We examine how traditional media and Twitter cover four business scandals: Wells Fargo fake accounts, EpiPen pricing hikes, Samsung Note 7 faulty battery, and Volkswagen’s cheating in emission tests. There are over 500 articles from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, and over 400,000 tweets related to these events. We find that traditional media are highly influential. Media organizations, including newspapers, TV networks, and other media outlets, only sent 1% of the scandal-related tweets, but they account for 39% of Twitter users who follow all scandal-related tweets. Newspaper articles rather than individual tweets drew politicians’ attention and preceded additional responses from the troubled firms. The troubled firms also choose TV instead of social media to speak to the public. In contrast, social media appear to play a discovery role. Individual tweets precede newspaper articles but not vice versa. Overall, we conclude that the rise of social media such as Twitter does not diminish the role of traditional media in covering business scandals.
{"title":"Traditional Media, Twitter, and Four Business Scandals","authors":"John Jiang, Michael Shen","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.016","url":null,"abstract":"We examine how traditional media and Twitter cover four business scandals: Wells Fargo fake accounts, EpiPen pricing hikes, Samsung Note 7 faulty battery, and Volkswagen’s cheating in emission tests. There are over 500 articles from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, and over 400,000 tweets related to these events. We find that traditional media are highly influential. Media organizations, including newspapers, TV networks, and other media outlets, only sent 1% of the scandal-related tweets, but they account for 39% of Twitter users who follow all scandal-related tweets. Newspaper articles rather than individual tweets drew politicians’ attention and preceded additional responses from the troubled firms. The troubled firms also choose TV instead of social media to speak to the public. In contrast, social media appear to play a discovery role. Individual tweets precede newspaper articles but not vice versa. Overall, we conclude that the rise of social media such as Twitter does not diminish the role of traditional media in covering business scandals.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"153 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136306862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrea Lorenz, Carolyn Schmitt, Shannon McGregor, Daniel Malmer
News consumption in the United States is polarized and fragmented, with an abundance of partisan news publications appealing to political identities on both the left and the right. Yet, there is an abundance of hyperpartisan news on the right, the content of which has been shown to be harmful to democracy. This study captures one of the most comprehensive pictures to date of the U.S. Americans who consume far-right media and makes connections between such media use and the state of American democracy. After a lengthy data-cleaning process, we analyzed open-ended survey responses from a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 U.S. American adults, finding that nearly ten percent self-report at least one far-right news outlet as a primary news source. Furthermore, significantly more U.S. Americans report consuming far-right and moderate-right news outlets than counterparts on the left. We then examined the characteristics of this small but significant group, given the current political climate in the United States, finding that far-right news consumers are overwhelmingly white, male, Republican, Christian, and without a college degree. This study reinforces previous findings that patterns in hyperpartisan media usage demonstrate growing extremism in the U.S., and that it is deeply rooted in identity.
