the future of headlines? you'll never believe how people reacted to clickbait
TRANSCRIPT
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Joshua M. Scacco, PhD (@joshscacco)Assistant Professor, Purdue University
Faculty Research Associate, Engaging News Project
The Future of Headlines? You’ll Never Believe How People Reacted to
Clickbait
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ENGAGING NEWS PROJECT
To provide research-based techniques for engaging online audiences in
commercially viable and democratically beneficial ways.
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CLICKBAIT
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TRADITIONAL NEWS HEADLINES
● Overview of the main idea in an inverted pyramid-structured news story
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FORWARD-REFERENCE HEADLINES
● Create more uncertainty about information in a story compared to traditional headlines
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QUESTION-BASED HEADLINES
● Designed to create uncertainty by posing a question about information contained in a news story
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YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT WE FOUND!
•Question-based headlines lead to more negativity from audience.
•Forward-reference headlines do not lead to different reactions.
•Types of headlines and policy issues should be paired carefully.
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OUTCOME: REACTIONS
● Headline Reactions: (Un)civil, (Un)trustworthy, (Non)partisan, (Un)informative, boring/entertaining, (In)appropriate, confusing/clear, silly/serious, (Not) credible
● Result: Compared to traditional headlines, people had slightly more negative reactions toward the question-based headline.
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OUTCOME: EXPECTATIONS
● Article Expectations: Do you expect the article following this headline to be…(Un)civil, (Un)trustworthy, (Non)partisan, (Un)informative, boring/entertaining, (In)appropriate, confusing/clear?
● Result: Slightly more negative expectations of the news articles that would follow question-based headlines compared to articles that would follow traditional headlines.
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OUTCOME: ENGAGEMENT
● News Engagement: How likely would you be to…read the article, “Like” or “Favorite” the article via a social media site, comment in the comment section, talk to someone about the article, or pay a small fee for the article?
● Result: Question-based headlines slightly decreased anticipated engagement with the news.
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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
1. People responded more positively overall to traditional headlines compared to question-based headlines.
2. Forward-reference headlines did not change opinions relative to traditional news headlines.
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HEADLINES PAIRED WITH POLICY ISSUES
To explore whether the effects of the headlines were influenced by the topic of the headline, we tested the headline types across three different topics:
- Immigration policy
- The economy
- The U.S. Congress
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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
When the question headline was matched with Congress – which was the most negatively received topic in our study – the combination led to the most negative responses to the headline.
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HEADLINES IN ELECTION NEWS
Traditional Headline Clickbait Headline0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
2,941
1,665
Headline Type and Predicted Page Views
Pred
icte
d Pa
ge V
iew
s
Data from the Engaging News Project and American Press InstituteAnalysis controls for news organization, word count, federal/state race, issues mentioned, strategy
components, and hard news/opinion article
• Examining local news coverage of 2016 primary election
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HEADLINES IN ELECTION NEWS
• Examining local news coverage of 2016 general election
Traditional Headline Clickbait Headline0
1,0002,0003,0004,0005,0006,000 5,713
3,982
Headline Type and Predicted Page Views
Pred
icte
d Pa
ge V
iew
s
Data from the Engaging News Project and American Press InstituteAnalysis controls for news organization, word count, federal/state race, issues mentioned, strat-
egy components, and hard news/opinion article
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TRY THESE HEADLINES INSTEAD
Based on our research comparing solutions-focused and non-solutions-
focused headlines in regard to popularity, solutions-focused
headlines resulted in more clicks.
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SOLUTIONS HEADLINES
- Including a “mysterious” unnamed location in a headline increases the click-through rate (e.g. “This City Has a Solution to Poverty”).
- Adding the word “simple” can affect headline clicks (e.g. “A Simple Way to Address Climate Change”).
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SOLUTIONS HEADLINES
- Tacking solutions-oriented information onto a headline does not significantly affect the click-through rate (e.g. “This is a Problem. Here’s How to Help”).
- Adding the word “you” does not significantly influence the click-through rate (e.g. “Here’s How You Can Help Save The Rainforests”).
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CONCLUSION
- Headlines styled as questions led to the most negative reactions compared to traditional and forward-reference headlines, especially when paired with a topic the participants found particularly unappealing.
- Consider using different types of headlines, such as solutions headlines.
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OTHER ENP RESEARCH
Comment SectionsEngagement Buttons
Quizzes
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Questions & Comments?
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tengagingnewsproject.org
@engagingnews