Presented at the International Association for Media and Communication Research, Dublin, Ireland June 2013

1. What is the meaning of a
news link?
David Ryfe and Donica Mensing
University of Nevada, Reno
Prepared for presentation at IAMCR, Dublin, June 2013

2. Network analysis of the San Francisco
Bay area news network

3. Community or
colony: The case
of online
newspapers and
the web.
Riley et al 1999
Building frames
link by link: The
linking practices of
blogs and news
sites.
Coddington, 2012
The international
network structure of
news media: An
analysis of
hyperlinks usage on
news web sites.
Himelboim 2010
The journalistic
hyperlink.
DeMaeyer 2010

4. In understanding what a
hyperlink means,
we need to look at what a
hyperlink does.
Halavais (2008)

5. Who is linking to what, where,
when, and to what purpose.

6. Who
Algorithm
Staff (other than reporter)
Reporter
User
What
News Section
News Story
Web Page (general)
Data
Video / Photo
Government Document
Academic Report
Blog Post
Social Media Content
User Comment
A
taxonomy
of news
links

7. Where
Onsite
Template section
Story
Post
Social Media Platform
Aggregation Tool
Offsite
Template section
Story
Post
Social Media Platform
Aggregation Tool
When
Permanent
Weekly
Daily
Less Than Daily
A
taxonomy of
news links
(continued)

8. Help users find content
Navigational
Enhance credibility of news
Citational
Allow users to share content
Social
Generate revenue
Commercial
To what purpose

9. Most links are navigational

10. Most social links are outsourced

11. Front pages
no longer
constructed
by editors

12. Personalization of links and
content

13. Links are a form of power

15. Donica Mensing
@donica
dmensing@unr.edu
Academia.edu / Slideshare
David Ryfe
@dryfe
dryfe@unr.edu