THE SOCIAL MAKING OF NEWS

The propagation of news on Twitter and Facebook

New Economic School & Higher School of Economics October 2013, Russia

M. T. Bastos

1
newsmaking

Newsworthiness

The key factors governing the newsworthiness of information were originally defined by Otto Groth (1928) and included seven newspaper qualifications.
Galtung and Ruge (1965) further explored the topic and elaborated thirteen categories. This seminal research was reviewed by Tunstall (1971) who revealed the data ignored day-to-day coverage of lesser, domestic and mundane news.

Newsworthiness

This later literature has established that newsworthiness in printing press is increasingly emphasizing entertainment (Franklin, 1997).
Harcup and ONeill (2001) offered a revised version of Galtung and Ruges set of factors that includes Entertainment. Since then, news editors increased the coverage of sports, entertainment, news about celebrities and advice columns.

Social Making of News

The transition from the print press to online news websites represented a qualitative leap that changed readership due to decisions relating to the platform design, section assignment, and website layout. These technical modifications exert a major influence on reading habits and change the way news is consumed.

Social Making of News

News ecosystem are shaped by the collaboration between readers and writers and the lack of distinctions among tweets, blog posts, newspaper stories, magazine articles or books (Franklin, 1997).
The line between old media and new media has been blurred beyond recognition and the very nature of news values is evolving. Social media feedback is impacting the editorial decisions that define the newsmaking process.

Social Making of News

Literature on online news established that news websites have failed to explore interactive features and relied on content from the parent publication.
Newsmaking decisions were still driven by print newsrooms.

Social Making of News

Literature on online news claimed that online journalism failed to explore interactive features and relied on content from the parent publication. Newsmaking decisions were still driven by print newsrooms. Is newsmaking in social media also driven by print newsroom?

Social Making of News

We contrasted the differences in topics emphasized by newspapers editors and social media users to examine the problem.
We mined two weeks of news articles published by The New York Times and The Guardian and tracked the items on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Delicious, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon.

Social Making of News

Items about arts, technology, and opinion pieces prevail on social media. Niche social networks present a greater volume of articles about science, technology, fashion, and lifestyle.
Overall, social media users favor opinion pieces, but also national, local and world news. This is at odds with the decisions of news editors to emphasize sports, economy, entertainment, and celebrity news.

Social Making of News

Twitter is the only social network to have presented a statistically significant correlation with newspapers.
We found that the distribution of news items per section on Twitter is significantly correlated with that of The Guardian and The New York Times (r=.88 and r=.68, respectively, p<0.001).

Social Making of News

Time-series of published and tweeted articles of The Guardian and The New York Times

2
public-interest

Public-Interest

How do newspapers compare to social media in the ratio of news items per news section published and shared? Which sections receive more coverage and are mostly shared by social media users?
How much overlap there is between the editorial choices of newspapers and social media feedback in terms of shared, tweeted, pinned and clicked news articles?

Public-Interest
Twitter Facebook

Links
NY Times
4,264

Retweets
167,189

Links
4750

Likes
634,633

Shares
2,115,513

Comments
418,532

Guardian

5,050

254,506

4501

245,890

856,149

186,452

Newspaper
Items Word count
NY Times 11,607
5,641,129

StumbleUpon Pinterest Delicious

Hits
150,466

Google+
Hits
5,626

Hits
3,561

Hits
1,216

Guardian

5,222

3,567,860

398,401

4,390

1,738

11,532

Public-Interest

Facebook emphasizes news about arts and opinion, which account for one-third of shared NY Times articles. Twitter replicates the diversity of topics covered by the papers shortly after the outlets.
Twitter presents a higher percentage of items about economy, technology, and national news. One quarter of all messages from Twitter public stream with links to NY Times articles are dedicated to national news (as opposed to 9% on Facebook).

Public-Interest
Shared items per news sections on Twitter and Facebook

Public-Interest

Social media users favor a subset of content that is at odds with the decisions of newspapers editors regarding which topic to emphasize.
Only a quarter of articles about sports published by the Times ever showed up on Twitter or Facebook; only about half of sport-related items published by The Guardian appeared on Twitter, and only one-third on Facebook.

