Understanding news-sharing across different platforms: the effects of newsworthiness and gratifications from news-sharing

Introduction

The traditional distribution of news content has been systematically controlled by professional journalists and editors who organize items by newsworthiness and has been hierarchically disseminated by public media sources such as official news outlets. However, as social networking sites play a major role in personal media channels, anyone can easily share and retransmit news, thereby acting as news propagators. Individuals selectively accept news from diverse channels, instead of obtaining information from official news outlets (García-Perdomo et al., 2018; Kümpel et al., 2015). In other words, as information spreads on social media, the influence of credible journalists and editors weakens, and therefore the quality of information cannot be guaranteed (Spyridou et al., 2013). In this regard, the dissemination of unconfirmed disinformation or fake news via social networking sites constitutes a serious problem.

In fact, as political and commercial purposes have been added, the distribution of disinformation has become a malicious activity, deliberately deceiving consumers. In particular, during the US presidential election in 2016, more fake news was shared on Facebook than mainstream news (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017), and 60% of the news shared on Facebook during the Brazil impeachment controversy in 2016 turned out to be false, according to a 2016 report from BBC Brazil (Ricardo, 2016). Since fake news is emerging as a serious problem that disturbs public trust all over the world, it is necessary to understand the reason why it looms, especially on social networking sites compared with news aggregators.

As news sharing by consumers has become common on social networking sites, many studies have been conducted to analyse the reason for the increase in news sharing on social media. According to Sundar (2008), users feel a sense of agency and want to become opinion leaders on social networking sites to establish their identity. Kümpel. et al., (2015) presented three motivational factors to predict news sharing on social media: self-serving motives (e.g., personal reputation, entertainment), altruistic motives (e.g., information sharing, information seeking), and social motives (e.g., socialising, obtaining social approval). Lee and Ma (2012) also investigated news sharing and found that information seeking, socialising, entertainment, and status seeking were the main motives underlying sharing. In addition, in a study examining predictors of news dissemination on social media, both reception of news and friending or liking a journalist or news organization proved to be highly predictive (Weeks and Holbert, 2013).

Even though existing research suggests there are external motivational factors that encourage people to share news on social media, there remains a need to examine the news content itself while considering its intrinsic attributes. According to Eilders (2006), users mainly consume news with high news value. The value of news has long been considered a useful criterion for news publishing and to determine news characteristics. In this way, it is crucial to explore how consumers perceive news value, understand internal attributes of news, and determine which news they want to share, to understand news sharing across different platforms.

Addressing news consumption in South Korea specifically, the influence of news aggregators is much greater than in other countries, where original media channels have high subscription rates (Kim and Johnson, 2009). Therefore, media organizations and consumers tend to be dependent on news aggregators, which leads to differences in the structure of news distribution between Korea and other countries. However, differences in news-sharing behaviour between channels (e.g., aggregators vs. social networking sites) have not yet been studied extensively (Kalsnes and Larsson, 2018). With respect to different news distribution channels, identifying motivators underlying news-sharing behaviour is important as it enhances understanding of how different channels affect users’ news-sharing activities. In this study, we focus on South Korea, where the majority of people use news aggregators and social networking sites as their main channels for consuming the news (Newman, 2016). Therefore, we investigate two of the most popular social media platforms for sharing news, Naver and Facebook.

In this paper, we integrally investigate news-sharing motives by considering the traditional newsworthiness (Shoemaker et al., 1991) and contemporary value of gratification among social media users (Lee and Ma, 2012; Park et al., 2009) together. Our study is based on previous uses and gratification-related research (Lee and Ma, 2012) and provides an integrated framework of news-sharing on social media, drawing on news value theory as well as uses and gratifications theory. Through the integration of these two main theories, we show when users share news, which values (i.e., newsworthiness and gratifications of news-sharing) are stronger motivations for sharing, depending on the news channels used. The present study aims to investigate the following research question: how does news sharing differ on different news channels (Facebook and the news aggregator, Naver) in terms of newsworthiness and news-sharing gratifications?

Literature review and hypotheses

Newsworthiness

The value of news is used as a guide by journalists, who decide which aspects of events are worth reporting on and which aspects are not newsworthy. The value of news has been constantly discussed from the era of print news to the current era of digital news. News value theory provides promising clues to identify which news factors readers might be most interested in. The roots of news value theory can be found in Lippmann (1922), who first described news value as a journalistic property to determine the probability that an item would be news. Later, Galtung and Ruge (1965), Schulz (1982), Shoemaker (1996), and McQuail (2002) re-conceptualised news factors. These news factors vary depending on the authors but most of them commonly include the event’s proximity (the psychological distance readers feel about events when they are geographically close), social influence (impact of events on the target audience), and unexpectedness (unusual, unpredictable, controversial, or novel events) (Galtung and Ruge, 1965; McQuail, 2002; Schulz, 1982; Shoemaker, 1996).

