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What prompts users to click and comment: A longitudinal study of online news
This study examined the relationship between two mechanisms of online participation – clicking and commenting – as well as the characteristics of heavily clicked versus highly commented-upon news items. Based on 15,431 items from a popular Israeli website, correlations between clicking and commentin...
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Published in: | Journalism (London, England) England), 2015-02, Vol.16 (2), p.198-217 |
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Main Authors: | , |
Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
Online Access: | Get full text |
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Summary: | This study examined the relationship between two mechanisms of online participation – clicking and commenting – as well as the characteristics of heavily clicked versus highly commented-upon news items. Based on 15,431 items from a popular Israeli website, correlations between clicking and commenting were calculated for 12 separately analysed months from 2006 to 2011. In addition, overlap rates were determined, showing that 40–59% of the heavily clicked items in any given month were different from the highly commented-upon items. A subsequent content analysis indicated that while sensational topics and curiosity-arousing elements were more prominent among the heavily clicked items than among the highly commented-upon items, political/social topics and controversial elements were more prominent among the highly commented-upon items. The study contributes to deepening our understanding of the role of user comments in constructing social/group identity and offers a new perspective on a prolonged controversy surrounding audiences’ news preferences. |
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ISSN: | 1464-8849 1741-3001 |
DOI: | 10.1177/1464884913513996 |