Marco Bastos: “The Social Making of News. The Propagation of News on Twitter and Facebook.”

THE SOCIAL MAKING OF NEWS The propagation of news on Twitter and Facebook

M. T. Bastos New Economic School &

Higher School of Economics

October 2013, Russia

1 newsmaking

Newsworthiness

The key factors governing the newsworthiness of

information were originally defined by Otto Groth

(1928) and included seven newspaper

qualifications.

Galtung and Ruge (1965) further explored the

topic and elaborated thirteen categories. This

seminal research was reviewed by Tunstall (1971)

who revealed the data ignored day-to-day

coverage of lesser, domestic and mundane news.

Newsworthiness

This later literature has established that

newsworthiness in printing press is increasingly

emphasizing entertainment (Franklin, 1997).

Harcup and ONeill (2001) offered a revised

version of Galtung and Ruges set of factors that

includes Entertainment. Since then, news editors

increased the coverage of sports, entertainment,

news about celebrities and advice columns.

Social Making of News

The transition from the print press to online news

websites represented a qualitative leap that

changed readership due to decisions relating to the

platform design, section assignment, and website

layout.

These technical modifications exert a major

influence on reading habits and change the way

news is consumed.

Social Making of News

News ecosystem are shaped by the collaboration

between readers and writers and the lack of

distinctions among tweets, blog posts, newspaper

stories, magazine articles or books (Franklin, 1997).

The line between old media and new media has

been blurred beyond recognition and the very

nature of news values is evolving. Social media

feedback is impacting the editorial decisions that

define the newsmaking process.

Social Making of News

Literature on online news established that news

websites have failed to explore interactive features

and relied on content from the parent publication.

Newsmaking decisions were still driven by print

newsrooms.

Social Making of News

Literature on online news claimed that online

journalism failed to explore interactive features and

relied on content from the parent publication.

Newsmaking decisions were still driven by print

newsrooms.

Is newsmaking in social media also driven by

print newsroom?

Social Making of News

We contrasted the differences in topics

emphasized by newspapers editors and social

media users to examine the problem.

We mined two weeks of news articles published by

The New York Times and The Guardian and

tracked the items on Twitter, Facebook, Google+,

Delicious, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.

Social Making of News

Items about arts, technology, and opinion pieces

prevail on social media. Niche social networks

present a greater volume of articles about science,

technology, fashion, and lifestyle.

Overall, social media users favor opinion pieces,

but also national, local and world news. This is at

odds with the decisions of news editors to

emphasize sports, economy, entertainment, and

celebrity news.

Social Making of News

Twitter is the only social network to have presented

a statistically significant correlation with

newspapers.

We found that the distribution of news items per

section on Twitter is significantly correlated with that

of The Guardian and The New York Times (r=.88

and r=.68, respectively, p

Social Making of News Time-series of published and tweeted articles of The Guardian and The New York Times

2 public-interest

Public-Interest

How do newspapers compare to social media in the

ratio of news items per news section published and

shared? Which sections receive more coverage

and are mostly shared by social media users?

How much overlap there is between the editorial

choices of newspapers and social media feedback

in terms of shared, tweeted, pinned and clicked

news articles?

Public-Interest

Twitter Facebook

Links Retweets Links Likes Shares Comments

NY Times 4,264 167,189 4750 634,633 2,115,513 418,532

Guardian 5,050 254,506 4501 245,890 856,149 186,452

Newspaper StumbleUpon Pinterest Delicious Google+

Items Word count Hits Hits Hits Hits

NY Times 11,607 5,641,129 150,466 3,561 1,216 5,626

Guardian 5,222 3,567,860 398,401 4,390 1,738 11,532

Public-Interest

Facebook emphasizes news about arts and opinion, which account for one-third of shared NY Times articles. Twitter replicates the diversity of topics covered by the papers shortly after the outlets.

Twitter presents a higher percentage of items about economy, technology, and national news. One quarter of all messages from Twitter public stream with links to NY Times articles are dedicated to national news (as opposed to 9% on Facebook).