{"title":"“CNN Can Kiss My As$”","authors":"Andrea Lorenz, Carolyn Schmitt, Shannon McGregor, Daniel Malmer","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.015","url":null,"abstract":"News consumption in the United States is polarized and fragmented, with an abundance of partisan news publications appealing to political identities on both the left and the right. Yet, there is an abundance of hyperpartisan news on the right, the content of which has been shown to be harmful to democracy. This study captures one of the most comprehensive pictures to date of the U.S. Americans who consume far-right media and makes connections between such media use and the state of American democracy. After a lengthy data-cleaning process, we analyzed open-ended survey responses from a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 U.S. American adults, finding that nearly ten percent self-report at least one far-right news outlet as a primary news source. Furthermore, significantly more U.S. Americans report consuming far-right and moderate-right news outlets than counterparts on the left. We then examined the characteristics of this small but significant group, given the current political climate in the United States, finding that far-right news consumers are overwhelmingly white, male, Republican, Christian, and without a college degree. This study reinforces previous findings that patterns in hyperpartisan media usage demonstrate growing extremism in the U.S., and that it is deeply rooted in identity.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"160 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86450834","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Camila Mont’Alverne, Amy A. Ross Arguedas, Sumitra Badrinathan, Benjamin Toff, R. Fletcher, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
Against the backdrop of rising concern over misinformation and disinformation, a growing number of studies have considered the important role played by influential social media accounts when particular news stories attract attention online—with special attention given to Facebook, the most widely-used social network for news. However, little is known about what kinds of accounts are among the most influential information curators on Facebook, and where news organizations fit into this broader landscape. In this study, we examine how influence on Facebook plays out across different national contexts and different topics. We draw on a unique dataset from CrowdTangle, sampling over a six-month period in 2021 across four countries (Brazil, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States). We compare what kinds of sources (e.g., news organizations, politicians, or other kinds of influential accounts and groups) are among the most influential accounts in each location when it comes to three specific subjects: COVID-19, political leaders in each country, and climate change—which we also compare to general queries that do not specify a subject domain. Our findings show that the types of influential accounts on Facebook vary considerably by subject domain and country. News media accounts are among the largest share of these influential accounts in each country, but not necessarily the types of news media organizations presumed to be most influential offline.
{"title":"Domain-specific influence on Facebook: How topic matters when assessing influential accounts in four countries","authors":"Camila Mont’Alverne, Amy A. Ross Arguedas, Sumitra Badrinathan, Benjamin Toff, R. Fletcher, Rasmus Kleis Nielsen","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.014","url":null,"abstract":"Against the backdrop of rising concern over misinformation and disinformation, a growing number of studies have considered the important role played by influential social media accounts when particular news stories attract attention online—with special attention given to Facebook, the most widely-used social network for news. However, little is known about what kinds of accounts are among the most influential information curators on Facebook, and where news organizations fit into this broader landscape. In this study, we examine how influence on Facebook plays out across different national contexts and different topics. We draw on a unique dataset from CrowdTangle, sampling over a six-month period in 2021 across four countries (Brazil, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States). We compare what kinds of sources (e.g., news organizations, politicians, or other kinds of influential accounts and groups) are among the most influential accounts in each location when it comes to three specific subjects: COVID-19, political leaders in each country, and climate change—which we also compare to general queries that do not specify a subject domain. Our findings show that the types of influential accounts on Facebook vary considerably by subject domain and country. News media accounts are among the largest share of these influential accounts in each country, but not necessarily the types of news media organizations presumed to be most influential offline.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"193 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80977902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Digital analytics in contemporary politics receives tremendous attention from the media and has been the focus of a great deal of research over the last two decades. However, the actual practices that characterize work in the field often fail to receive sufficient attention. This paper presents the results of a quantitative content analysis describing the contents of 39 digital analytics case studies reporting the results of 68 individual A/B tests to learn about testing practices as they exist at high levels in contemporary U.S. politics. We find an emphasis on email and website testing, predominantly focused on fundraising and engagement outcomes. Our findings illuminate the mundane but substantive impacts of testing, which are predominantly focused on improving fundraising and email performance. Since firms made these case studies publicly available on their website, they also serve as marketing materials. In this manner we can understand how the practice of analytics is sold to political organizations looking to engage in digital testing.
