What we’re doing to make every day News Engagement Day
Let’s start by clarifying one thing: We, the Engaging News Project, are not in charge of News Engagement Day. But we do support it — and not just because of the name.
News Engagement Day, which is today (October 6), is sponsored by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). According to the group, the goal of News Engagement Day is for as many people as possible to engage with news and remember why news matters.
At the Engaging News Project, that is something we can get behind. There are troubling signs that Americans increasingly avoid public affairs information and are unlikely to seek out viewpoints that differ from their own. And that is causing noticeable problems; the Pew Research Center’s knowledge quiz results from late April, for example, revealed that only 33 percent of the public knows the gender composition of the Supreme Court.
There is a definite need to increase public affairs knowledge and appreciation for diverse views, and one way to do that is through news engagement. But strapped for resources, many news organizations don’t have the ability to make the news more engaging.
That is where the Engaging News Project comes in. We work to help news organizations meet their democratic and business objectives by providing research-based strategies and tools they can easily implement without using up their already-too-few resources.
Some of those research-based strategies and tools are:
· Create a Quiz — In our research, we found that many news websites have polls — but polls really aren’t ideal because they often present unrepresentative opinions as facts. Quizzes are a great alternative to online polls, as they engage and inform site visitors. We’ve made it simple to create your own quiz with our free tool, which you can find on our website.
· “Respect” button — People were more likely to click on comments with an opposing political viewpoint when they had a “Respect” button to click, compared to having a “Like” or “Recommend” button available.
· Page design — When comparing classic vs. contemporary homepage designs, we found that unique page views increased by at least 90 percent when participants viewed the contemporary homepage. Also, recall of details from the homepage articles, although low for all participants, nonetheless increased by at least 50 percent when study participants viewed the contemporary homepage compared to the classic homepage.
· Comment sections — In a perfect world, comment sections would be an ideal place for news readers to share their diverse opinions and really discuss current events. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world. We’ve come up with a few strategies for improving civility in the comments, such as having a journalist interact with commenters.
We support News Engagement Day because we know the news still matters, and we’ll take any opportunity we can to remind people of that. And we hope that the work we’re doing can help make every day a day for news engagement.
