Back The first digital media world ranking according to reputation is born, created with the participation of UPF

The first digital media world ranking according to reputation is born, created with the participation of UPF

The first digital media world ranking according to web reputation has recently been presented. It is the result of an initiative led by SCImagoLab, a research team of the University of Granada, in which UPF and the University of Navarra are also involved. The ranking is based on an initial database of 4,500 digital media, published in 90 languages in 200 different countries.

17.01.2023

Imatge inicial

Although in the international sphere several rankings have existed that position the digital media according to their audiences, until now there was no classification that did so in terms of reputation. The first global ranking of digital media according to their web reputation has recently been presented. It is the result of an initiative led by SCImagoLab, a research team of the University of Granada, in which UPF and the University of Navarra are also involved.

 

Lluís Codina (UPF): “this classification will be very useful because of the amount of data it contains, its level of detail and because it allows discriminating by countries, languages... It will be very useful for journalists, media, SEO managers and researchers”

 

This global ranking, called SCImago Media Rankings, was born with an initial database of 4,500 digital media, published in 90 languages from 200 different countries. This new tool allows consulting the order of media from highest to lowest reputation in the international arena, and segmenting the results (by countries or languages). Lluís Codina, coordinator of the Cybermedia Observatory (OCM) at UPF and one of the researchers of the SCIMago project, explains the usefulness of this new ranking: “this classification will be very useful because of the amount of data it contains, its level of detail and because it allows discriminating by countries, languages... It will be very useful for journalists, media, SEO managers and researchers”.

 

Creation of a new Digital Reputation Indicator

 

As until now there was no other ranking of digital media in terms of reputation, the SCImago research group has had to generate new measurement systems, combining already existing indicators, which have led to the creation of a new Digital Reputation Indicator (DRI). To do so, it has taken advantage of the work of companies that specialize in the field of digital communication, which have large databases on networked digital media and have generated indicators on the subject. “What we have done is take four already created indicators and combine them” – Codina clarifies.

 

All these indicators are based on the following aspects: traffic to the websites of the corresponding media, their level of activity and interaction on social networks, and the quantity and quality of their links or hyperlinks. In this regard, Codina details: “One of the most important issues is the volume and quality of hyperlinks located on websites other than the analysed medium and redirect readers to this publication, i.e., the analysis of the reputation of the medium based on the number of citations it receives”. This approach is inspired by the method used by scientific journals.

 

The results of the initial radiography of this global ranking have been published this week. Internationally, the top five digital media in terms of reputation are: USA Today (1st), The New York Times (2nd), The Guardian (3rd), The Washington Post (4th), and The Independent (5th). In the state rankings, the top five come in this order: El País, ABC, El Periódico de Catalunya, Europa Press, and El Español.

 

From now on, the ranking will be updated quarterly, with the aim of periodically following the evolution of reputation in digital media. In addition, the research team has set future challenges, linked to the expansion of the database of media included in the ranking of the analysed variables. So far, these databases are composed of international, state or regional publications. In the case of the Spanish State, state-wide newspapers and those of the various autonomous communities are included.

 

Codina: “From now on, we want to incorporate more local media into the analysis. Local journalism is fundamental for a healthy democracy, it always has been, but surely more now in an age of misinformation"

 

From now on, the aim is to add to the sample for analysis more digital native media (that do not come from any previous publication on paper), specialized publications, coming from audiovisual media and especially local media, as Codina stresses. “From now on, we want to incorporate more local media into the analysis. Local journalism is fundamental for a healthy democracy, it always has been, but surely more now in an age of misinformation” – assures the professor of the UPF Department of Communication, referring to the capacities of local journalism to contrast the information of its context of proximity. However, Codina explains that the incorporation of local media from around the world, which represent tens of thousands of publications, involves a “large-scale increase”.

 

Codina adds that the new ranking can also be indicative of the reliability of journalistic information, in a context of the proliferation of fake news such as the current one. “There is a correlation between the most reputable media and those that do better journalistic work, but it is not a cause-and-effect relationship, since the most reputable media do not always produce higher quality work than others”, he concludes.

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