The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media

The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media

Social media users incidentally get exposed to news when their networks provide content that they would otherwise not seek out purposefully. We developed a scale of incidental news exposure on social media and conducted a survey to examine its antecedents. We found that information received through...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mousa Ahmadi, Donghee Yvette Wohn
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: SAGE Publishing 2018-04-01
Series:Social Media + Society
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118772827
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spelling doaj-8561b99b793f4a00811353726c90223a2020-11-25T02:50:13ZengSAGE PublishingSocial Media + Society2056-30512018-04-01410.1177/2056305118772827The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social MediaMousa AhmadiDonghee Yvette WohnSocial media users incidentally get exposed to news when their networks provide content that they would otherwise not seek out purposefully. We developed a scale of incidental news exposure on social media and conducted a survey to examine its antecedents. We found that information received through weak ties, rather than strong ties, was significantly associated with incidental news exposure. The amount of time spent, frequency of getting news updates, and the frequency clicking on news-related links on social media were correlated with incidental exposure. Our findings suggest that promoting news consumption on social media can be achieved not only through giving users information they want but also by exposing users to information they are not consciously looking for.https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118772827
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Mousa Ahmadi
Donghee Yvette Wohn
spellingShingle Mousa Ahmadi
Donghee Yvette Wohn
The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media
Social Media + Society
author_facet Mousa Ahmadi
Donghee Yvette Wohn
author_sort Mousa Ahmadi
title The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media
title_short The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media
title_full The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media
title_fullStr The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media
title_full_unstemmed The Antecedents of Incidental News Exposure on Social Media
title_sort antecedents of incidental news exposure on social media
publisher SAGE Publishing
series Social Media + Society
issn 2056-3051
publishDate 2018-04-01
description Social media users incidentally get exposed to news when their networks provide content that they would otherwise not seek out purposefully. We developed a scale of incidental news exposure on social media and conducted a survey to examine its antecedents. We found that information received through weak ties, rather than strong ties, was significantly associated with incidental news exposure. The amount of time spent, frequency of getting news updates, and the frequency clicking on news-related links on social media were correlated with incidental exposure. Our findings suggest that promoting news consumption on social media can be achieved not only through giving users information they want but also by exposing users to information they are not consciously looking for.
url https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305118772827
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