Public-Interest
Shares, retweets, and news articles per section (bars of the same color sum up to 100%)

Public-Interest

Editors of the NY Times publish world news articles (20%) more often than users of Facebook (10%) or Twitter (10%).
Only 12% of the content published by The Guardian is dedicated to world news, but these few links are responsible for 16% of Twitter stream and 19% of Facebook stream.

Public-Interest
Distribution of articles by soft, general, and hard news on outlets, Twitter and Facebook

Public-Interest

Social media users favor hard news over soft and general news in a higher ratio than newspaper editors. The emphasis placed by newspapers on economics and sport-related items is in sharp contrast with the feedback from social media users.
There are also remarkable differences on the number of news items about arts, science, technology, and opinion pieces, which are on average more frequent on social networking sites than on newspapers.

Public-Interest
Articles per section on the NY Times and the Guardian compared to hits on social media

Public-Interest

Pinterest presents considerable traffic to news articles, generating half of Google+ hits and on average one hit per article published by the Guardian.
Most social networks are dedicated to niche sections. Pinterest is mostly dedicated to fashion, arts, entertainment, and lifestyle. StumbleUpon and Delicious are dedicated to tourism, science, and arts.

Public-Interest

Google+ focuses on word news, technology, science, and opinion pieces, while Facebook presents a higher volume of items dedicated to arts, environment, opinion pieces, and world news.
Twitter is centered on hard news stories, often streaming more hard news stories than the news outlet that provides the content and other social networking sites. Twitter emphasizes arts, education, environment, opinion, politics, and technology.

Public-Interest

Twitter is centered on hard news stories and significantly correlated with news outlets. Based on that, we investigated the diffusion of news articles on Twitter across 40 newspapers in 5 countries.

3
twittersphere

Tweeting News Articles

On October 28 2010, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced the companys ambition to create a Twitter News Service for news organizations.

Tweeting News Articles

On October 28 2010, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced the companys ambition to create a Twitter News Service for news organizations. The announcement emphasized Twitters news and information-network strategy and followed attempts to build system that could harness the platforms potential for real-time news propagation.

Tweeting News Articles

On October 28 2010, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced the companys ambition to create a Twitter News Service for news organizations. The announcement emphasized Twitters news and information-network strategy and followed attempts to build system that could harness the platforms potential for real-time news propagation. As of May 6 2013, Twitter hired a head of news to run its news operation. Twitter is fast becoming the basic tool and source of news for global media.

Tweeting News Articles

Title El Pas El Mundo del Siglo XXI ABC La Vanguardia El Peridico de Catalunya La Razn El Correo La Voz de Galicia Die Zeit Sddeutsche Zeitung Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Die Welt Frankfurter Rundschau Der Tagesspiegel Financial Times Deutschland die Tageszeitung Folha de S.Paulo O Estado de S.Paulo O Globo Zero Hora Estado de Minas Valor Econmico Correio Braziliense Jornal do Commercio The Sunday Times The Daily Telegraph Daily Express The Times Financial Times Evening Standard The Guardian The Independent The Wall Street Journal USA Today The New York Times Los Angeles Times New York Post Daily News The Washington Post Chicago Sun-Times Website elpais.es elmundo.es abc.es lavanguardia.es elperiodico.com larazon.es elcorreo.com lavozdegalicia.com zeit.de sueddeutsche.de faz.net welt.de fr-online.de tagesspiegel.de ftd.de taz.de folha.uol.com.br estadao.com.br oglobo.globo.com zerohora.clicrbs.com.br em.com.br valor.com.br correiobraziliense.com.br ne10.uol.com.br thesundaytimes.co.uk telegraph.co.uk express.co.uk thetimes.co.uk ft.com standard.co.uk guardian.co.uk independent.co.uk wsj.com usatoday.com nytimes.com latimes.com nypost.com nydailynews.com washingtonpost.com suntimes.com Headquarters Madrid Madrid Madrid Barcelona Barcelona Madrid Bilbao Arteixo Hamburg Munich Frankfurt Berlin Frankfurt Berlin Hamburg Berlin So Paulo So Paulo Rio de Janeiro Porto Alegre Belo Horizonte So Paulo Braslia Recife London London London London London London London London New York McLean New York Los Angeles New York New York Washington Chicago Circulation 432,204 330,634 240,225 202,161 167,804 142,838 119,601 103,112 653,533 559,287 477,407 350,240 203,917 184,830 129,601 80,262 286,398 263,046 256,259 188,561 79,823 60,005 56,321 41,830 967,990 634,113 625,952 400,120 337,700 263,095 209,354 83,619 2,118,315 1,817,446 1,586,757 605,243 555,327 530,924 507,615 422,335

