Algorithmic selection and supply of political news on Facebook
2023 (English)In: Information Economics and Policy, ISSN 0167-6245, E-ISSN 1873-5975, Vol. 62, no March, article id 101020Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Facebook has been criticized for exposing its users to low-quality and harmful information, including fake news, hate speech, and politically one-sided content. In December 2013 and again in August 2014, the platform updated its news feed algorithm to increase user exposure to quality content of news publishers, while curbing the proliferation of non-informative posts. This paper uses a sample of German newspapers to investigate the conjecture that these modifications raised the incentives to publish quality news stories on the platform, focusing on the number and diversity of news story posts about substantive political issues. Using the newspapers’ print editions as a counterfactual, our results indicate an increase in the amount of substantive political news on Facebook by approximately 30%. This expansion occurred in a politically balanced way, except that the outlets disproportionately increased their Facebook coverage of the formerly underrepresented Linke (Left Party). Consequently, the within-outlet concentration of political viewpoints decreased by about one half of the standard deviation of our concentration indices.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier, 2023. Vol. 62, no March, article id 101020
Keywords [en]
Fake detection, Social networking (online), Algorithmic curation, Algorithmics, Curation, Diversity, Facebook, News quality, Political knowledge, Political news, Social media, Voting, Newsprint
National Category
Media and Communication Studies Economics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hj:diva-59812DOI: 10.1016/j.infoecopol.2023.101020ISI: 000932767400001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85147330317Local ID: HOA;;861453OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hj-59812DiVA, id: diva2:1736644
2023-02-142023-02-142025-10-13Bibliographically approved