Testing the Effects of Relative Newsworthiness on News Selection

Abstract

This study conducts an experiment to explore news selection on digital news platforms (e.g., Apple News). We found that the likelihood of selecting a certain news headline varied in terms of how newsworthy the headline is relative to other headlines available at the time of selection. This tendency to select news with relatively higher newsworthiness makes partisans more likely to engage in cross-cutting exposure, although the effects of relative newsworthiness were found to be stronger for neutral and proattitudinal news sources. These findings show the importance of examining relative newsworthiness in a high-choice and hyper-partisan context where multiple news choice options from politically polarized news sources are competing for user attention.