Objective: This study was conducted with the aim of introducing the phenomenon of media replication as a theory and, in doing so, testing the formulated hypothesis. The hypothesis posits that when news item A is first published by Media 1, the nth media outlet (n=1,2,3, …) that replicates and publishes this news enters into the same news discourse as Media 1.
Method: To carry out this research and test the hypothesis, content dissemination analysis was employed. The data collection tool in this study was note-taking. The research population consisted of daily and significant news items that are shared extensively by users across media outlets and social networks, trending and garnering higher viewership compared to other news. Sampling was purposive and conducted over a six-month period from December 22, 2024, to June 21, 2025.
Findings: The examined news items were replicated by aligned media and, in some cases, by moderate and relatively neutral media outlets. This action by the media indicates the absence of a media orchestration (or directed flow) and points merely to media replication. Consequently, the research hypothesis is confirmed. Specifically, when a piece of news is published by one media outlet and replicated in others, all those media outlets enter the same news discourse as the original one. The detailed analyses of individual news items in the findings section demonstrate the validity of this hypothesis.
Conclusion: An event whose news is replicated possesses news value for the target audience of those media outlets and is likely independent of the editorial policies of the respective media. In other words, the news value of the event drives the replication of the news across different media outlets. Based on a lenient analysis of bias, it can be argued that media outlets participating in news replication (prioritizing news value over editorial policy) exhibit less bias compared to those that do not participate.