Research on Clickbait Effect of Phrasing in Media Contents Titles

Abstract

The research is about how the phrasing in the media contents title and cover picture, including word choices, ways of speaking, and forms of expression in pictures, affects the audiences willingness to click and read; it also aims at analyzing the timeliness of certain styles of phrasing, such as whether the traditional and old phrasing styles will be less effective with time moving forward. Upon the purposes, the research includes a survey and an interview after it. The survey includes basic questions to test how do the participants react to certain ways of phrasing; the interview provides as a clarification to the purpose and the function of each question in the survey, then asks the participants to declare their feeling during the survey and how do they subjectively feel about the usage of phrasing in media titles and cover pictures. Following the research and analysis, the following conclusion is reached: using phrasing in media titles and covers is effective in increasing audiences' willingness to click and read; traditional phrasing becomes less effective, and new forms of phrasing prove to be more effective.