US

UK

Brazil

Germany

Spain

Tweeting News Articles

Sections Arts Cars Classified Crime Economy Education Entertainment Environment Fashion Health Jobs Lifestyle Local news National Opinion Politics Science Sports Technology Tourism Weather World United States Arts Motor Classified Investigations Business Education Entertainment Environment Fashion Health Jobs Style Metro Country Editorials Washington Science Sports Technology Tourism Weather World United Kingdom Arts Motoring Classified UK crime Economy Education Features Sustainable Beauty Health Jobs Lifeandstyle London Society Comment Westminster Science Sports Technology Travel Weather International Spain Cultura Motor Clasificados Justicia Economa Educacion Entretenimiento Medioambiente Smoda Salud Empleo Estilo Ciudades Nacional Opinin Poltica Ciencia Deportes Tecnologa Elviajero El Tiempo Internacional Brazil Ilustrada Veculos Classificados Policia Dinheiro Educao Acontece Meio-ambiente Moda Sade Emprego Estilo Cotidiano Brasil Opinio Poder Cincia Esporte Informtica Viagem Tempo Mundo Germany Feuilleton Auto Anzeige Gewalt Wirtschaft Studium Panorama Umwelt Mode Gesundheit Beruf Lebensart Gesellschaft Deutschland Kolumnen Politik Wissen Sport Digital Reisen Wetter Welt

Tweets, Mentions, and Retweets

Tweets
El Pas
Folha Periodico
Vanguardia

Retweets

Mentions

El Pas

ABC FT NY Times WSJ

Guardian
Vanguardia
NY Daily News

NY Times
WSJ LA Times
Guardian

NY Daily News

Periodico

FT Globo
Independent

FT
USA Today
Independent

Folha NY Times El Pas

Guardian Telegraph

USA Today

LA Times
Independent

LA Times
Vanguardia

Folha
USA Today Washington Post

Estado

Globo
Telegraph

ABC El Estado Mundo

Telegraph

El Mundo
Washington Post

La Globo Razn
Washingt El on Post Mundo

ABC

Estado

WSJ

Tweets, Mentions, and Retweets

Time series

Time series

Time series

Time series

4
readership

Top users
US Links to articles 0.5% top users 5% top users 10% top users 30% top users 50% top users UK SP BR GE Total 2,8M 994,417 537,606 792,952 394,533 123,191

8%
47% 56% 73% 81%

8%
46% 55% 72% 80%

9%
46% 57% 75% 84%

17%
62% 69% 83% 89%

9%
61% 70% 84% 90%

9%
50% 59% 75% 83%

Readership
Cross-readership inside the country Users Overlapping Percent Users United States 400K 81,638 19% Country Readership across different countries Users Overlapping Percent Users 400K 53,568 13%

United Kingdom
Spain Brazil

250K
370K 110K

43,701
104,199 22,217

17%
28% 20%

250K
370K 110K

52,233
21,353 4,257

20%
6% 4%

Germany

32K

11,394

35%

32K

4,167

13%

Unique users that posted links to more than one newspaper of the same country (left) and to newspapers of another country (right)

