What's This? Incidental Exposure to News on Social Media, News-Finds-Me Perception, News Efficacy, and News Consumption

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-121
Author(s):  
Chang Sup Park ◽  
Barbara K. Kaye
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
Incidental Exposure

scholarly journals The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511877282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mousa Ahmadi ◽  
Donghee Yvette Wohn
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Weak Ties ◽  
Strong Ties ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
Incidental Exposure

Social media users incidentally get exposed to news when their networks provide content that they would otherwise not seek out purposefully. We developed a scale of incidental news exposure on social media and conducted a survey to examine its antecedents. We found that information received through weak ties, rather than strong ties, was significantly associated with incidental news exposure. The amount of time spent, frequency of getting news updates, and the frequency clicking on news-related links on social media were correlated with incidental exposure. Our findings suggest that promoting news consumption on social media can be achieved not only through giving users information they want but also by exposing users to information they are not consciously looking for.

scholarly journals The dangers of blind trust: Examining the interplay among social media news use, misinformation identification, and news trust on conspiracy beliefs

2021 ◽  
pp. 096366252199802
Author(s):  
Xizhu Xiao ◽  
Porismita Borah ◽  
Yan Su
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
National Survey ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
Conspiracy Beliefs ◽  
Moderation Model ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Significant Moderator ◽  
News Use

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation has been circulating on social media and multiple conspiracy theories have since become quite popular. We conducted a U.S. national survey for three main purposes. First, we aim to examine the association between social media news consumption and conspiracy beliefs specific to COVID-19 and general conspiracy beliefs. Second, we investigate the influence of an important moderator, social media news trust, that has been overlooked in prior studies. Third, we further propose a moderated moderation model by including misinformation identification. Our findings show that social media news use was associated with higher conspiracy beliefs, and trust in social media news was found to be a significant moderator of the relationship between social media news use and conspiracy beliefs. Moreover, our findings show that misinformation identification moderated the relationship between social media news use and trust. Implications are discussed.

Social media news deserts: Digital inequalities and incidental news exposure on social media platforms

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110595
Author(s):  
Matthew Barnidge ◽  
Michael A Xenos
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Digital Inequality ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Online Networks ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Incidental Exposure ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Civic Skills ◽  
New Form

Some people live in social media “news deserts,” while others are embedded in online networks that are rich in news content. These news deserts represent a new form of digital inequality—distinct from problems of access, resources, or civic skills—that could foreclose one of the ways social media are believed to contribute to informing citizens and engaging them in democratic processes: providing opportunities for incidental news exposure. This study investigates incidental exposure on social media platforms, drawing on an online survey administered just before the 2018 US Midterm Elections ( N = 1493). The study finds that even after controlling for key individual-level factors, characteristics of social media discussion networks play a role in explaining variation in incidental exposure. The results are discussed in light of prevailing theory about incidental exposure, public engagement, and digital inequalities.

Identifying News Consumption, News Avoidance Patterns, and Incidental News Exposure among Jordanians: A Qualitative Study

Glimpse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Ruba Mohd ◽  
Javier Serrano Puche ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Q Methodology ◽  
Card Sorting ◽  
Level Of Education ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
Think Aloud Protocol ◽  
Entry Points ◽  
The World ◽  
Cross Country ◽  
Determining Factor

In the world we live in, we encounter news everywhere. Authentic or not, fragmented or complete, audiences are being exposed to vast amounts of information, and it seems impossible to limit news intake, even when we want to. In a recent cross-country research based on data gathered from 35 countries (Toff, Kalogeropoulos et al. .2020), it was found that people avoid the news for factors varying between nations. This paper attempts to look into news consumption and avoidance patterns among Jordanians by posing several questions. Their entry points to news, preferred news mediums, the extent to which they are incidentally exposed to information, consciously or unconsciously, as well as if there were news avoidance patterns amongst them. These questions were explored through examination of a limited number of respondents from different generations, genders, and academic backgrounds and by deploying a Q methodology approach executed through card-sorting exercise with a think-aloud protocol and an in-depth one to one interview. The results indicated that Jordanians use multiple entry points to news, and the majority of them regard social media as a source of news. Neither gender, generation, nor the level of education seems to be a determining factor. The study revealed the existence of news avoidance trends. Education appeared to have no impact on the motives behind them.

scholarly journals Does incidental exposure on social media equalize or reinforce participatory gaps? Evidence from a panel study

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 2463-2482 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffael Heiss ◽  
Jörg Matthes
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Information ◽  
Political Interest ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Incidental Exposure ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Using Data ◽  
High Effort

Existing research indicates that incidental exposure to political information on social media may function as an equalizer, stimulating political engagement among the politically detached. In this article, we challenge this notion and propose that there are good reasons to assume that incidental exposure may reinforce existing gaps. We test the equalizing against the reinforcing hypothesis using data from a two-wave panel study ( N = 559). We find a positive main effect of incidental exposure on low-effort digital participation. However, this effect was not conditional on political interest, as the equalizing assumption would have suggested. More interestingly, we found that the effect of incidental exposure on high-effort digital participation was conditional on political interest. However, against the assumption of equalization, individuals with low levels of political interest were negatively affected by incidental exposure, thus lending support for the reinforcement hypothesis. Possible reasons for these findings are discussed.

The Impact of Social vs. Nonsocial Referring Channels on Online News Consumption

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sagit Bar-Gill ◽  
Yael Inbar ◽  
Shachar Reichman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Online News ◽  
Clickstream Data ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
Online Newspaper ◽  
News Website ◽  
The Impact ◽  
News Sharing ◽  
Sharing Behavior

The digitization of news markets has created a key role for online referring channels. This research combines field and laboratory experiments and analysis of large-scale clickstream data to study the effects of social versus nonsocial referral sources on news consumption in a referred news website visit. We theorize that referrer-specific browsing modes and referrer-induced news consumption thresholds interact to impact news consumption in referred visits to an online newspaper and that news sharing motivations invoked by the referral source impact sharing behavior in these referred visits. We find that social media referrals promote directed news consumption—visits with fewer articles, shorter durations, yet higher reading completion rates—compared with nonsocial referrals. Furthermore, social referrals invoke weaker informational sharing motivations relative to nonsocial referrals, thus leading to a lower news sharing propensity relative to nonsocial referrals. The results highlight how news consumption changes when an increasing amount of traffic is referred by social media, provide insights applicable to news outlets’ strategies, and speak to ongoing debates regarding biases arising from social media’s growing importance as an avenue for news consumption. This paper was accepted by Anandhi Bharadwaj, information systems.

scholarly journals Managing News Overload (MNO): The COVID-19 Infodemic

Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 375
Author(s):  
Sameera Tahira Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Global Health ◽  
University Students ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Consumption Patterns ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
News Sources

A crucial area in which information overload is experienced is news consumption. Ever increasing sources and formats are becoming available through a combination of traditional and new (digital) media, including social media. In such an information and media rich environment, understanding how people access and manage news during a global health epidemic like COVID-19 becomes even more important. The designation of the current situation as an infodemic has raised concerns about the quality, accuracy and impact of information. Instances of misinformation are commonplace due, in part, to the speed and pervasive nature of social media and messaging applications in particular. This paper reports on data collected using media diaries from 15 university students in the United Arab Emirates documenting their news consumption in April 2020. Faced with a potentially infinite amount of information and news, participants demonstrate how they are managing news overload (MNO) using a number of complementary strategies. Results show that while consumption patterns vary, all diaries indicate that users’ ability to navigate the news landscape in a way that fulfils their needs is influenced by news sources; platform reliability and verification; sharing activity; and engagement with news.

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