TY - JOUR
T1 - What really matters?
T2 - characterising and predicting user engagement of news postings using multiple platforms, sentiments and topics
AU - Aldous, Kholoud Khalil
AU - An, Jisun
AU - Jansen, Bernard J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - This research characterises user engagement of approximately 3,000,000 news postings of 53 news outlets and 50,000,000 associated user comments during 8 months on 5 social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit). We investigate the effect of sentiments and topics on user engagement across four levels of user engagement expressions (i.e. views, likes, comments, cross-platform posting). We find that sentiments and topics differ by both news outlets and social media platforms, and both sentiments and topics by the four levels of user engagement expression. Finally, we predict a volume of four user engagement levels for given news content, with an 83% maximum average F1-score for the external posting of news articles from one platform to another using language and metadata features. Implications are that news outlets can benefit by developing a platform, sentiment and topic, and strategies to best achieve user engagement objectives.
AB - This research characterises user engagement of approximately 3,000,000 news postings of 53 news outlets and 50,000,000 associated user comments during 8 months on 5 social media platforms (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit). We investigate the effect of sentiments and topics on user engagement across four levels of user engagement expressions (i.e. views, likes, comments, cross-platform posting). We find that sentiments and topics differ by both news outlets and social media platforms, and both sentiments and topics by the four levels of user engagement expression. Finally, we predict a volume of four user engagement levels for given news content, with an 83% maximum average F1-score for the external posting of news articles from one platform to another using language and metadata features. Implications are that news outlets can benefit by developing a platform, sentiment and topic, and strategies to best achieve user engagement objectives.
KW - User engagement
KW - cross platforms
KW - news organisation
KW - sentiment analysis
KW - social media
KW - topical analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124835304&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/0144929X.2022.2030798
DO - 10.1080/0144929X.2022.2030798
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85124835304
SN - 0144-929X
VL - 42
SP - 545
EP - 568
JO - Behaviour and Information Technology
JF - Behaviour and Information Technology
IS - 5
ER -