News content promotion pressure: A content analysis of the cross-media visibility of and engagement with news stories

Abstract

The research at hand centered around examining how news media manage their visibility, while navigating the challenges of invisibility posed by the platform economy. Platforms shape the visibility of news organizations and their content through algorithmic curation and moderation. In response, news organizations must exert considerable effort to maximize their visibility within these systems. The research identified and analyzed various deliberate promotional strategies aimed at enhancing an article’s visibility, including strategic posting across platforms, homepage placement, and extending content lifespan. By aggregating these strategies into a “promotion pressure” score, the study aims to unravel the circular relationship between news media’s content promotion strategies and audience engagement with news stories. Further analysis of the news articles with the highest promotion pressure shows that they are mostly related to major events, rely on news values such as conflict and personification, and frequently use clickbait headlines.