Abstract

Facebook is an integral part of the American news environment. Substantial numbers of users now seek or encounter news on the platform and news organizations depend on the site to build audiences and drive traffic to their websites. At the same time, Facebook has also become a space for people to engage alternative sources of news and political information, including highly partisan and ideological sources. Yet we know relatively little about the types of news sources Americans engage with most frequently on the platform. In this study, we evaluate the scope of news and information sources on Facebook, including engagement with these sources. We analyse nearly 12 million Facebook posts from 416 news organizations between 2012 and 2017. We find that the sources that receive the most user engagement are often the most ideologically extreme. We also find that alternative outlets that are politically conservative frequently get more engagement, which may provide them an outsized presence on users’ newsfeeds.

摘要

Facebook 是美国新闻环境中不可或缺的一部分。现在有大量用户在该平台上寻找或遇到新闻，新闻机构依靠该网站来建立受众并为他们的网站增加流量。与此同时，Facebook 也成为人们参与新闻和政治信息的替代来源的空间，包括高度党派和意识形态的来源。然而，我们对美国人在该平台上最常接触的新闻来源类型知之甚少。在这项研究中，我们评估了 Facebook 上新闻和信息来源的范围，包括与这些来源的互动。我们分析了 2012 年至 2017 年间来自 416 家新闻机构的近 1200 万条 Facebook 帖子。我们发现，获得最多用户参与度的来源通常在意识形态上最为极端。