Social media users interact less with the kind of news that are most offered by newspapers’ social media managers, writes Anders Olof Larsson of Westerdals Oslo School of Arts. Larsson analysed the audience interactions with a total of 800 news stories, published online by four Swedish newspapers.

Two of the investigated newspapers were tabloids and two were broadsheets. On social media the broadsheets mostly promoted political stories, while their audience preferred to interact with stories related to health and terrorism. Tabloid papers offered mainly human interest stories, while their audiences’ interest was divided across a broader spectrum – with health being again the most popular theme.

The article “I Shared the News Today, Oh Boy” was published by the journal Journalism Studies. It is available online (abstract free).

Picture: Untitled by geralt, licence CC0 1.0.