Public-Interest Shared items per news sections on Twitter and Facebook

Public-Interest

Social media users favor a subset of content that is

at odds with the decisions of newspapers editors

regarding which topic to emphasize.

Only a quarter of articles about sports published

by the Times ever showed up on Twitter or

Facebook; only about half of sport-related items

published by The Guardian appeared on Twitter,

and only one-third on Facebook.

Public-Interest Shares, retweets, and news articles per section (bars of the same color sum up to 100%)

Public-Interest

Editors of the NY Times publish world news

articles (20%) more often than users of Facebook

(10%) or Twitter (10%).

Only 12% of the content published by The

Guardian is dedicated to world news, but these

few links are responsible for 16% of Twitter stream

and 19% of Facebook stream.

Public-Interest Distribution of articles by soft, general, and hard news on outlets, Twitter and Facebook

Public-Interest

Social media users favor hard news over soft and general news in a higher ratio than newspaper editors. The emphasis placed by newspapers on economics and sport-related items is in sharp contrast with the feedback from social media users.

There are also remarkable differences on the number of news items about arts, science, technology, and opinion pieces, which are on average more frequent on social networking sites than on newspapers.

Public-Interest Articles per section on the NY Times and the Guardian compared to hits on social media

Public-Interest

Pinterest presents considerable traffic to news

articles, generating half of Google+ hits and on

average one hit per article published by the

Guardian.

Most social networks are dedicated to niche

sections. Pinterest is mostly dedicated to fashion,

arts, entertainment, and lifestyle. StumbleUpon and

Delicious are dedicated to tourism, science, and arts.

Public-Interest

Google+ focuses on word news, technology, science,

and opinion pieces, while Facebook presents a

higher volume of items dedicated to arts,

environment, opinion pieces, and world news.

Twitter is centered on hard news stories, often

streaming more hard news stories than the news

outlet that provides the content and other social

networking sites. Twitter emphasizes arts, education,

environment, opinion, politics, and technology.

Public-Interest

Twitter is centered on hard news stories and

significantly correlated with news outlets.

Based on that, we investigated the diffusion of

news articles on Twitter across 40 newspapers in

5 countries.

3 twittersphere

Tweeting News Articles

On October 28 2010, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone

announced the companys ambition to create a

Twitter News Service for news organizations.

Tweeting News Articles

On October 28 2010, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone

announced the companys ambition to create a

Twitter News Service for news organizations.

The announcement emphasized Twitters news and

information-network strategy and followed attempts

to build system that could harness the platforms

potential for real-time news propagation.

Tweeting News Articles

On October 28 2010, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone

announced the companys ambition to create a

Twitter News Service for news organizations.

The announcement emphasized Twitters news and

information-network strategy and followed attempts

to build system that could harness the platforms

potential for real-time news propagation.

As of May 6 2013, Twitter hired a head of news to

run its news operation. Twitter is fast becoming the

basic tool and source of news for global media.

Tweeting News Articles Spain

Title Website Headquarters Circulation

El Pas elpais.es Madrid 432,204

El Mundo del Siglo XXI elmundo.es Madrid 330,634

ABC abc.es Madrid 240,225

La Vanguardia lavanguardia.es Barcelona 202,161

El Peridico de Catalunya elperiodico.com Barcelona 167,804

La Razn larazon.es Madrid 142,838

El Correo elcorreo.com Bilbao 119,601

La Voz de Galicia lavozdegalicia.com Arteixo 103,112

Germ

any

Die Zeit zeit.de Hamburg 653,533 Sddeutsche Zeitung sueddeutsche.de Munich 559,287

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung faz.net Frankfurt 477,407