Readership in the US
5000

Washington Post USA Today

4500

4000

Sun Times
3500

New York Times

3000

New York Post

2500

2000

New York Daily News

1500

Wall Street Journal

Los Angeles Times

1000

500

0 01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Readership in the UK
3500

Daily Express The Times The Sunday Times Telegraph

3000

2500

2000

Evening Standard
1500

Independent Guardian Financial Times

1000

500

0 01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Readership in Spain
3000

ABC La Voz de Galicia La Vanguardia

2000

2500

La Razon El Periodico El Pais

1000

1500

El Mundo

500

El Correo

0 01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Readership in Brazil
1400

Estado de S.Paulo
1200

Estado de Minas Correio Braziliense

1000

Folha de S.Paulo
800

Jornal do Commercio
600

O Globo Valor Econmico Zero Hora

400

200

0 01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Readership in Germany
350

Frankfurter Allgemeine
300

Frankfurter Rundschau

250

Die Zeit
Financial Times

200

Sddeutschen Zeitung
150

Tagesspiegel Tageszeitung Die Welt

100

50

0 01 Oct 02 Oct 03 Oct 04 Oct 05 Oct 06 Oct 07 Oct 08 Oct 09 Oct 10 Oct 11 Oct 12 Oct 13 Oct 14 Oct

Twitter Clients

Twitter Clients

Twitter Clients BR

Automatic Feeds
Singletons
100% 90%

Feeds

80%
70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Linear Regression Multiple R 0,78 R Square 0,61 Adjusted R Sq. 0,60 Standard Error 0,062 Observations 40

5
circulation

Circulation US
Circulation
30%
26% 26%

Tweets

25%
22% 20% 19% 17%

20%

15%
12%

13%

10%
7% 7% 4% 7% 6% 6% 5% 3%

5%

0%

Wall Street USA Today New York Los Angeles New York Daily News Washington Chicago Journal Times Times Post Post Sun-Times

Circulation UK
Circulation
35%
31%

Tweets

30%
27% 27%

25%

20%

18%

19% 18% 16%

15%
11%

10%

10% 7% 6%

5%
2% 0% 1%

3%

2%

0%

Sunday Times

Daily Telegraph

Daily Express

The Times

Financial Times

Evening Standard

Guardian

The Independent

Circulation Spain
Circulation
40%
38%

Tweets

35%

30%
25%

25%

20%

19%

18%

18% 14% 12% 11% 10% 8% 7% 5% 6% 3% 5%

15%

10%

5%

3%

0%

El Pas

El Mundo

ABC

La El Peridico La Razn Vanguardia

El Correo

La Voz

Circulation Brazil
Circulation
40%
37%

Tweets

35%

30%

28%

25%

23% 21% 21%

23%

20%
15%

15%

10%
6% 5% 2% 1% 5%

5%

4%

3%

4%

2%

0%

Folha de S.Paulo

Estado de S.Paulo

O Globo

Zero Hora

Estado de Minas

Valor Correio Jornal do Econmico Braziliense Commercio

Circulation Germany
Circulation
30%
28% 25%

Tweets

25%

21%

20% 18%

20%
16%

15%
13%

13%

10%
8% 7% 5% 5% 3% 6%

9%

5%
3%

0%

Die Zeit

Sddeutsche Frankfurter Zeitung Allgemeine

Die Welt

Frankfurter Der Rundschau Tagesspiegel

Financial Times

Die Tageszeitung

Twitter News Service Circulation

US
WSJ USA Today NY Times LA Times

-6%

UK
Sunday Times

SP

13% -1% 4%

BR
Folha Estado O Globo Zero Hora

5% 15% 2%

GE
Die Zeit Sddeutsche FAZ

-9% -1% -5% 15%

-27% El Pas El Mundo

-11% Daily Telegraph 9% 6% 10% Daily Express The Times

-16% ABC

-10% Vanguardia -1%

-11% Die Welt

NY Post
Daily News W. Post Sun-Times

-3%
-1% 7% -2%

Financial Times
Evening Standard Guardian Independent

6%
-4% 25% 17%

El Peridico
La Razn El Correo La Voz

-4%
-5% -4% -1%

E. de Minas
Valor C. Braziliense J. Commercio

-5%
-4% -3% 1%

Rundschau

-5%

Tagesspiegel -2% Financial Times 1%

Tageszeitung 6%

6
news sections

News Sections

The organization of news according to news sections is a legacy from print media that both classified information according to topics and ensured that a diverse selection of content was covered.
Topics of news coverage depended on editorial decisions made by newspapers and newspersons that are now affected by audience agency in social media.

