Richard Fletcher
Richard Fletcher is an academic researcher. He is primarily interested in global trends in digital news consumption, comparative media research, the use of social media by journalists and news organizations, and more broadly, the relationship between technology and journalism.
Richard primarily works on the Digital News Project (www.digitalnewsreport.org) and is lead researcher and co-author of the main Digital News Report – the world's largest annual survey of global news consumption. Richard also uses this survey data to underpin comparative cross-national research into patterns of news conumption, audience fragmentation and polarisation, the effects of search engines and social media on news use, trust in the news, and paying for digital news.
In 2018, Richard won the International Communication Association Journalism Studies division's Wolfgang Donbach Outstanding Journal Article of the Year Award (with Rasmus Kleis Nielsen) for 'Are News Audiences Increasingly Fragmented?'. He was also nominated twice for the Bob Franklin Journal Article Award for 'Paying for Online News' (with Rasmus Kleis Nielsen) and 'The Impact of Trust in the News Media on Online News Consumption and Participation' (with Sora Park).
Before arriving at Oxford, Richard was previously a Junior Research Fellow in the Department of Journalism at City University London. Here he worked on the development and evaluation of SocialSensor (www.socialsensor.eu) – a tool designed to allow journalists to collect, process, and aggregate large streams of social media data in order to discover trends, events, influencers, and interesting media content.
Richard’s original undergraduate and employment background was in computer science. Since then he has completed an MSc in Science, Medicine, Technology and Society from Imperial College London and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Surrey.
2018
- Thurman, Neil, and Richard Fletcher. 2018. "Are Newspapers Heading Towards Post-Print Obscurity? A Case Study of The Independent's Transition to Online-Only." Digital Journalism 6 (8): 1003-1107.
- Fletcher, Richard, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2018. "Automated Serendipity: The Effect of Using Search Engines on News Reportoire Diversity and Balance." Digital Journalism 6 (8): 976-989.
- Kalogeropoulos, Antonis, Richard Fletcher, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2018. "News Brand Attribution in Distributed Environments: Do People Know Where They Get Their News?" New Media & Society, Online First.
- Fletcher, Richard, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2018. "Are People Incidentally Exposed to News on Social Media?: A Comparative Analysis." New Media & Society 20 (7): 2450-2468.
- Fletcher, Richard, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2018. "Generalised Scepticism: How People Navigate News on Social Media." Information, Communication & Society, Online First.
2017
- Thurman, Neil, and Richard Fletcher. 2017. "Has Digital Distribution Rejuvenated Readership? Revisiting the Age Demographics of Newspaper Consumption." Journalism Studies, Online First.
- Newman, Nic, and Richard Fletcher. 2017. Bias, Bullshit and Lies: Audience Perspectives on Low Trust in the Media. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
- Fletcher, Richard, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2017. "Are News Audiences Increasingly Fragmented? A Cross-National Comparative Analysis of Cross-Platform News Audience Fragmentation and Duplication." Journal of Communication 67 (4): 476-498.
- Newman, Nic, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, David A. L. Levy, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2017. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
- Fletcher, Richard, Steve Schifferes, and Neil Thurman. 2017 "Building the 'Truthmeter': Training Algorithms to Help Journalists Assess the Credibility of Social Media Sources." Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies Online First.
- Fletcher, Richard, and Sora Park. 2017. "The Impact of Trust in the News Media on Online News Consumption and Participation." Digital Journalism 5 (10):1281-1299.
- Fletcher, Richard and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2017. "Paying for Online News: A Comparative Analysis of Six Countries." Digital Journalism 5 (9):1173-1191.
2016
- Painter, James, María Carmen Erviti, Richard Fletcher, Candice Howarth, Silje Kristiansen, Bienvenido León, Alan Ouakrat, Adrienne Russell, Mike S. Schäfer. 2016. Something Old, Something New: Digital Media and the Coverage of Climate Change. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
- Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis, Richard Fletcher, Annika Sehl, and David A. L. Levy. 2016. Analysis of the Relation Between and Impact of Public Service Media and Private Media. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
- Newman, Nic, Richard Fletcher, David A. L. Levy, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2016. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2016. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
- Thurman, Neil, Steve Schifferes, Richard Fletcher, Nic Newman, Stephen Hunt, and Aljosha Karim Schapals. 2016. "Giving Computers a Nose for News: Exploring the Limits of Story Detection and Verification." Digital Journalism 4 (7): 838-848.
2015
- Fletcher, Richard, Damian Radcliffe, David A. L. Levy, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, and Nic Newman. 2015. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2015: Supplementary Report. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford
Recent media pieces
- "Online news is highly polarised in some countries - but technology is not to blame", The Conversation (22/06/2017).
- "Using social media appears to diversify your news diet, not narrow it" (with Rasmus Kleis Nielsen), Nieman Lab (21/06/2017)
- "Labour’s social media campaign: more posts, more video, and more interaction", Election Analysis (19/06/2017)
- "Can trends in social media explain why the opinion polls got it wrong?" (with Steve Schifferes), Election Analysis (06/2015)