ABSTRACT

Normative theory on the functioning of the public sphere requires citizens to actively engage with the information that is provided to them. For a long time, however, the possibilities of user-content interactivity have been limited due to the one-directionality of the traditional mass media. Moreover, a re-occurring question is to what extent less-versus-more entertaining forms of news evoke audience engagement. This study analyzes the user-content engagement on online platforms in response to journalistic content and infotainment; more concretely, we compare whether the satire genre is more likely to evoke user-content interactivity than regular news and partisan news shows. To test our hypotheses, a large-scale data analysis of social media posts by a wide variety of American TV shows on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter has been conducted. Results demonstrate satire’s potential to encourage user-content interactivity: Satire videos generated (a) more likes and (b) more comments than the clips of regular news. However, we also find that (c) satire videos are related to less controversy, which arguably indicates that satire hampers the exchange of diverse ideas. Compared to partisan news – which shares many features of satire, but often lacks the humor component – satire elicits more likes but less commentary and less controversy.

摘要

关于公共领域功能的规范理论要求公民积极参与提供给他们的信息。然而，长期以来，由于传统大众媒体的单向性，用户与内容交互的可能性受到限制。此外，一个反复出现的问题是，较少娱乐性的新闻形式在多大程度上唤起了观众的参与度。本研究分析了在线平台上的用户内容参与度，以响应新闻内容和信息娱乐；更具体地说，我们比较了讽刺类型是否比普通新闻和党派新闻节目更能唤起用户与内容的互动。为了检验我们的假设，对各种美国电视节目的社交媒体帖子进行大规模数据分析Facebook、YouTube和Twitter已进行。结果表明讽刺具有鼓励用户与内容交互的潜力：与常规新闻剪辑相比，讽刺视频产生了 (a) 更多的喜欢和 (b) 更多的评论。然而，我们也发现 (c) 讽刺视频与较少争议有关，这可以说是讽刺阻碍了不同思想的交流。与党派新闻相比——它具有讽刺的许多特征，但往往缺乏幽默成分——讽刺引起更多的喜欢，但评论和争议更少。