Abstract
While news sharing by ordinary social media users has received growing attention, hyper-partisan news sharing, which has been closely associated with misinformation circulation, has received less attention. In this study, we investigate hyper-partisan news sharing from two perspectives: (1) the features that make hyper-partisan news share-worthy, as well as (2) the user motivations that drive the sharing process. We scrutinize one week’s content from Infowars.com as it was shared on Twitter. Through both manual coding of news content and semi-automated clustering of Twitter account descriptions, we find that human interest and conflict in news stories drive the sharing process from a content perspective. Concerning the user perspective, we find partial support for a sharing hypothesis based on motivated reasoning, which indicates that users are more likely to share hyper-partisan news stories if these align with their own political opinions.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
