Incidental Exposure to News on Social Media in Four Countries

• In Event: ICA Interactive paper/Poster Session I
  In Interactive Paper Session: Mass Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

People are exposed to news ‘incidentally’ if they encounter it while intending to do other things. Whilst the existence of incidental exposure to news on television has been demonstrated, the same cannot yet be said of social media. We use data from the 2015 Reuters Institute Digital News Report survey to examine incidental exposure on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in four countries (Italy, Australia, US, UK). We find that (i) those incidentally exposed to news use more online sources, and engage with news more, than non-users (ii) the effect of incidental exposure on number of sources used is strongest on Twitter, followed by YouTube, then Facebook, and (iii) only those who intentionally use multiple networks for news use more sources, and engage more, than those incidentally exposed. Our findings suggest that the move to media environments characterized by selective exposure is accompanied by incidental exposure via social media.

Authors

• Richard Fletcher, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

• Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism