Abstract

The consumption of news increasingly takes place in the context of social media, where users can personalize their repertoire of news through personal news curation practices such as following a journalistic outlet on Twitter or blocking news content from a Facebook friend. This article examines the prevalence and predictors of curation practices that have the potential to boost or limit social media news exposure. Results from a representative online survey distributed across thirty-six countries demonstrate that more than half of all news users on social media engage in such practices. Significant predictors of news-boosting curation are news interest and the willingness to engage in other news-related activities on social media. News-limiting practices on social media are linked to general news avoidance and, in the case of the US, political extremism, which might decrease the chances of incidental news exposure. News-boosting and news-limiting curation practices relate to a wider and more diverse repertoire of news sources online. Personal news curation practices can be conceptualized as forms of news engagement that have the potential to complement or counteract algorithmic news selection or partisan selective exposure, yet, these practices can also solidify existing divides in news use related to interest and avoidance.

摘要

新闻消费越来越多地发生在社交媒体的背景下，用户可以通过个人新闻策划实践来个性化他们的新闻曲目，例如在 Twitter 上关注新闻媒体或阻止 Facebook 朋友的新闻内容。本文研究了有可能增加或限制社交媒体新闻曝光的策展实践的普遍性和预测因素。分布在 36 个国家/地区的具有代表性的在线调查的结果表明，社交媒体上超过一半的新闻用户从事此类行为。促进新闻策划的重要预测因素是新闻兴趣和在社交媒体上参与其他新闻相关活动的意愿。社交媒体上的新闻限制做法与一般的新闻回避有关，就美国而言，政治极端主义，这可能会减少偶然新闻曝光的机会。促进新闻和限制新闻的策展实践与更广泛、更多样化的在线新闻来源相关。个人新闻策划实践可以被概念化为新闻参与的形式，它有可能补充或抵消算法新闻选择或党派选择性曝光，然而，这些实践也可以巩固与兴趣和回避相关的新闻使用方面的现有分歧。