Clicks and comments as expressions of the dilemma of users’ news interests: the case of the Spanish-language social news aggregator, Menéame

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1429

Keywords:

users; clicks; comments; hard news; soft news

Abstract

Introduction. The study aims to analyse the diversity of the interests of users of social networks by identifying what kind of information audiences visit and what kind of news they comment on. To this end, the activity of the users of the most successful Spanish-language news aggregator, the Menéame social network, was investigated, by examining audience behaviour with respect to the content published on the network. Methodology. The research was carried out using a sample of 3,720 news items randomly selected from a total of 51,520 items published on the front page of Menéame throughout more than five years (2010-2015). The number of visits and comments that each item received was analysed, and the two variables, clicks and comments, were related to the type of content and its thematic categories. Results. The results show that there is a clear opposition between clicks and comments in terms of content types, with two main trends with respect to hard and soft news items. On the one hand, on average the latter receive almost 4,000 visits more than hard items, which on average receive around 5,500 clicks. However, hard news tends to provoke a greater amount of comments than soft news. The average for the former is 66 comments, while soft news receives 10 less (55.7). Discussion and conclusions. Data suggest that clicks and comments express two main interests of users in front of news and that they are both opposing and complementary.

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Author Biographies

Begoña Zalbidea Bengoa, University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Spain

She holds degrees in Information Sciences and Law, and a PhD in Journalism for which she won an Extraordinary Doctoral Prize. She is a Professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Before dedicating herself to teaching, she worked as a journalist for different mass media. Between 2007 and 2011, she edited Zer. Revista Científica de Comunicación Social. At present she is a member of its Editorial Board. She is also a member of the Scientific Committees of Comunicació. Revista de recerca i d'anàlisi and Fonseca. Her research and teaching activity (degree, postgraduate and master’s courses) has basically been focused on the ethics and deontology of professionals and the media, content analysis, journalistic specialisation and the history of journalism. She has been a visiting lecturer at different Latin American universities, where she taught on master’s courses and training courses aimed at teachers and professionals of communication. As well as being the Director of the Journalism Department, she is a member of the Postgraduate Committee of the UPV/EHU. She is also a member of the Board and Permanent Committee of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication. She directs the Ethics and Information research group. In addition to her participation in other projects, she is the principal researcher of three projects funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, and of a fourth project funded by the UPV/EHU. Her work of scientific divulgation.

Santiago Urrutia, University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Spain

Degree in Political Sciences and Sociology from the University of Deusto (1983) and PhD from the University of the Basque Country (1999). He has been head of the Master in Multimedia Communication UPV/EHU-EITB, and he continues to form part of the Board of Directors of this Master. His teaching activity is mainly focused on Methods of Research in Communication. He has been a visiting research fellow at the Universities of Reno and Glasgow. His main areas of investigation are: 1) Communication and Journalism in European Minority Languages; 2) Media Ethics and, especially, the analysis of visual representations of sex and violence. With respect to the first area, he is a former member of the 'European Minority Language Media and Journalism Research Group', directed by Professor Iñaki Zabaleta. Regarding the second area, he is now in the group Ethics and Information Excellence, directed by Professor Begoña Zalbidea. He has collaborated on some 50 communications presented at national and international conferences and on 25 articles and book chapters published in journals and other publications. He has one research sexennium recognised by the CNEAI.

Idoia Camacho-Markina, University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Spain

She is currently the Vice-Dean of Communication and Foreign Relations of the Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences of the University of the Basque Country (Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea – UPV/EHU). She has a Degree (1996) and a PhD (2002) in Information Sciences from the UPV/EHU, and she is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences of this university. She was in charge of the Doctoral Program in Social Communication (2009-2017) and edited the scientific journal ZER. Revista de Estudios de Comunicación (2014-2018). She has two sexennia recognised by the CNEAI. She is a member of the research group Ética, Información y Ciudadanía (GEIC – Ethics, Information and Citizenship), which is carrying out the research project “Reacciones desde la ética ciudadana en la red social ‘Menéame’ ante los contenidos de los medios de comunicación convencionales y sociales en España” (Reactions from citizen ethics on the ‘Menéame’ social network to the content of the conventional and social media in Spain), funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government. Since December 2006 she has participated uninterruptedly in funded research projects, in one of which she was head researcher: “La información de salud en la prensa diaria vasca” (Health information in the Basque daily press). She is directing three doctoral theses and is the author of the book Formación de portavoces: Cómo conseguir una comunicación efectiva ante los medios y otros públicos (Training spokespersons: how to achieve effective communication with the media and other publics) and of publications on how diverse health issues are treated in the press, the educational function of the mass media, and press offices in the local administration, amongst others.

José María Pastor González, University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Spain

Journalism Department. University of the Basque Country/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. Spain.

Jose Mari Pastor González is a Professor in the Journalism Department of the Faculty of Social and Communication Sciences of the University of the Basque Country (Universidad del País Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea – UPV/EHU). He has a Degree in Journalism from the same faculty; he received a PhD from the UPV/EHU for the thesis La Información política vasca en el informativo Gaur Egun de ETB (Televisión Vasca) (Basque political news on the Gaur Egun news program of ETB [Basque Television]). He has worked at the University of the Basque Country since 2007, where he teaches News Writing in the Press, and Interpretative Genres. In the last five years he has participated in four research projects and has published articles in diverse social and communication studies journals. He is currently a member of the consolidated research group Ética, Información y Ciudadanía (GEIC – Ethics, Information and Citizenship). Pastor began his career in the mass media in 1981, working on the journal Anaitasuna and subsequently on the supplement Egunon of the newspaper Egin. He worked for Euskal Telebista, (1985-1986 and 1988-1991)) and for Euskaldunon Egunkaria and Berria, the only newspapers published in the Basque language, until 2007. As international editor of the latter newspaper, he travelled to Northern Ireland, Algeria, Western Sahara, Iraq, Serbia, Montenegro, Israel and Palestine, amongst other places. He has also won the Rikardo Arregi prize for journalism in 2004, the Argia Press prize that same year in recognition of his work for the international section of Berria and, finally, the Joan Cendrós prize (2006) for his news coverage of the Catalan elections that same year.

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Published

2020-02-26

How to Cite

Zalbidea Bengoa, B. ., Urrutia, S. ., Camacho-Markina, I. ., & Pastor González, J. M. . (2020). Clicks and comments as expressions of the dilemma of users’ news interests: the case of the Spanish-language social news aggregator, Menéame. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, (75), 327–339. https://doi.org/10.4185/RLCS-2020-1429

Issue

No. 75 (2020)

Section

Miscellaneous
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