Today, news consumers can selectively share news through social media as if they were news curators. As the boundaries between news producers and consumers become blurred in social networking sites, users who are not journalists increasingly share news according to the values created within social networks. In social networking sites, trust in acquaintances who provide news could be an important factor affecting news shareability (Yang, 2007). Knowing that news value is influenced by social networks, we selected operational user-oriented factors that are easily rendered meaningful by social media users, including social significance and relevance to the audience (Harcup and O'Neill, 2001; Shoemaker, 1996; Shoemaker and Cohen, 2012).

The first factor that we considered is social significance, which implies that news items have social impact (Shoemaker, 1996). This perspective assumes that the social wave of an event must exceed a certain degree of influence before it is worth reporting (Galtung and Ruge, 1965). In this study, we assumed that the more important the news is, the more likely it is to be shared on social media. Second, relevance to the audience is a concept related to meaningful events that can prompt communication among users. This value is cited as the main concept of value for online news, which transcends spatial barriers and is involved in events that are perceived as physically, psychologically, and culturally relevant (Harcup and O'Neill, 2001). In this study, we assume that news that is more relevant to users is more likely to be shared on social media. Thus, the following hypotheses were posited:

H1. Social significance has a positive effect on intention to share.
H2. Audience relevance has a positive effect on intention to share.

Gratifications of news sharing

Uses and gratifications theory explains the social and psychological needs of individuals who actively select and use media to gratify their wants (Blumler and Katz, 1974; Katz et al., 1973). This theory assumes that media users are aware of their motivations for selecting various media options and are engaged in media selection. According to this theory, the act of selectively subscribing to news and sharing news with others is associated with active media users. The theory has also been applied in many recent studies of social media and information management (e.g., Hsu et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2018).

In this study, motivations for information seeking, socialising, status seeking, and human interest were explored as gratifications pursuant to news-sharing in the social media community of Facebook as proposed by Lee and Ma (2012). In addition, social media users are considered both news adopters and secondary distributors of information through sharing activities, because social media users share news first from the news aggregators and secondarily on social networking sites. Therefore, four factors of gratification related to social media were selected to determine whether they affect intention to share news in the contexts of both news aggregators and social networking sites.

Information seeking

Information seeking is the pursuit of information for real-time acquisition and grasp of social trends, which provides users with timely information (Lee and Ma, 2012). According to previous studies of uses and gratifications in social media, this motivation was recognised when consumers utilise the Web to obtain training and information (Papacharissi and de Fatima Oliveira, 2012; Whiting and Williams, 2013), similar to self-education. When engaging in the Internet news environment, information seeking seems to encourage the sharing of helpful information with others. Thus, we present the following hypothesis:

H3. Information seeking has a positive effect on intention to share.

Socialising

Socialising refers to the social desire to maintain intimate relationships with others, and usually supports social engagement (Baek et al., 2011). Park et al., (2009) found that individuals in Facebook groups seeking to satisfy socialising demands generally enjoy communicating with others and pursuing a sense of belonging and community. In that regard, it is predictable that social media users seeking socialisation are likely to post news links and share information to interact and connect with others. Thus, we state the following hypothesis:

H4. Socialising has a positive effect on the intention to share.

Status seeking

Status seeking describes the motivation for people to share information on social media to improve their fame and social reputation. In previous studies, status seeking was extensively addressed in the context of motivations for knowledge sharing (such as contributions to Wikipedia) and knowledge collaboration (such as sharing the work of open source software developers) (Rafaeli and Ariel, 2008; Faraj et al., 2011). In social media, status is related to feelings of being popular and enhanced self-esteem (Lee and Ma, 2012). Therefore, by sharing news information and participating actively in online communication, users may experience improved self-esteem and respect from peers. Hence, we state the following hypothesis:

H5. Status seeking has a positive effect on intention to share.