{"title":"Testing, Testing: Identifying Contemporary Analytics Practices in Digital Politics","authors":"Katherine Haenschen, Carl Cilke, Alise Boal","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.012","url":null,"abstract":"Digital analytics in contemporary politics receives tremendous attention from the media and has been the focus of a great deal of research over the last two decades. However, the actual practices that characterize work in the field often fail to receive sufficient attention. This paper presents the results of a quantitative content analysis describing the contents of 39 digital analytics case studies reporting the results of 68 individual A/B tests to learn about testing practices as they exist at high levels in contemporary U.S. politics. We find an emphasis on email and website testing, predominantly focused on fundraising and engagement outcomes. Our findings illuminate the mundane but substantive impacts of testing, which are predominantly focused on improving fundraising and email performance. Since firms made these case studies publicly available on their website, they also serve as marketing materials. In this manner we can understand how the practice of analytics is sold to political organizations looking to engage in digital testing.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76818064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, starting from June 9, 2019, have presented a challenge to the Chinese regime. How has Chinese official media responded to this crisis on the internet? How has the regime framed the anti-regime protests to its mainland audience? In this paper, I describe the strategies used by the Chinese propaganda apparatus to enhance regime resilience. Using text analysis and data collected from Chinese official media, I show that China uses three main discursive devices in reporting on the Hong Kong protests to its domestic audience. First, the regime draws a clear line between in-group and out-group members. Second, the regime tries to promote internal solidarity by emphasizing unifying values such as nationalism and patriotism among in-group members to prevent influence from out-group members. Finally, the regime presents an external enemy to its domestic audience. In addition, using data collected from The New York Times, I also show a comparison between the Western framing and the Chinese framing of the movement.
{"title":"Political Discourse in China: How Does China Frame Hong Kong Protests to Its Domestic Audience?","authors":"Yufan Yang","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.013","url":null,"abstract":"The Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, starting from June 9, 2019, have presented a challenge to the Chinese regime. How has Chinese official media responded to this crisis on the internet? How has the regime framed the anti-regime protests to its mainland audience? In this paper, I describe the strategies used by the Chinese propaganda apparatus to enhance regime resilience. Using text analysis and data collected from Chinese official media, I show that China uses three main discursive devices in reporting on the Hong Kong protests to its domestic audience. First, the regime draws a clear line between in-group and out-group members. Second, the regime tries to promote internal solidarity by emphasizing unifying values such as nationalism and patriotism among in-group members to prevent influence from out-group members. Finally, the regime presents an external enemy to its domestic audience. In addition, using data collected from The New York Times, I also show a comparison between the Western framing and the Chinese framing of the movement.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"116 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89812356","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Many local governments have added new methods to report public service complaints like submitting a complaint on Twitter, hoping to expand access to more constituents. But who submits Twitter complaints, and how do those complaints compare to those submitted using other methods? I collect data on complaints submitted to the City of St. Louis and use these data to show that complaints submitted on Twitter are primarily from wealthy white residents concerned about issues related to parks or to their commutes. These types of complaints differ sharply from those submitted using other methods. Hence this descriptive evidence lends credence to the idea that providing a Twitter account to submit complaints may not expand access to local government services as much as previously thought. Local governments may want to carefully consider how the methods that they provide to submit public service complaints could help to determine the types of complaints they are likely to receive.
许多地方政府已经增加了新的方式来报告公共服务投诉，比如在Twitter上提交投诉，希望扩大到更多的选民。但是，谁提交Twitter投诉?这些投诉与使用其他方式提交的投诉相比如何?我收集了提交给圣路易斯市(City of St. Louis)的投诉数据，并利用这些数据表明，在Twitter上提交的投诉主要来自富裕的白人居民，他们担心与公园或通勤有关的问题。这些类型的投诉与使用其他方法提出的投诉大不相同。因此，这一描述性证据支持了这样一种观点，即提供一个Twitter账户来提交投诉，可能不会像之前想象的那样扩大获得地方政府服务的机会。地方政府可能需要仔细考虑他们提供的提交公共服务投诉的方法如何有助于确定他们可能收到的投诉类型。
{"title":"Tweeting Public Service Complaints","authors":"William O’Brochta","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.011","url":null,"abstract":"Many local governments have added new methods to report public service complaints like submitting a complaint on Twitter, hoping to expand access to more constituents. But who submits Twitter complaints, and how do those complaints compare to those submitted using other methods? I collect data on complaints submitted to the City of St. Louis and use these data to show that complaints submitted on Twitter are primarily from wealthy white residents concerned about issues related to parks or to their commutes. These types of complaints differ sharply from those submitted using other methods. Hence this descriptive evidence lends credence to the idea that providing a Twitter account to submit complaints may not expand access to local government services as much as previously thought. Local governments may want to carefully consider how the methods that they provide to submit public service complaints could help to determine the types of complaints they are likely to receive.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83721355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this note we introduce a new approach to measure media alignment derived from the story-sharing behavior of journalists. We use a large corpus of online news stories from two leading Hungarian news sites and estimate alignment scores for a large number of outlets that they cite. To the extent that journalists are more likely to cite ideologically proximate sources, our measure can be used to compare a large number of media outlets on a political — in our case government vs. independent — space. We demonstrate the use of this approach with two empirical applications. First, we show that our alignment scores successfully capture known ideological variation across outlets at a single point in time. Second, we demonstrate that quarterly estimates of alignment for a captured outlet change dramatically following an abrupt change in ownership.
