The spiral of communication: Big data analysis on the online news title and audience reception in China
Author(s)
Date Issued
2016
Conference
Citation
Wang, D., & Agustin, K. J. (2016 Jul 27-31). The spiral of communication: Big data analysis on the online news title and audience reception in China. 2016 Annual IAMCR Conference, Leicester, United Kingdom.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
The function of the news title is to convey reductive information to audience for making judgement on whether they would like to continue consuming this piece of news. This is the first step for information diffusion. The communication of information, which is to send, receive, resend, receive again, resend again, and so on, is a process that has been referred to as spiral. It’s often assumed that quality and quantity of words impact how effectively the information is diffused or, in another word, spiraled. Our panel aims to draw upon a plurality of perspectives to study the power of news title in the process of news spiral. We attempted to understand how different dissections of news titles could actually elicit the maximum attention from the readers, triggering their following behavioral and cognitive patterns.
This panel session will provide salient insights into the big data analysis of over 80,000 news entries from Toutiao.com news aggregator. It is the first time in China that scholars analyze news upon which are with direct audience reaction information as well as the first time communication scholars collaborate with machine learning in terms of coding. A multi-dimensional conceptualization of the news title is adopted which helps us to draw a clear picture on news values of online journalism in China today. Some papers not only have theoretical breakthrough but also methodological. For instance, to challenge the validity and accuracy issues the binary definition arises, the paper on news type operationalizes soft-hard news on ordinal scales.
Headline Writing: Length, Type, Picture, Punctuation
In order to examine the “power” of the news headline, four of our panel papers chose different attributions of the headline writings to be their independent variables which are supported by literature concerned with journalistic writing and values. Two of our papers discuss how the news title length affect users’ read and relay behavior providing novel perspectives in terms of the conceptualization process as well as skills of reaching acceptable inter-coder reliability. Another two papers are concerned with how the inclusion of either pictures or punctuation mark influences audience receptions. Both papers start from social psychology approach as both picture and punctuation mark are embedded with journalists’ emotions.
Audience Receptions: Read Rate, Like, Dislike and Relay
All papers’ dependent variables are different reactions of audience. Given the distinctive nature of this data set, our panel researchers are able to evaluate audience’s direct reactions of the same news title they are looking at. This could be considered as a historical breakthrough in journalism audience studies, in regard to the validity of analytical results. The understanding of audience’s difference reactions toward different news headlines not only helps us interpret how information spiraled but also makes contributions to (public-oriented) journalism writing education.
This panel session will provide salient insights into the big data analysis of over 80,000 news entries from Toutiao.com news aggregator. It is the first time in China that scholars analyze news upon which are with direct audience reaction information as well as the first time communication scholars collaborate with machine learning in terms of coding. A multi-dimensional conceptualization of the news title is adopted which helps us to draw a clear picture on news values of online journalism in China today. Some papers not only have theoretical breakthrough but also methodological. For instance, to challenge the validity and accuracy issues the binary definition arises, the paper on news type operationalizes soft-hard news on ordinal scales.
Headline Writing: Length, Type, Picture, Punctuation
In order to examine the “power” of the news headline, four of our panel papers chose different attributions of the headline writings to be their independent variables which are supported by literature concerned with journalistic writing and values. Two of our papers discuss how the news title length affect users’ read and relay behavior providing novel perspectives in terms of the conceptualization process as well as skills of reaching acceptable inter-coder reliability. Another two papers are concerned with how the inclusion of either pictures or punctuation mark influences audience receptions. Both papers start from social psychology approach as both picture and punctuation mark are embedded with journalists’ emotions.
Audience Receptions: Read Rate, Like, Dislike and Relay
All papers’ dependent variables are different reactions of audience. Given the distinctive nature of this data set, our panel researchers are able to evaluate audience’s direct reactions of the same news title they are looking at. This could be considered as a historical breakthrough in journalism audience studies, in regard to the validity of analytical results. The understanding of audience’s difference reactions toward different news headlines not only helps us interpret how information spiraled but also makes contributions to (public-oriented) journalism writing education.
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