Entertainment

Entertainment refers to the use of social media for the purposes of passing time, relieving boredom, relaxing, and being entertained. It has been demonstrated to be one of the main factors determining participation on social networking sites in previous studies (Park et al., 2009; Smock et al., 2011; Whiting and Williams, 2013). Entertainment is closely related to escapism because it is pleasurable, hedonic, satisfying, and enjoyable (Lee and Ma, 2012). Entertainment is defined as the use of social media to alleviate everyday stress. For similar reasons, we consider entertainment to be one of the major motivations for sharing news on social media and present the following hypothesis:

H6. Entertainment has a positive effect on intention to share.

Intention to share and sharing behaviour

The theory of reasoned action is a well-researched model from social psychology, which explains intended behaviour in various domains. According to the theory, the performance of a particular behaviour by an individual is determined by the intention of the person to perform the action. This model explains the relationships between attitude, subjective norms, behaviour, and intentions (Davis et al., 1989; Madden et al., 1992). Here, we extend the model in the context of news sharing. Due to its flexibility in diverse studies of behavioural intentions, the model has been used to examine intention to share and goals of knowledge sharing (Chow and Chan, 2008; Kolekofski and Heminger, 2003). The two main components of the model are used in this study, and we therefore present the following hypothesis:

H7. Intention to share has a positive effect on sharing behaviour.

Inattention to news credibility

Inattention to news credibility refers to the degree to which news consumers are indifferent to the reliability of the news, including its journalistic truth and source. Past research on inattention has focused on selective human behaviour in situations involving the economics of information acquisition. In particular, Sims (2003) demonstrated that news consumers have a tendency to become inattentive when the cost of time, effort, and psychological toll are greater than the benefits of collecting and processing information for decision making, and referred to this phenomenon as rational inattention.

Individuals typically display limited rationality and must decide how much they care about various pieces of information, because it is impossible to process and identify information about all potential alternatives when making decisions. Therefore, humans are naturally indifferent to much of the information available to them (Caplin and Dean, 2015). In the case of news-sharing in social media, inattention could refer to indifferent feelings about news sources, authenticity, and need for information verification. By consuming news from various channels online, trust in acquaintances who provide news may replace trust in news itself because users have become rationally inattentive to its credibility. Hence, we present the following hypothesis:

H8. Inattention to news credibility is mediated when the intention to share affects sharing behaviour.

We developed a research model as shown in Figure 1, based on our hypotheses.

Moderate variable

According to a study by the Pew Research Center (Anderson and Jiang, 2018), about 71% of US younger Americans (ages 18 to 24) have used more than one platform such as Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Similar trends have been observed in South Korea, which has the highest Internet penetration in the world, increased use of social media on mobile phones, and easy management of access to multiple accounts (Nic et al., 2018). Likewise, in recent years, social media users have been able to exploit information and manage diverse relationships by taking advantage of differences across platforms without being limited to any particular social media platform (Madianou, 2014; Tandoc et al., 2018). Therefore, in this study we tried to understand how differences in how social media platform users engage in news-sharing behaviour by reflecting upon the poly-social-media context (e.g., Boczkowski et al., 2018; Tandoc et al., 2018).

For comparisons of the same variables between two media channels (i.e., Facebook and Naver), the same questionnaire was used to determine the differences between sharing news from social networking sites and sharing news from news aggregators. However, the experiment materials (i.e., article) were formatted differently. To satisfy external validity of the experiment, two types of articles were designed to resemble real news items on Facebook and Naver. The content of the news article focused on the issue of school violence. When respondents participate in the online experiment, they were guided under the assumption that they would share the given news materials. To compare effects associated with the two channels, the same questionnaire was performed twice in the circumstance of sharing news at Facebook and Naver. To examine intent to share with others, we explicitly excluded the option of only me sharing on Facebook.

H9a. The effect of gratification from social media on the intention to share through social networking site channels is more positive than that for a news aggregator channel.
H9b. The effect of news values on the intention to share through a news aggregator is more positive than that for an social networking site channel.

Results

Data collection and sample characteristics

Data for the present study were collected through an online survey of adults in South Korea. Respondents were recruited from the online panels established by a professional polling organization, Data Spring. The composition of the sample was designed to reflect South Korean census variables (sex and age) for an accurate representation of the South Korean population. The respondent characteristics are summarised in Table 1.

The respondent pool included a total of 303 social media users between the ages of 20 and 54 (mean = 39.35, standard deviation = 9.48). All participants were obliged to read the proposed news item and were assigned a with-in group experimental survey (i.e., to share news from a social networking site vs. from a news aggregator). Appendix Table 1 describes the variables and measurement items used in the current study.

