TY - GEN
T1 - The Impact of Social vs. Non-Social Referral Sources on Online News Consumption
AU - Bar-Gill, Sagit
AU - Inbar, Yael
AU - Reichman, Shachar
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - As news consumption shifts online, referring channels assume a growing role in the market for online news, creating new challenges and opportunities for news organizations. This research combines field and lab experiments, and analysis of large-scale clickstream data, to study the effects of social versus non-social referral sources on news consumption on a news outlet’s website. We propose that referring channels create a new type of priming effect, denoted the referral effect, as unique features of the referring channel affect user behavior in a subsequent news visit. We find that social referral effects manifest as more focused reading – visits with fewer articles, shorter durations, yet higher reading completion rates - compared to non-social referrals. We further find lower sharing rates following social media referrals, likely due to a lower perceived novelty to peers of content discovered via social channels. The results provide insights applicable to news outlets’ social media strategies.
AB - As news consumption shifts online, referring channels assume a growing role in the market for online news, creating new challenges and opportunities for news organizations. This research combines field and lab experiments, and analysis of large-scale clickstream data, to study the effects of social versus non-social referral sources on news consumption on a news outlet’s website. We propose that referring channels create a new type of priming effect, denoted the referral effect, as unique features of the referring channel affect user behavior in a subsequent news visit. We find that social referral effects manifest as more focused reading – visits with fewer articles, shorter durations, yet higher reading completion rates - compared to non-social referrals. We further find lower sharing rates following social media referrals, likely due to a lower perceived novelty to peers of content discovered via social channels. The results provide insights applicable to news outlets’ social media strategies.
KW - Field experiment
KW - Online News Consumption
KW - Social media
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85101728195&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontobookanthology.conference???
AN - SCOPUS:85101728195
SN - 9780996683159
T3 - ICIS 2017: Transforming Society with Digital Innovation
BT - ICIS 2017
PB - Association for Information Systems
T2 - 38th International Conference on Information Systems: Transforming Society with Digital Innovation, ICIS 2017
Y2 - 10 December 2017 through 13 December 2017
ER -