News sections

News sections (raw)

News sections
Countrywise distribution of news articles per newspaper section (normalized data)

Bastos M T , and Zago G SAGE Open 2013;3:2158244013502496

Copyright by a Creative Commons Attribution License, unless otherwise noted.

Broadsheet and tabloid

Tabloid newspapers tend to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and TV.

Broadsheet and tabloid

Tabloid newspapers tend to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and TV. Broadsheet newspapers are usually reserved for news outlets with an arguably higher standard of journalism.

Broadsheet and tabloid

Tabloid newspapers tend to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, celebrity gossip and TV. Broadsheet newspapers are usually reserved for news outlets with an arguably higher standard of journalism. Tabloid size is used in the UK by a wide-range of local newspapers and have no relationship with news decisions.

Hard and soft news

Hard news topics include politics, economics, and world news, but can also encompass aspects of law, science, and technology. Soft news topics include the arts, entertainment, sports, lifestyle, and celebrities.

7
content

Twitter

US

Facebook

Twitter

US

Facebook

Twitter

US

Facebook

Twitter

UK

Facebook

Twitter

SP

Facebook

Twitter

BR

Facebook

Twitter

GE

Facebook

Twitter

Facebook

Top topics on Twitter

Top topics on Twitter

Top topics on Facebook

Top topics on Facebook

7
discussion

Nations

National differences are reflected by the particular journalistic cultures and the audience interests.
What national newspapers editors deem to be of public interest vary across countries, and so does the interest of the national publics relative to audience feedback.

Readership

The transition from online to social networking news alters the reading experience because audiences can now access, share, and recommend the content to large communities of users.
As social networks become more widely used, there is likely to be a shift in the paradigm of newsworthiness towards hard news and away from the context of print media and the editorial emphasis on infotainment news.

Social Media

Common to social networks is the prevalence of items about arts, technology, and opinion pieces. Social media users behave differently than the traditional readership of online newspapers, and social networks not usually associated with news (i.e. Pinterest and StumbleUpon) play an important role in distributing information about niche topics to communities of interest.

Newspapers

The proportion of articles per section on social media is at odds with the allocated space for news articles on the online version of the newspaper.
The large volume of news articles about sports and economic published by newspapers fails to actively engage the social media audience. Economy is a domain of news outlets, with nearly all social media platforms streaming fewer articles on economy in comparison to the press coverage.

Newsrooms

Newsrooms need to strike a balance between news that editors understand to be important and news that answers the wishes of their increasingly interactive and demanding readers.
The challenge facing news organizations is to integrate the ecosystem of networked journalism with a diverse and engaging set of news articles.

Sources

What Sticks With Whom? Twitter Follower-Followee Networks and News Classification. AAI ICWSM Technical Report, 2012.
Tweeting News Articles: Readership and News Sections in Europe and the Americas. SAGE Open 3(3), 2013. Visibility of News Items on Twitter and Facebook: Comparative Analysis of the Most Replicated News in Europe and the Americas. Brazilian Journalism Research 9 (1E), 2013. Public Opinion Revisited: The propagation of opinions in digital networks. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 2 (3), 2012.

QUESTIONS?

THE SOCIAL MAKING OF NEWS

The propagation of news on Twitter and Facebook Marco Toledo Bastos mtabastos@hastac.org NSF Postdoctoral fellow HASTAC - Duke University marco.toledobastos.com
New Economic School & Higher School of Economics October 2013, Russia

M. T. Bastos