Estimation results

Prior to reviewing the research hypothesis, we examined how closely the measurement items were correlated. The reliability coefficients for each measurement items were calculated using SPSS Statistics 23. Using the criteria for reliability of the individual items and the fit indices, the acceptability of the measurement model was evaluated. All constructs achieved scores greater than the recommended value of 0.7 for Cronbach’s α. In this study, all average variances extracted were above the required value of 0.5 (Chin, 1998), as shown in Table 2.

After evaluating reliability and validity, the overall fit of the research model was tested. The results of the present study model were satisfying as the model fit acceptance criteria with better model fit indexes including a higher comparative fit index, lower root mean square error of approximation, and incremental fit index (Table 3). To summarise the results of the model comparison, we considered sharing news from social networking sites and from news aggregators to be derived from distinctive motivations.

Results for hypotheses H1-H8 are described in Figure 2. IBM AMOS 23 was used for hypothesis tests. As a result, social significance, audience relevance, information seeking, and status seeking were found to positively and significantly affect intention to share news from social networking sites, which supports H1, H2, H3, and H5. This implies that Facebook users share news because they think news is newsworthy and provides gratification in social media. These results support the findings of previous studies showing that newsworthiness affects news use (Holton, et al, 2013). However, the hypotheses that socialising and entertainment affect intention to share were not supported, so H4 and H6 were rejected. Also, H7, which notes that intention affects sharing behaviour, was statistically significant and supported. Table 4 shows the results of analysis of the news-sharing model on social networking sites.

On the other hand, the variables of social significance, information seeking, and socialising were found to positively and significantly affect intention to share on a news aggregator, which supports H1, H3, and H4. This implies that news aggregator users share news because they think it is newsworthy and provides gratification on social media as well as on social networking sites. These results support the findings of previous studies showing that gratifications in social media affect news sharing (Lee and Ma, 2012). However, the hypotheses that audience relevance, status seeking and entertainment will affect intention to share were not supported, so H2, H5, and H6 were rejected. These results are compatible with previous research showing that audience relevance, status seeking and entertainment have a positive impact on news sharing. The hypothesis that intention affects sharing was statistically significant and thus H7 was supported. (Note that in studies using a structural equation model where there are many variables, it is usual to accept a p value of 0.1 as significant.) Table 4 shows the results for the news-sharing model on news aggregators.

To address H9a and H9b, we specified a pairwise parameter comparison between news watching on social networking sites and news aggregators. Results for the moderating effects are shown in Table 5. When a news diffusion channel is used as the moderator, the effects of social significance on the intention to share and the effect of information seeking on the intention to share are all significant for both social networking sites and news aggregators. However, pairwise parameter comparison by group showed that only the effects of information seeking and status seeking were significantly different between the two groups. For information seeking, the differences between the social networking site group and the news aggregator group were found to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level (t = 2.121). This means that people intend to share more news for the purpose of seeking information from news aggregators than social networking sites. For status seeking, the differences between the social networking site group and the news aggregator group were found to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level (t = -1.913). This means that people intend to share more news for the purpose of seeking status from social networking site than news aggregators. Therefore, H9a and H9b are supported.

Although there are no significant differences between groups, the effect of audience relevance on intention to share was significant only for the social networking site group (p < 0.1). Otherwise, the effect of socialising on intention to share appeared significant only for the news aggregator group (p < 0.05). To verify H8, we examined how inattention to news credibility affected sharing behaviour and noted a significant partial mediation effect only in the news aggregator group. That is, news aggregator users are less sensitive to facts about news than social networking site users. So, H8 is partially supported to the news aggregator group.

Discussion

In this study, we focused on two different types of prominent news channels (i.e., social networking sites and news aggregators) and investigated the motivational aspects of information sharing based on newsworthiness and gratification in social media. In general, news sharing may result from different kinds of motivations and inattention to news credibility.

In interpreting our findings, status seeking is notably the strongest motivation that prompts news sharing when consuming news from social networking sites. This indicates that status seeking is indeed a core stimulus that distinguishes news sharing at social networking sites. This finding corroborates the thought that news sharing has become a reputation-enhancing activity (Lee and Ma, 2012; Vosoughi et al., 2018) due to the advent of the networked attention economy (Davenport and Beck, 2002; Jansen et al., 2009). We also found that information seeking was a significant predictor only for news sharing through news aggregators. The emergence of news aggregators, which provide search and community features has increased interest in exchanging information and information seeking. In particular, seeking information through news aggregators puts weight on both searching for new information and grasping the latest trends from discussions about issues. That is, information seeking implies that users wish to understand the information currently distributed and the information that others are interested in (Turcotte et al., 2015).