{"title":"News sharing as a measure of media alignment","authors":"Gábor Simonovits, Ádám Vig","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.010","url":null,"abstract":"In this note we introduce a new approach to measure media alignment derived from the story-sharing behavior of journalists. We use a large corpus of online news stories from two leading Hungarian news sites and estimate alignment scores for a large number of outlets that they cite. To the extent that journalists are more likely to cite ideologically proximate sources, our measure can be used to compare a large number of media outlets on a political — in our case government vs. independent — space. We demonstrate the use of this approach with two empirical applications. First, we show that our alignment scores successfully capture known ideological variation across outlets at a single point in time. Second, we demonstrate that quarterly estimates of alignment for a captured outlet change dramatically following an abrupt change in ownership.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88357601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Despite the increasing popularity of wellness on social media, there islittle empirical study of its content or audiences. This study providesdescriptive information of prevalent themes in wellness content and thecomposition and views of its audiences. Using structural topic modeling toidentify central themes #wellness content on Instagram (N = 544,377posts), we find that while much content appears to promote desired healthbehaviors (e.g., quality sleep), other topics concern unsubstantiated claimsthat are often driven by commercial incentives. Nationally representativesurvey data of U.S. adults (N = 970) further reveals that women, moreliberal, and younger people are more likely to seek and see wellnesscontent. Those who actively seek wellness content are both more trustingof science institutions and have less accurate health beliefs compared withthose who are inadvertently exposed to wellness content. Though wellnesshas not received a great deal of scholarly attention, this description shedslight on the relevance of wellness to central questions in communicationdisciplines concerning expertise, (mis)information, and institutional trust. The popularity of wellness content in social media merits further empiricalexamination as such content may have important benefits and harms thatdisproportionately affect women and young people.
{"title":"Mapping Digital Wellness Content","authors":"Sedona Chinn, Ariel Hasell, Dan Hiaeshutter-Rice","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.009","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the increasing popularity of wellness on social media, there islittle empirical study of its content or audiences. This study providesdescriptive information of prevalent themes in wellness content and thecomposition and views of its audiences. Using structural topic modeling toidentify central themes #wellness content on Instagram (N = 544,377posts), we find that while much content appears to promote desired healthbehaviors (e.g., quality sleep), other topics concern unsubstantiated claimsthat are often driven by commercial incentives. Nationally representativesurvey data of U.S. adults (N = 970) further reveals that women, moreliberal, and younger people are more likely to seek and see wellnesscontent. Those who actively seek wellness content are both more trustingof science institutions and have less accurate health beliefs compared withthose who are inadvertently exposed to wellness content. Though wellnesshas not received a great deal of scholarly attention, this description shedslight on the relevance of wellness to central questions in communicationdisciplines concerning expertise, (mis)information, and institutional trust. The popularity of wellness content in social media merits further empiricalexamination as such content may have important benefits and harms thatdisproportionately affect women and young people.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80756887","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This descriptive study investigates political mobilization and user engagement patterns on Facebook and associated partisan and gender discrepancies. It focuses on Switzerland, where political actors frequently seek to mobilize and shape citizens’ opinions before direct-democratic voting on wide-ranging policy issues. Using digital trace data from CrowdTangle, the analysis focuses on the posting frequency and received user interactions of 770 Swiss political actors’ Facebook pages. The analysis period covers 20 months, from November 2019 to July 2021, during which five popular votes occurred, and the sampled FB pages published more than 226,000 posts and received more than 18,000,000 user interactions. A descriptive quantitative analysis and a multiple regression analysis revealed an overall skewed pattern: Mobilization and user engagement are driven by small subsets of highly active and interacted-with FB pages. A few FB pages of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party and male politicians receive highly disproportionate user engagement – relative to more centrist parties and female politicians – but also relative to their electoral share in the national parliament. The results show that only a few dominant political voices are widely heard on Facebook, even if many speak. These insights are of interest beyond Switzerland, as Facebook and other social media platforms shape political discourse across liberal democracies.
