Love, Like or Angry in Times of COVID-19? Analysing News Brands’ Audience Engagement on Facebook Amidst a Pandemic

Jonathan Hendrickx; Annelien van Remoortere; Michaël Opgenhaffen

doi:10.3390/journalmedia4030060

Love, Like or Angry in Times of COVID-19? Analysing News Brands’ Audience Engagement on Facebook Amidst a Pandemic

Jonathan Hendrickx^*, Annelien van Remoortere, Michaël Opgenhaffen

^*Corresponding author for this work

Strategic Communication

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

As an integral part of their online strategies and business models, news outlets diffuse their online content on social media platforms such as Facebook to increase traffic. They thereby succumb to the contingencies and constraints of third platforms infamous for their sudden changes in algorithms. In this article, we assess engagement patterns of 140,359 Facebook posts of 17 Belgian news brands between March 2020 and 2021. We map out differences in audience engagement of news outlets’ Facebook posts related and unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic and differences between mainstream and alternative news outlets. We find that COVID-19-related posts generate more engagement and more so for mainstream media than for alternative media outlets.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	931-945
Number of pages	15
Journal	Journalism and Media
Volume	4
Issue number	3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4030060
Publication status	Published - Sept 2023

Keywords

audience engagement
COVID-19
news
pandemic
social media

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10.3390/journalmedia4030060Licence: CC BY

https://edepot.wur.nl/639371Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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title = "Love, Like or Angry in Times of COVID-19? Analysing News Brands{\textquoteright} Audience Engagement on Facebook Amidst a Pandemic",

abstract = "As an integral part of their online strategies and business models, news outlets diffuse their online content on social media platforms such as Facebook to increase traffic. They thereby succumb to the contingencies and constraints of third platforms infamous for their sudden changes in algorithms. In this article, we assess engagement patterns of 140,359 Facebook posts of 17 Belgian news brands between March 2020 and 2021. We map out differences in audience engagement of news outlets{\textquoteright} Facebook posts related and unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic and differences between mainstream and alternative news outlets. We find that COVID-19-related posts generate more engagement and more so for mainstream media than for alternative media outlets.",

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AU - van Remoortere, Annelien

AU - Opgenhaffen, Michaël

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AB - As an integral part of their online strategies and business models, news outlets diffuse their online content on social media platforms such as Facebook to increase traffic. They thereby succumb to the contingencies and constraints of third platforms infamous for their sudden changes in algorithms. In this article, we assess engagement patterns of 140,359 Facebook posts of 17 Belgian news brands between March 2020 and 2021. We map out differences in audience engagement of news outlets’ Facebook posts related and unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic and differences between mainstream and alternative news outlets. We find that COVID-19-related posts generate more engagement and more so for mainstream media than for alternative media outlets.

KW - audience engagement

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KW - social media

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ER -

Love, Like or Angry in Times of COVID-19? Analysing News Brands’ Audience Engagement on Facebook Amidst a Pandemic

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Keywords

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