What prompts users to click and comment: A longitudinal study of online news

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between two mechanisms of online participation – clicking and commenting – as well as the characteristics of heavily clicked versus highly commented-upon news items. Based on 15,431 items from a popular Israeli website, correlations between clicking and commenting were calculated for 12 separately analysed months from 2006 to 2011. In addition, overlap rates were determined, showing that 40–59% of the heavily clicked items in any given month were different from the highly commented-upon items. A subsequent content analysis indicated that while sensational topics and curiosity-arousing elements were more prominent among the heavily clicked items than among the highly commented-upon items, political/social topics and controversial elements were more prominent among the highly commented-upon items. The study contributes to deepening our understanding of the role of user comments in constructing social/group identity and offers a new perspective on a prolonged controversy surrounding audiences’ news preferences.