{"title":"Who speaks and who is heard on Facebook? Political mobilization and engagement patterns of partisanship and gender in Switzerland’s direct democracy","authors":"Julian Maitra, Regula Hänggli","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.008","url":null,"abstract":"This descriptive study investigates political mobilization and user engagement patterns on Facebook and associated partisan and gender discrepancies. It focuses on Switzerland, where political actors frequently seek to mobilize and shape citizens’ opinions before direct-democratic voting on wide-ranging policy issues. Using digital trace data from CrowdTangle, the analysis focuses on the posting frequency and received user interactions of 770 Swiss political actors’ Facebook pages. The analysis period covers 20 months, from November 2019 to July 2021, during which five popular votes occurred, and the sampled FB pages published more than 226,000 posts and received more than 18,000,000 user interactions. A descriptive quantitative analysis and a multiple regression analysis revealed an overall skewed pattern: Mobilization and user engagement are driven by small subsets of highly active and interacted-with FB pages. A few FB pages of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party and male politicians receive highly disproportionate user engagement – relative to more centrist parties and female politicians – but also relative to their electoral share in the national parliament. The results show that only a few dominant political voices are widely heard on Facebook, even if many speak. These insights are of interest beyond Switzerland, as Facebook and other social media platforms shape political discourse across liberal democracies.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72955775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
With the rise of social media, everyone has the potential to be both a consumer and producer of online content. Although one might assume that people share news because they believe it to be true, worldwide concerns about the spread of misinformation suggest that truthfulness may not be a dominant driver of sharing online. Across three studies (total N=4,786), we investigate what content dimensions are associated with social media sharing intentions for a wide range of news headlines. When we examine the relationships between content dimensions using factor analysis, we consistently find separate factors capturing perceived accuracy and evocativeness. The perceived accuracy factor was positively correlated with both sharing intentions and the headline’s objective veracity. However, while the evocativeness factor was also positively correlated with sharing intentions, it was consistently negatively correlated with the headline’s objective veracity.
{"title":"What Makes News Sharable on Social Media?","authors":"Xi Chen, Gordon Pennycook, David Rand","doi":"10.51685/jqd.2023.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2023.007","url":null,"abstract":"With the rise of social media, everyone has the potential to be both a consumer and producer of online content. Although one might assume that people share news because they believe it to be true, worldwide concerns about the spread of misinformation suggest that truthfulness may not be a dominant driver of sharing online. Across three studies (total N=4,786), we investigate what content dimensions are associated with social media sharing intentions for a wide range of news headlines. When we examine the relationships between content dimensions using factor analysis, we consistently find separate factors capturing perceived accuracy and evocativeness. The perceived accuracy factor was positively correlated with both sharing intentions and the headline’s objective veracity. However, while the evocativeness factor was also positively correlated with sharing intentions, it was consistently negatively correlated with the headline’s objective veracity.","PeriodicalId":93587,"journal":{"name":"Journal of quantitative description: digital media","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135862859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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