Have You Shared the News Today?
Social media has grown to be an important platform for news consumption. By sharing links to news stories, your contact network on social media can create its own news agenda.
Main content
ViSmedia associate Thomas Wold just published a paper on the matter in Norsk medietidsskrift. His study of Norwegian´s sharing patterns on social media platforms indicates that Facebook was the most popular social media platform for news sharing in 2017, followed by Twitter.
The majority of the stories that got shared, were regular news stories where ordinary citizens were interviewed. Next in line was domestic politics, then lifestyle, healthcare and entertainment. Stories on sports, economy, finance, crime and accidents was surprisingly shared the least. How this affects the production and consumption of news has not been research. Wolds research also showed strong tendencies that various groups were trying to force their own agenda, creating fake news or alternative news. Unfortunately, this may affect and influence how the conventional media corporations select their stories and what the public consume.