Die Welt welt.de Berlin 350,240

Frankfurter Rundschau fr-online.de Frankfurt 203,917

Der Tagesspiegel tagesspiegel.de Berlin 184,830

Financial Times Deutschland ftd.de Hamburg 129,601

die Tageszeitung taz.de Berlin 80,262

Bra

zil

Folha de S.Paulo folha.uol.com.br So Paulo 286,398

O Estado de S.Paulo estadao.com.br So Paulo 263,046

O Globo oglobo.globo.com Rio de Janeiro 256,259

Zero Hora zerohora.clicrbs.com.br Porto Alegre 188,561

Estado de Minas em.com.br Belo Horizonte 79,823

Valor Econmico valor.com.br So Paulo 60,005

Correio Braziliense correiobraziliense.com.br Braslia 56,321

Jornal do Commercio ne10.uol.com.br Recife 41,830

UK

The Sunday Times thesundaytimes.co.uk London 967,990

The Daily Telegraph telegraph.co.uk London 634,113

Daily Express express.co.uk London 625,952

The Times thetimes.co.uk London 400,120

Financial Times ft.com London 337,700

Evening Standard standard.co.uk London 263,095

The Guardian guardian.co.uk London 209,354

The Independent independent.co.uk London 83,619

US

The Wall Street Journal wsj.com New York 2,118,315

USA Today usatoday.com McLean 1,817,446

The New York Times nytimes.com New York 1,586,757

Los Angeles Times latimes.com Los Angeles 605,243

New York Post nypost.com New York 555,327

Daily News nydailynews.com New York 530,924

The Washington Post washingtonpost.com Washington 507,615

Chicago Sun-Times suntimes.com Chicago 422,335

Tweeting News Articles

Sections United States United Kingdom Spain Brazil Germany

Arts Arts Arts Cultura Ilustrada Feuilleton

Cars Motor Motoring Motor Veculos Auto

Classified Classified Classified Clasificados Classificados Anzeige

Crime Investigations UK crime Justicia Policia Gewalt

Economy Business Economy Economa Dinheiro Wirtschaft

Education Education Education Educacion Educao Studium

Entertainment Entertainment Features Entretenimiento Acontece Panorama

Environment Environment Sustainable Medioambiente Meio-ambiente Umwelt

Fashion Fashion Beauty Smoda Moda Mode

Health Health Health Salud Sade Gesundheit

Jobs Jobs Jobs Empleo Emprego Beruf

Lifestyle Style Lifeandstyle Estilo Estilo Lebensart

Local news Metro London Ciudades Cotidiano Gesellschaft

National Country Society Nacional Brasil Deutschland

Opinion Editorials Comment Opinin Opinio Kolumnen

Politics Washington Westminster Poltica Poder Politik

Science Science Science Ciencia Cincia Wissen

Sports Sports Sports Deportes Esporte Sport

Technology Technology Technology Tecnologa Informtica Digital

Tourism Tourism Travel Elviajero Viagem Reisen

Weather Weather Weather El Tiempo Tempo Wetter

World World International Internacional Mundo Welt

Tweets, Mentions, and Retweets

Tweets Retweets Mentions

El Pas

NY Times

WSJ

LA Times

Guardian

TelegraphEstadoEl

MundoABC

Washington Post

USA Today

Folha

Independent

Globo

FT

Vanguardia

Periodico

El Pas

NY Times

WSJ

Guardian

El Mundo

EstadoWashington

PostABC

Telegraph

Globo

Vanguardia

LA Times

Independent

USA Today

FTPeriodicoNY Daily News

Folha

ABC

Folha

NY Times

El Pas

Guardian

TelegraphWSJ

El Mundo

Washington Post

La Razn

Globo

Estado

Independent

LA Times

USA Today

NY Daily News

Vanguardia

FT

Tweets, Mentions, and Retweets

Time series

Time series

Time series

Time series

4 readership

Top users

US UK SP BR GE Total

Links to

articles

994,417 537,606 792,952 394,533 123,191 2,8M

0.5% top

users

8% 8% 9% 17% 9% 9%

5% top users 47% 46% 46% 62% 61% 50%

10% top users 56% 55% 57% 69% 70% 59%

30% top users 73% 72% 75% 83% 84% 75%

50% top users 81% 80% 84% 89% 90% 83%

Readership

Unique users that posted links to more than one newspaper of the same country (left) and to newspapers of another country (right)

