The Impact of Testimony Journalism on Audience Engagement: An Experimental Investigation of the Effects of Point of View

Shani Or, Naama Meir, Doron Ron, Oren Livio, Yariv Tsfati, Nurit Tal-Or

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

New modes of journalism, such as testimony journalism, use the first-person to let members of marginalized communities tell their stories in their own words and increase the audience’s affinity with them. However, the assumption that this strategy fosters audience affinity has not been empirically investigated. We build on findings from media psychology, demonstrating that the point of view (POV) from which a narrative is told affects engagement with the narrative and persuasion, and apply these insights to journalism studies and news reports. Using a factorial design in an online experiment (n = 924), we examined the effect of POV in a newspaper article on the experience of social presence of the article’s protagonist, identification with him and attitude changes. As hypothesized, social presence was significantly stronger when reading a first-person article than a third-person article. Moreover, social presence mediated the effect of POV on identification. POV also indirectly affected support for policy and behavioral intentions through the mediation of social presence and identification. The findings suggest that the first-person POV heightens the experience of a real interaction with the protagonist. This effect occurs even when the first-person POV testimonial is part of a newspaper article written by a journalist.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)573-593
Number of pages21
JournalJournalism Studies
Volume24
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

  • Testimony journalism
  • attitudes
  • identification
  • narrative
  • point of view
  • presence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Communication

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