familiarity with firms, “word‐of‐mouth” communication effects, and ability to exploit local news. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value‐relevance of local news, specifically earnings announcement surprises, in the context of the well‐documented local bias in investors' portfolios.

Using a hand‐collected panel dataset spanning 15 years of quarterly earnings announcements of publicly traded firms, abnormal stock returns engendered by earnings surprises based on local newspaper announcements are compared to those from earnings surprises based on financial analysts' forecasts (I/B/E/S).

In contrast to the case, when both sources of earnings surprises are negative, the authors find a statistically significant differential stock price effect in a sample where local firms' earnings announcements in the local newspaper signal positive earnings surprises, but the earnings surprise based on financial analysts' forecasts is negative. This result remains after controlling for time‐ and firm‐fixed effects. In additional tests, the authors establish that the result is predicated on a local firm's earnings announcement being reported in the local newspaper.

The paper's findings suggest that the results of empirical research on the information content of earnings surprises based solely on analysts' forecasts should be interpreted with caution. It was found that the stock price impact of earnings surprises is also significantly influenced by local newspaper reports of the announced quarterly earnings of local firms.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework to understand the influence that the social era is having on the value chain of the local news industry. The authors theoretically advance value chain theory by, firstly, considering the influence of community type and age on consumption and, secondly, exploring the role that consumers can play in value-adding activities. The theoretical contribution of this study lies in moving from a transactional approach towards consumer relationships in the value chain towards managing consumers as a source of relational value (e.g. co-creation and integrated perspectives).

The conceptual framework is theoretically positioned in relation to community and digital community practices in the social era. A series of research questions are presented, then these questions are explored drawing on empirical data from the Pew database. The authors then advance the framework further to consider news firm strategy towards its consumers. Fifteen in-depth executive interviews were conducted with local news organizations in the Manchester area of the UK.

The authors illustrate that different types of communities (merging cohorts and locations) are influencing levels of technological and social connectivity within the value chain. The authors also found that the news industry is experimenting with reconfiguring its consumer relations from a purely transactional to a co-created and participatory value-added activity in the social era. In terms of its policy impact, the findings in this paper show that the whole strategic value chain ideology of the news industry needs to change radically; away from its largely transactional (and lack of trust) approach in the ability of consumers to create value in the supply chain (other than to buy a product) and, move towards much greater consumer involvement and participation in value chain processes (creation, production and distribution of news products and services).

The change associated with social media and connectivity is changing the way that different community types and consumer groups are now consuming and participating in news content creation. Unlike previous studies, the authors show that there is variance and complexity in the levels of consumer participation by community type/age group. Using the Pew data, the authors contribute to knowledge on the value creation strategy of news firms in the social era, by identifying how communicative, social and communicative logics influence value and co-creation activities in the local news supply chain. Through interviews, the authors advance value co-creation theory from its strategic and marketing origins to operational and supply chain implementation.

Local investors have the ability to impact the stock prices and returns of local firms. However, the impact of news made by a firm on local investors and neighboring companies is absent from the academic literature. The purpose of this paper is to fill that void and examine how a local investor clientele affects the stock market reactions of firms located within the same geographic proximity as a news-generating firm.

After accounting for firm, industry, and geographic characteristics, this study examines how a firm’s dividend initiation announcement (positive news) influences stock prices of seemingly unrelated firms within the same metropolitan statistical area (MSA).

Dividend-paying firms located in areas with a higher percentage of dividend clientele experience a positive comovement reaction when a seemingly unrelated firm within the same MSA announces a dividend initiation. The positive reactions are specifically for dividend-paying firms, while non-dividend payers exhibit no significant response. These results are robust to numerous regression methods and alternative explanations.

These findings are consistent with the positive-investor-attention hypothesis, suggesting positive spillover effects from news announcements for other local firms in the presence of individual investor clientele.

This is the first study to link how news generated by one firm can influence other geographically local firms, providing evidence on the impact of individual investor clientele on stock returns of local non-news firms.

This paper discusses the ways in which regional newspapers in the UK have reacted to the challenges posed by the Internet. A detailed evaluation of the web sites for 25 regional newspapers demonstrated clear audience trends and a certain consensus of styles and features. The level of commercial activity in the form of advertising was found to be generally low, and the strategies to promote local business involvement varied. Nine of these 25 newspapers responded to a questionnaire that sought to gauge levels of awareness of industry developments, how the operation is currently managed, and what expectations are held for the future. The overall picture was one of optimism for the future, tempered by the initial caution that characterises any new field.

Purpose: This chapter presents some results of a research project on the new modes of production of television crime news in Argentina. The authors explore the creation of content regarding crime in television newscasts, focusing on the ways of accessing the sources, circulation of information, and exhibition strategies.

Methodology/approach: The enquiry involved interviews with news workers and observations in nine stations in Buenos Aires City. The authors describe the routines in the production of television crime news in Argentina, the ways of narrating and enunciating crime news on television, the role played by the police in the structure of the news, and the emergence of new sources of information.

Findings: The authors outline three main findings: Most of the newscasts on television give prominence to crime news within their agendas since producers understand that this kind of information is attractive for the public; the authors observe that the way crime news is told defines the interpretive frame transmitted to viewers; and the authors describe how, in recent years, the production and presentation of crime news have changed as a result of the spread of digital technologies as sources of information.

Research limitations: First, the study was conducted in just one country. Second, it does not specifically explore why the criteria of newsworthiness as described in the chapter are used. This question can only be explored by looking closely at the experiences of the actors in their sociohistorical context; therefore, a cultural study would need to look in depth at the historic characteristics of the security forces in Argentina and their relation with the press. Finally, a study on viewers’ opinions is needed in order to understand their interpretation of crime news in terms of meaning.

Originality/value: The value of the study is to visualize the cultural specificities of the local newsmakers to understand the way they produce crime news. Whereas the study undoubtedly shares similar characteristics with news production in other countries, it focuses on the specific environment of local newsmakers and shows how the press experiences and visualizes crime and fear of crime in Argentina.

This article attempts to highlight the defining role that community media engagements play during times of the pandemic. It is argued that the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic forced community news media houses to reinvent their news reporting practices to cover issues pertaining to the marginalized and underprivileged sections of the society. It explores the role of community media in engaging and empowering the citizens during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Central to our study is the analysis of the news model of “Video Volunteers” (henceforth VV), an independent community-based online news platform based in India. To understand the level of citizen participation and engagement in the making and dissemination of news during the pandemic, the authors conducted 13 interviews with different stakeholders of VV, including founders and news audiences.

It seeks to reveal that when the mainstream media have failed to represent the issues of a local community, it is the independent media platforms like VV which function as a veritable source of information and sharing of knowledge. Most importantly, this paper emphasizes that the communicative model of independent community-based online platforms has been most successful in the coverage of the pandemic and the level of engagement with the citizenry.

The study contributes to the aspects of reciprocity and collaborative journalism in community news media and its potential impacts on news creation and dissemination.