Social significance also plays an interesting role in driving news sharing. Social significance was the highest motivation related to news-sharing for the social networking site group (followed by status seeking). This may reflect the reality that users are likely to recognise the social importance and seriousness of issues based on others’ likes or favourite tags on social networking sites (Lee, 2014). These newly revealed connections between status seeking and social significance on social networking siteextend the discussion about news consumption on social media.

The relationships between different types of media channels and news-sharing motivations are also worth noting. Most news consumers in South Korea use portals (news aggregators) to access news, however, overall trust in news (25%) was the lowest, and trust in news on social media (19%) was lower among a sample of thirty-seven countries (Nic et al., 2018). As the reliability of news and media is so low, it can be inferred that differences in trust among users of news aggregators and social media are less significant in South Korea than in other countries. Therefore, it is possible to compare news aggregators and social networking sites as a moderator in the situation of South Korea.

As we hypothesised, news aggregators were positively associated with information seeking motives, and social media was positively associated with status seeking. Moreover, the findings showed that users who obtained news from an aggregator perceived its journalistic truth to be greater than users who obtained news from social networking sites. This corroborates the results of previous research, which found that machine heuristics occurs when people were exposed to machine-generated content rather than information provided by human agents (Sundar, 2008; Westerman et al., 2012). These machine heuristics affects the credibility of information (Sundar, 2008). Given these findings, the perception of reliability of aggregators may play a positive role in boosting news-sharing in conjunction with objective, systematic news aggregation. Thus, news aggregators are likely to function as verified news sources.

Overall, this study has a substantial implication, especially for professional media practitioners. Social media are important channels for news-sharing for viral marketers, as many news media companies have recently tried to attract more subscribers using social networking sites. To make viral news appropriate for social media, most media companies launch multiple accounts of official Facebook pages, Instagram, and Twitter feeds, and communicate with their subscribers on various channels (Emmett, 2008). For media companies, this study provides detailed information regarding the factors that drive news-sharing on different platforms and comprises a guide for establishing better electronic word of mouth and viral marketing strategies. For example, the findings of the study indicate that users who share news from social networking sites are not likely to socialise through their news posting activities but are more likely to seek status. Therefore, if the purpose of a media company is to increase participation in social networking sites, including increasing sharing and retransmitting of news content, they will need to meet the needs of users seeking status.

Theoretically, this study contributes to the development of further research. First, this study provides a more inclusive understanding of the current news environment by examining two types of predictors of news-sharing motivation. We focused on these two types of news-sharing motivations based on previous research about the newsworthiness and gratifications in social media (Lee and Ma, 2012; Schwarz, 2006). Discussions about shared news may also be another interesting dimension because users tend to trust shared content, and such content is recognised as more socially important due to trust in acquaintances. In other words, this study identified a need for checking the distribution channels of news articles by revealing that personal sharing could have greater impact than previously thought.

Conclusion

In summary, this study provides valuable information to understand the nature of users’ news experiences in the current media environment. Our findings allow us to understand why some people actively participate in news-sharing or endorse behaviour from specific news channels. This study also highlights the broader state of the online news media environment. It has often been pointed out that traditional systems of news production and distribution are changing. The findings of this study constitute a clear understanding of the connotations of news-sharing and provide a fundamental understanding of news dissemination on various types of channels.

However, limitations also exist. First, we only examined news dissemination through two channels (Facebook and Naver) without considering additional channels. Second, there may be other meaningful news-sharing motivations that were not considered in this study. For example, news type may be another important factor, as social networking sites allow users to read a variety of news through video or infographic images (Borges-Rey, 2015). Third, a convergent study of users’ psychological perceptions of using different media channels could be considered, as an integrated study of differences in perception between channels. Further studies are therefore needed to reveal the nature of the media sectors, identified by media channels, for a better understanding of the rapidly changing news media environment.

About the authors

Inyoung Park is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Interaction Science at Sungkyunkwan University. Her research interests include computer-mediated communication and behavioural effects of media technologies. She can be contacted at imfo21c@gmail.com.
Daeho Lee is the corresponding author for this paper. He received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the School of Electrical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 2001, and his Ph.D. in economics from the Technology Management, Economics and Policy Program, Seoul National University in 2011. He is now an associate professor at the Department of Interaction Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea. His research interests include the adoption of new information and communication technology products and services, government policies in the area of information and communication technology, and consumer behaviour in online. His e-mail address is daeho.lee@skku.edu.

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Appendices