Abstract
Individual news consumers’ decisions to select specific news articles online are an important part of the present journalistic landscape, spurring scholars’ interest in ‘selective exposure’ and the factors that influence news selection. In the present study, we investigated predictors of young news consumers’ self-selection of individual news articles. We used a dataset containing information on upwards of 18,000 news articles that were published in the smartphone and tablet application of the Dutch children’s news television program. The dataset contained the headline of each published news article and the number of views that the article generated in the application. This made it possible to investigate which characteristics of the headlines were predictive of children’s selection of the article, that is, number of views. In particular, we investigated the effects of emotion and exemplification on selection. The results showed that anxiety-related information and the use of exemplars significantly increased an article’s likelihood of being selected by young news consumers. Information related to anger, sadness and positive affect did not significantly predict selection.
Highlights
Individual news consumers’ decisions to select specific news articles online are an important part of the present journalistic landscape, spurring scholars’ interest in ‘selective exposure’ and the factors that influence news selection
Previous work on children’s news has analyzed the content of this kind of news (Walma van der Molen and De Vries, 2003; Walma van der Molen and Van der Voort, 2000), has investigated what children expect from news (Alon-Tirosh and Lemish, 2014), has investigated how children react to news (Kleemans et al, 2017a; Kleemans et al, 2017b; Walma van der Molen and Bushman, 2008; Walma van der Molen et al, 2002), or has discussed the importance of news for children in their development as citizens (Carter, 2017; Carter and Allan, 2005; Clark and Marchi, 2017)
We investigated the effects of language associated with anxiety, anger, sadness and positive affect, as used in the headline of the article, on young news consumers’ decisions to select news articles
Summary
Individual news consumers’ decisions to select specific news articles online are an important part of the present journalistic landscape, spurring scholars’ interest in ‘selective exposure’ and the factors that influence news selection. Previous work on children’s news has analyzed the content of this kind of news (Walma van der Molen and De Vries, 2003; Walma van der Molen and Van der Voort, 2000), has investigated what children expect from news (Alon-Tirosh and Lemish, 2014), has investigated how children react to news (Kleemans et al, 2017a; Kleemans et al, 2017b; Walma van der Molen and Bushman, 2008; Walma van der Molen et al, 2002), or has discussed the importance of news for children in their development as citizens (Carter, 2017; Carter and Allan, 2005; Clark and Marchi, 2017) It remains unclear how children select news stories
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 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.