Country Cross-readership inside the

country

Readership across different

countries

Users Overlapping

Users

Percent Users Overlapping

Users

Percent

United States 400K 81,638 19% 400K 53,568 13%

United

Kingdom

250K 43,701 17% 250K 52,233 20%

Spain 370K 104,199 28% 370K 21,353 6%

Brazil 110K 22,217 20% 110K 4,257 4%

Germany 32K 11,394 35% 32K 4,167 13%

Readership in the US

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

4500

5000

01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Washington Post

USA Today

Sun Times

New York Times

New York Post

New York DailyNews

Wall StreetJournal

Los Angeles Times

Readership in the UK

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Daily Express

The Times

The SundayTimes

Telegraph

EveningStandard

Independent

Guardian

Financial Times

Readership in Spain

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

ABC

La Voz de Galicia

La Vanguardia

La Razon

El Periodico

El Pais

El Mundo

El Correo

Readership in Brazil

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Estado de S.Paulo

Estado de Minas

Correio Braziliense

Folha de S.Paulo

Jornal do Commercio

O Globo

Valor Econmico

Zero Hora

Readership in Germany

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Frankfurter Allgemeine

Frankfurter Rundschau

Die Zeit

Financial Times

Sddeutschen Zeitung

Tagesspiegel

Tageszeitung

Die Welt

Twitter Clients

Twitter Clients

Twitter Clients BR

Automatic Feeds

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Singletons Feeds

Linear Regression

Multiple R 0,78

R Square 0,61

Adjusted R Sq. 0,60

Standard Error 0,062

Observations 40

5 circulation

Circulation US

26%

22%

19%

7% 7% 7% 6%

5%

20%

12%

26%

17%

4%

6%

13%

3%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Wall StreetJournal

USA Today New YorkTimes

Los AngelesTimes

New YorkPost

Daily News WashingtonPost

ChicagoSun-Times

Circulation Tweets

Circulation UK

27%

18% 18%

11%

10%

7%

6%

2%

0%

27%

2% 1%

16%

3%

31%

19%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

SundayTimes

DailyTelegraph

DailyExpress

The Times FinancialTimes

EveningStandard

Guardian TheIndependent

Circulation Tweets

Circulation Spain

25%

19%

14%

12%

10%

8%

7% 6%

38%

18% 18%

11%

5%

3% 3%

5%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

El Pas El Mundo ABC LaVanguardia

El Peridico La Razn El Correo La Voz

Circulation Tweets

Circulation Brazil

23%

21% 21%

15%

6%

5% 5% 3%

28%

37%

23%

4%

2% 1%

2%

4%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

Folha deS.Paulo

Estado deS.Paulo

O Globo Zero Hora Estado deMinas

ValorEconmico

CorreioBraziliense

Jornal doCommercio

Circulation Tweets

Circulation Germany

25%

21%

18%

13%

8% 7%

5%

3%

16%

20%

13%

28%

3%

5%

6%

9%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Die Zeit SddeutscheZeitung

FrankfurterAllgemeine

Die Welt FrankfurterRundschau

DerTagesspiegel

FinancialTimes

DieTageszeitung

Circulation Tweets

Twitter News Service Circulation

US UK SP BR GE

WSJ -6% Sunday Times -27% El Pas 13% Folha 5% Die Zeit -9%

USA Today -11% Daily Telegraph 9% El Mundo -1% Estado 15% Sddeutsche -1%

NY Times 6% Daily Express -16% ABC 4% O Globo 2% FAZ -5%

LA Times 10% The Times -10% Vanguardia -1% Zero Hora -11% Die Welt 15%

NY Post -3% Financial Times 6% El Peridico -4% E. de Minas -5% Rundschau -5%

Daily News -1% Evening

Standard

-4% La Razn -5% Valor -4% Tagesspiegel -2%

W. Post 7% Guardian 25% El Correo -4% C. Braziliense -3% Financial

Times

1%

Sun-Times -2% Independent 17% La Voz -1% J. Commercio 1% Tageszeitung 6%

6 news sections

News Sections

The organization of news according to news sections is

a legacy from print media that both classified

information according to topics and ensured that a

diverse selection of content was covered.

