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Exploring Behavioral Patterns of Information Consumption on Social Media: a Case Study of Pbs Newshour on Facebook

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Exploring Behavioral Patterns of Information Consumption on Social Media: a Case Study of Pbs Newshour on Facebook EXPLORING BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS OF INFORMATION CONSUMPTION ON SOCIAL MEDIA: A CASE STUDY OF PBS NEWSHOUR ON FACEBOOK By Yan Song A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Information and Media—Doctor of Philosophy 2016 ABSTRACT EXPLORING BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS OF INFORMATION CONSUMPTION ON SOCIAL MEDIA：A CASE STUDY OF PBS NEWSHOUR ON FACEBOOK By Yan Song In August of 2013, Facebook introduced new algorithms to promote high quality news. Since then, many newsrooms have been enjoying substantially increased traffic brought by Facebook to their own websites. 30% of US adults now get news from Facebook according to a 2014 survey by Pew Research Center. Facebook remarked that this strategy is based on mutual benefits between itself and news publishers. In economists’ words, Facebook, as well as other social media platforms including Twitter and LinkedIn, have recognized their roles as multi- sided platforms (MSPs) and sought ways to enhance such roles. It is not the first time for them to try to play an intermediary role as they, especially Facebook, have been constantly coordinating between users, game and app developers, content providers and advertisers. For newsrooms, however, this ecosystem is fairly new. Watching search engines and social media emerging as new multi-sided platforms, news publishers are forced to learn how to adapt their journalistic practices and business models for yet another new media format, reminiscent of the past when newspapers learned to differentiate themselves from radio and television, and filmmakers learned to have their works visually restructured to display better on smaller and narrower television screens. The purpose of this dissertation is to better understand how online audiences respond to and utilize for their own ends news publishers’ content placed with social media and how publishers might adjust their online strategies in response. It aspires to develop a realistic and integrated framework for investigating the mechanisms of content consumption and diffusion on social media by drawing on theories from psychology, communication and economics. While testing applications of these social science theories, I employ newly developed statistical tools to take advantage of the thorough documentation of online activities by social media services to address puzzles newsrooms confront in the everyday practice of online journalism. These include the motivations behind liking, commenting and sharing behaviors; how different news topics, message length, sentiment (positive or negative), and reading ease influence these behaviors; how news publishers can accurately assess the performance of news stories given that users’ reactions are heavily shaped by the nature of the content; and, finally, the strategies newsrooms might use to gain more attention from social media users and grow their audiences and revenues by attracting more fans and followers in the new media ecosystem. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I want to thank my adviser, Steve Wildman, who has been offering his scholarship, wisdom, encouragement, support and care throughout the past six years. Without him, I would never have enjoyed my doctoral program as much or made as many achievements. At the same time, I want to thank Susan, Steve’s wife and best friend, for her sweet words and wonderful cooking to nourish both my mind and my body. Also, I would like to give special thanks to my dissertation committee. I owe a debt of gratitude to Bob LaRose, and Steve Lacy. Coming from different backgrounds, they have added more insights into this study. Ann Kronrod has also shared with me her expertise in marketing and further enriched this study. Further, I must express my gratitude to the following people, whose kindness has made this study possible. Dan Sinker and Erika Owens supported me throughout the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Fellowship and respected my pursuit of researching online readership. The other OpenNews fellows inspired and taught me a lot, especially Brian Abelson and Stijn Debrouwere, who share a similar interest in media metrics. During this fellowship, Joel Abrams at the Boston Globe worked with me closely and offered me the data that I needed to build the first model, which was how this study was initiated. After reviewing my preliminary findings, Joshua Benton decided to feature them on at the website of the Nieman Journalism Lab under the headline “Sharing Fast and Slow”, which helped me attract a lot of attention from the community. Among them was Travis Daub at PBS NewsHour, who recognized the value of my research and invited iv me to examine the data from his newsroom. The collaboration with PBS NewsHour widened my research from a regional to a nationwide audience. To the open source community and hacks/hackers in Boston, Berlin, Buenos Aires and other places around the world, I have been benefiting tremendously from their work. I am contributing as much as I can as well. Finally, I dedicate this dissertation to my parents. They spent their adolescent years in the Cultural Revolution and had their educations truncated and had few opportunities in their lives. Through my experience of the world and travels, they can see the potential they both had and what they may have experienced were they given the chance. They appreciate freedom and have granted me much of it, which is rarely seen in Chinese parents. Although they are unable to read my dissertation, I know they will be proud to hold it in their hands. 爸爸妈妈，我爱你们！ v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND ................................................................................................. 9 News on Facebook .................................................................................................................. 9 Facebook Pages and fans ...................................................................................................... 11 Facebook Insights ................................................................................................................. 12 Facebook users’ behaviors and information flows ............................................................... 15 PBS NewsHour ..................................................................................................................... 20 CHAPTER 3: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................. 22 The origin of gatekeeping ..................................................................................................... 22 Mediated communication through the lens of gatekeeping .................................................. 24 Gatekeepers as decision makers ............................................................................................ 28 Dual process theory ............................................................................................................... 30 Two Types of processing vs. two processing Systems ......................................................... 32 The mostly seamless collaboration of the two minds ........................................................... 33 Dual processing and media use ............................................................................................. 35 Two types of processing and Facebook users’ behaviors ..................................................... 36 Type 1 processing and cognitive ease ................................................................................... 39 Text length ............................................................................................................................ 41 Readability ............................................................................................................................ 42 Emotion and decision making ............................................................................................... 45 Framing ............................................................................................................................. 47 Measuring the emotional content of text .......................................................................... 48 Media avoidance ................................................................................................................... 50 Negativity bias ...................................................................................................................... 50 News preferences .................................................................................................................. 52 Reasons for Facebook use ..................................................................................................... 54 Need to belong .................................................................................................................. 55 Need for self-presentation ................................................................................................. 56 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODS .................................................................................. 59 Data collection .....................................................................................................................
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