On our social media feeds, clickbait lures us with emotionally compelling, incomplete or even outright misleading calls to action. News media also use clickbait to drive engagement, but doing so might compromise people’s trust in the news.
New research from UC Davis identified 10 key features of clickbait journalism on social media and compared its use between digital-native news media and legacy news media outlets. The study confirmed that digital-native media outlets are much more likely to use clickbait, and that it really does drive engagement in the form of likes and reposts. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Digital Journalism.
“Prior research has shown that forms of sensationalism, like clickbait, and a perception of fake news and media mistrust are interconnected, and this has societal relevance,” said Salman Khawar, the study’s first author and a doctoral student in communication in the College of Letters and Science.
What is clickbait journalism?
Clickbait journalism is a form of journalism that utilizes sensationalist techniques to lure readers into clicking on links. Clickbait journalism deliberately engages audiences through simplistic, attractive content that appeals to readers’ emotions or curiosity.
This sensationalist approach is no stranger to journalism. In the 19th century, this style of reporting was the fake news of its day.
Khawar and the study’s co-author Mark Boukes, an associate professor of corporate communication at the University of Amsterdam, set out to learn more about clickbait and how it is used by news outlets on Twitter. The study took place before Elon Musk purchased the social platform and rebranded it as X.
To begin, the researchers defined ten features of clickbait journalism on social media:
- Hyperbole: extravagant or exaggerating language, like “amazing,” “greatest,” “best ever,” “mind blowing,” “epic.”
- Forward referencing: aims to create curiosity or an information gap by withholding information. Posts that forward reference might start, “This is why ….”
- Listicles: lists or rankings with concise and easily understood details about a topic; “9 major takeaways…”
- Interrogative structure: presents information in the form of a question
- The overuse of capitalization: “YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE...”
- Emojis: Unicode graphic symbols used to express emotions, ideas and concepts.
- Hashtags: help users to track and follow specific topics and are proven to impact user engagement.
- Informal punctuation: used for emphasis, for instance, “!!!”, “?!?”
- Internet slang: “OMG,” “BFF.”
- Imagery and media: photos, videos or animated GIFS.
Legacy vs. online-native outlets: who clickbaits more?
The study used both manual coding and an automated content analysis to identify sensationalism on Twitter between 2015 and 2021 based on the ten features of clickbait. For digital-native media, they chose BuzzFeed and Huffington Post. The two legacy media outlets were the Los Angeles Times and USA Today.
The study revealed that the digital-native outlets were more than twice as likely to use clickbait compared to the legacy media outlets. More than half (51.8%) of the tweets published by digital-native outlets had at least one clickbait feature. For legacy outlets, this percentage was lower (36.3%).
The most common clickbait feature was imagery and media, which was found in 20% of tweets. Also common were hyperbole (10%), hashtags (8%), questions (6%), forward referencing (4%) and emojis (4%). Entertainment and sports content included more clickbait features than politics-related tweets.
Not all clickbait tactics worked. The use of slang, emojis, interrogative structure (questions), hashtags and media got more likes. Tweets containing slang, informal punctuation, hashtags and all-caps words got more retweets. However, hyperbolic words and phrases, listicles and forward referencing had a negative effect on engagement.
Overall, clickbait generated more likes and retweets than content without these features. Also, a higher number of clickbait features translated into higher engagement. The automated content analysis on a larger dataset of 25,600 tweets confirmed these findings.
The future of journalism in the digital age
It was no surprise to the researcher that digital-native outlets would be more likely to use clickbait than legacy media. However, Khawar said that clickbait journalism may be a movement away from codes of ethics that have guided news media’s commitment to the public good.
While the study did not measure how many readers clicked on the tweets, or test how the content might affect readers’ beliefs about the reliability or truthfulness of media, Khawar said an important takeaway is that the study suggests readers are more vulnerable to clickbait.
“Clickbait journalism is often held responsible for misleading readers, propagating fake news and violating journalistic codes of ethics,” said Khawar. “A successful clickbait headline manages to attract users’ attention, and this is a mechanism that we are trying to explain.”
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