Topics of news coverage depended on editorial

decisions made by newspapers and newspersons that

are now affected by audience agency in social media.

News sections

News sections (raw)

News sections

Countrywise distribution of news articles per newspaper section (normalized data)

Bastos M T , and Zago G SAGE Open

2013;3:2158244013502496

Copyright by a Creative Commons Attribution License, unless otherwise noted.

Broadsheet and tabloid

Tabloid newspapers tend to emphasize topics such as

sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and

TV.

Broadsheet and tabloid

Tabloid newspapers tend to emphasize topics such as

sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and

TV.

Broadsheet newspapers are usually reserved for news

outlets with an arguably higher standard of journalism.

Broadsheet and tabloid

Tabloid newspapers tend to emphasize topics such as

sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and

TV.

Broadsheet newspapers are usually reserved for news

outlets with an arguably higher standard of journalism.

Tabloid size is used in the UK by a wide-range of local

newspapers and have no relationship with news

decisions.

Hard and soft news

Hard news topics include politics, economics, and

world news, but can also encompass aspects of

law, science, and technology.

Soft news topics include the arts, entertainment,

sports, lifestyle, and celebrities.

7 content

Twitter US Facebook

Twitter US Facebook

Twitter US Facebook

Twitter UK Facebook

Twitter SP Facebook

Twitter BR Facebook

Twitter GE Facebook

Twitter Facebook

Top topics on Twitter

Top topics on Twitter

Top topics on Facebook

Top topics on Facebook

7 discussion

Nations

National differences are reflected by the

particular journalistic cultures and the audience

interests.

What national newspapers editors deem to be of

public interest vary across countries, and so does

the interest of the national publics relative to

audience feedback.

Readership

The transition from online to social networking news alters the reading experience because audiences can now access, share, and recommend the content to large communities of users.

As social networks become more widely used, there is likely to be a shift in the paradigm of newsworthiness towards hard news and away from the context of print media and the editorial emphasis on infotainment news.

Social Media

Common to social networks is the prevalence of

items about arts, technology, and opinion pieces.

Social media users behave differently than the

traditional readership of online newspapers, and

social networks not usually associated with news (i.e.

Pinterest and StumbleUpon) play an important role

in distributing information about niche topics to

communities of interest.

Newspapers

The proportion of articles per section on social media is at odds with the allocated space for news articles on the online version of the newspaper.

The large volume of news articles about sports and economic published by newspapers fails to actively engage the social media audience. Economy is a domain of news outlets, with nearly all social media platforms streaming fewer articles on economy in comparison to the press coverage.

Newsrooms

Newsrooms need to strike a balance between

news that editors understand to be important and

news that answers the wishes of their increasingly

interactive and demanding readers.

The challenge facing news organizations is to

integrate the ecosystem of networked journalism

with a diverse and engaging set of news articles.

Sources

What Sticks With Whom? Twitter Follower-Followee Networks and News Classification. AAI ICWSM Technical Report, 2012.

Tweeting News Articles: Readership and News Sections in Europe and the Americas. SAGE Open 3(3), 2013.

Visibility of News Items on Twitter and Facebook: Comparative Analysis of the Most Replicated News in Europe and the Americas. Brazilian Journalism Research 9 (1E), 2013.

Public Opinion Revisited: The propagation of opinions in digital networks. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 2 (3), 2012.

QUESTIONS?

THE SOCIAL MAKING OF NEWS The propagation of news on Twitter and Facebook

Marco Toledo Bastos

[email protected]

NSF Postdoctoral fellow

HASTAC - Duke University

marco.toledobastos.com

M. T. Bastos New Economic School &

Higher School of Economics

October 2013, Russia