A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook

In this study, we address the role of emotions in political news sharing on Facebook to better understand the complex relationship between journalism, emotions, and politics. Categorizing Facebook Reactions (particularly, the Sad, Angry, Love, and Wow Reactions) according to the discrete emotions mo...

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Autores principales: Ernesto de León, Damian Trilling
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Lenguaje:EN
Publicado: SAGE Publishing 2021
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Acceso en línea:https://doaj.org/article/f23f37a4b6a14a7a982b89fcf722f918
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:f23f37a4b6a14a7a982b89fcf722f9182021-11-29T22:33:19ZA Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook2056-305110.1177/20563051211059710https://doaj.org/article/f23f37a4b6a14a7a982b89fcf722f9182021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211059710https://doaj.org/toc/2056-3051In this study, we address the role of emotions in political news sharing on Facebook to better understand the complex relationship between journalism, emotions, and politics. Categorizing Facebook Reactions (particularly, the Sad, Angry, Love, and Wow Reactions) according to the discrete emotions model, we evaluate how positive versus negative political content relates to emotional responses, and how this consequentially influences the degree to which articles are shared across social media in the context of an election. We focus on the landmark 2018 Mexican elections to enable a nuanced conversation on how cues of user emotion predict the far-reaching dissemination of news articles on Facebook during a moment of heightened political attention. Our findings demonstrate a negativity bias in news sharing and engagement, showing an outsized prevalence of anger in response to political news. In addition, we provide evidence of a novel sadness bias in the sharing of political coverage, suggesting that emotions considered as deactivating should be reevaluated in the context of social media.Ernesto de LeónDamian TrillingSAGE PublishingarticleCommunication. Mass mediaP87-96ENSocial Media + Society, Vol 7 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Communication. Mass media
P87-96
spellingShingle Communication. Mass media
P87-96
Ernesto de León
Damian Trilling
A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook
description In this study, we address the role of emotions in political news sharing on Facebook to better understand the complex relationship between journalism, emotions, and politics. Categorizing Facebook Reactions (particularly, the Sad, Angry, Love, and Wow Reactions) according to the discrete emotions model, we evaluate how positive versus negative political content relates to emotional responses, and how this consequentially influences the degree to which articles are shared across social media in the context of an election. We focus on the landmark 2018 Mexican elections to enable a nuanced conversation on how cues of user emotion predict the far-reaching dissemination of news articles on Facebook during a moment of heightened political attention. Our findings demonstrate a negativity bias in news sharing and engagement, showing an outsized prevalence of anger in response to political news. In addition, we provide evidence of a novel sadness bias in the sharing of political coverage, suggesting that emotions considered as deactivating should be reevaluated in the context of social media.
format article
author Ernesto de León
Damian Trilling
author_facet Ernesto de León
Damian Trilling
author_sort Ernesto de León
title A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook
title_short A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook
title_full A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook
title_fullStr A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook
title_full_unstemmed A Sadness Bias in Political News Sharing? The Role of Discrete Emotions in the Engagement and Dissemination of Political News on Facebook
title_sort sadness bias in political news sharing? the role of discrete emotions in the engagement and dissemination of political news on facebook
publisher SAGE Publishing
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/f23f37a4b6a14a7a982b89fcf722f918
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