Hyperlinking practices in Swedish online news 2007–2013: the rise, fall, and stagnation of hyperlinking as a journalistic tool

Abstract

Hyperlinks are considered vital to both the Web and to digital journalism. This study utilizes a longitudinal content analysis of hyperlinking practices in Swedish online news from 2007 to 2013 to see how hyperlinking evolves over time. It also compares if and to what extent publishing tradition shapes journalistic practice. The findings primarily show that the overall impact of hyperlinks remains largely unchanged over time but that internal links, while still being most common, decrease in relative importance while external links increase. The general conclusion is that hyperlinks, so far, are not an important aspect of online journalism practice.

Digital News Consumption and Copyright Intervention: Evidence from Spain Before and After the 2015 “Link Tax”

“…But due to the crisis affecting the media industry worldwide (Pew Research Center, ; Newman et al, ), business criteria tend to dominate journalistic decisions. As a consequence, news sites rarely link to external competitors: They treat links not as journalistic objects that add value to the stories, but as economic assets or functional devices that can, in principle, keep audiences within corporate boundaries (Dimitrova, Connolly‐Ahern, Williams, Kaid, & Reid, ; Karlsson, Clerwall, & Örnebring, ). The “link tax” that motivates this study, and the lobbying efforts that underlie its political sponsorship, are a good example of how business criteria dominate journalistic decisions – and of how the industry is trying to monetize emerging patterns of news consumption.…”

Finding the news and mapping the links: a case study of hypertextuality in Dutch-language health news websites

“…Nevertheless, an excellent longitudinal study of hyperlinks at four leading Swedish newspapers found that external hyperlinks often 'linked to other businesses within the same parent corporation and also to business collaborations with external partners' (Karlsson, Clerwall, & Örnebring, 2015, p. 860, italics mine). Contrary to Deuze (2003), Karlsson et al (2015) suggest that offsite external hyperlinks may be governed by protectionist marketing incentives, and may therefore be similar to internal hyperlinks. In order to survive the transition from print to digital publishing, newspaper industries have adopted new business models that rely on streams of revenue unrelated to the journalistic activities of the organization such as partnerships with web shops, telecommunications and other services (Villi & Hayashi, 2015).…”

“…In order to survive the transition from print to digital publishing, newspaper industries have adopted new business models that rely on streams of revenue unrelated to the journalistic activities of the organization such as partnerships with web shops, telecommunications and other services (Villi & Hayashi, 2015). Therefore, despite the rise of external links observed by Karlsson et al (2015), the question remains whether external links to affiliated websites add value to the original content in terms of source transparency, credibility and diversity.…”

“…The discord between commercial and journalistic incentives for using hyperlinks is often measured by quantifying the ratio of internal and external hyperlinks within websites. Despite the relative dominance of internal linking on news websites in general (Karlsson et al, 2015), previous research shows that the occurrence of internal and external hyperlinks varies according to news websites' socialization in the principles of institutional journalism (Cui & Liu, 2017). New entrants to the field, such as blogs, citizen journalism and net-native explanatory news websites, are more likely to use external hyperlinks than news websites of legacy media brands (Coddington, 2012;Cui & Liu, 2017;Paulussen & D'heer, 2013;Sjøvaag et al, 2012).…”

“…Recent empirical hyperlinking studies, however, suggest that external hyperlinks should not be treated monolithically (De Maeyer, 2013;Karlsson et al, 2015). Besides genuine external hyperlinks, so-called pseudo-external hyperlinks, which are technically external, but similar to internal hyperlinks because they link to domains pertaining to the overarching media conglomerate, are introduced.…”