Social media metrics allow media outlets to get a granular, real-time understanding of audience preferences, and may therefore be used to decide what content to prioritize in the future. We test this mechanism in the context of Facebook, by using topic modeling and longitudinal data analysis on a large dataset comprising all posts published by major media outlets used by American citizens (N≈2.23M, 2015–2019). We find that while the overall effect of audience engagement on future news coverage is significant, there is substantial heterogeneity in how individual outlets respond to different kinds of topics. A handful of right-wing media outlets are more likely to respond to audience engagement metrics than other outlets, but with partisan politics topics and not with entertainment-oriented content. Our research sheds new light on how social media platforms have shaped journalistic practices and has implications for the future health of journalism in the United States.

中文翻译：

---

指标在行动：社交媒体指标如何影响 Facebook 上的新闻制作

社交媒体指标使媒体机构能够对受众偏好进行细致、实时的了解，因此可用于决定将来优先处理哪些内容。我们通过对包含美国公民使用的主要媒体机构发布的所有帖子的大型数据集使用主题建模和纵向数据分析，在 Facebook 的背景下测试该机制（N≈2.23M，2015-2019）。我们发现，虽然观众参与度对未来新闻报道的总体影响很大，但各个媒体对不同类型话题的反应存在很大差异。与其他媒体相比，少数右翼媒体更有可能对观众参与度指标做出回应，但这些媒体关注的是党派政治话题，而不是娱乐导向的内容。