Dissertation
Faces or Objects?: An Examination of Emojis in Facebook News Teasers and User Engagement
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2020
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/111529
Abstract
Online news has grown at a rapid rate, and social networking sites (SNS) are increasingly driving traffic to news organizations. The particular affordances of SNSs affect the way the news looks and what users can do with the news. The physical layout of news on social media is such that the teaser (status message) allows news organizations to add additional text to shared news posts. In some cases, the language used in the news teaser is subjective, more emotional, and less formal that traditional news norms would suggest. Additionally, users can react, comment on, and share online news with relative ease, likely influencing the news environments of other users and news-making decisions. Drawing on mixed methods research and calls for variation in methodology, this study employs a sequential exploratory mixed methods design in which exploratory focus groups are followed by an experiment. Given that the teaser space is a newer feature, it is important to learn what users expect of this space and then empirically test the conclusions drawn from the first study. The goals of this study are two-fold. First, using focus group data, the research explores user impressions of various textual features of the news teaser that might elicit emotion, and finds the use of emojis might be affecting engagement. Second, it empirically tests the effects of object and face emojis in the news teaser on the news engagement outcomes of clicking like, comment, or share; clicking to read the news story; and private sharing. Consistent with Affective Intelligence Theory (AIT) this research positions anger and enthusiasm as mediators of message exposure and engagement outcomes, while both emotions were related to increased engagement, the indirect effect of message exposure on engagement was only found for enthusiasm. The teaser is an unexplored area of study within political communication. Thus, this study contributes to our collective understanding of the antecedents of emotional reactions within AIT as well as informs news and content creators alike on the effects of the teaser space.
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Details
- Title
- Faces or Objects?: An Examination of Emojis in Facebook News Teasers and User Engagement
- Creators
- Rebecca Donaway
- Contributors
- Jessica F Willoughby (Advisor)Douglas B Hindman (Committee Member)Mina Park (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 124
- Identifiers
- 99900581810101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation