Study Reveals Trends in Social Media News Engagement
A recent study has uncovered an interesting trend regarding the engagement levels of news articles on social media platforms. The research suggests that lower-quality news tends to receive more “likes” and “shares” compared to higher-quality content. Moreover, it was found that platforms with a conservative political leaning tend to host news with lower average quality.
The findings were published by Professor David Rand’s team at Cornell University in the U.S. in a paper titled “Divergent User Reactions to Partisan and Low-Quality News Across Seven Social Media Platforms.” This paper was released in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) on the 30th of last month, local time. The research team analyzed 11 million posts containing news article links from seven different social media platforms over the course of January last year.
Platform Analysis and Political Leanings
The platforms studied were categorized based on their political leanings. Progressive-leaning platforms included Bluesky and Mastodon. Neutral-leaning platforms were X (formerly known as Twitter) and LinkedIn. Conservative-leaning platforms were Truth Social, Gap, and Getter.
The analysis revealed that news quality was significantly lower on conservative-leaning platforms. For instance, Truth Social, which is considered the most politically conservative platform, scored 0.45 on a credibility scale ranging from 0 to 1. Gap and Getter followed with scores of 0.49 and 0.53, respectively. These figures indicate a higher prevalence of low-quality news on these platforms. In contrast, LinkedIn, a neutral-leaning platform, had the highest credibility score of 0.83. This was closely followed by Mastodon with 0.81 and Bluesky with 0.78. X had a credibility score of 0.69.
Engagement Patterns and User Behavior
Across all seven platforms, the study found that posts containing links to low-quality news received higher engagement on average. This means that such posts were more likely to be “liked” and shared frequently. The research team noted that this pattern was observed even on Mastodon, which does not use a ranking algorithm. This implies that the spread of low-quality news is driven more by users’ own preferences rather than by algorithmic recommendations.
Implications for Social Media Users
The researchers also pointed out that as social media platforms continue to evolve and new ones emerge, users are becoming increasingly fragmented. They emphasized that users often migrate to platforms that align with their own political leanings. This trend could have significant implications for how information is disseminated and consumed online.
Key Findings Summary
- News Quality and Platform Politics: Lower-quality news is more prevalent on conservative-leaning platforms.
- Engagement Metrics: Posts with low-quality news tend to receive more likes and shares.
- Algorithm Influence: Even on platforms without ranking algorithms, low-quality news spreads due to user preferences.
- User Fragmentation: As new platforms emerge, users tend to gravitate toward those that reflect their political views.
This study highlights the complex interplay between news quality, platform politics, and user behavior on social media. It underscores the importance of understanding how different platforms influence the spread of information and the need for continued research into the impact of social media on public discourse.