Just State the Facts on Twitter: Eye Tracking Shows That Readers May Ignore Questions Posted by News Organizations On Twitter But Not on Facebook

Abstract

As the print newspaper industry struggles to attract readers in this day of declining readership, reporters are posting messages in social media to try to draw attention to their stories. In doing this, journalists are faced with numerous choices about how to phrase the content. To literally see if one headline approach is more eye-catching than another in social media, an eye-tracking study was conducted. Thirty-two participants viewed a Facebook feed and a Twitter feed, each containing combinations of two summary headlines and two question headlines while their eye movements were recorded. They also took a short survey about their opinion on the effectiveness of these headline techniques in social media. The results show that some readers may not pay attention to questions in Twitter and prefer the use of statements in Twitter. A lack of visual attention to questions in Twitter emerged from the data for gazes where the only headlines in the first position (with one exception) to not be fixated on were all Twitter questions from the news organization. Similarly, the lowest average fixation duration was on Twitter questions, and the lowest number of fixation points was found on Twitter questions. Survey results help to explain eye behavior. In the survey, the effectiveness of the use of Twitter question headlines was rated at 3.19 on a 5-point Likert scale, compared to 4.22 for Twitter statement headlines. In comparison, the average effectiveness of Facebook questions was 3.66 compared to the 3.19 for Twitter questions. Questions fared considerably better in Facebook in both the eye-tracking tests and survey responses.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sheree Josephson

Sheree Josephson is a noted eye-tracking researcher who has studied how people process visual information on the web, on television, and in print. She has published a book titled Visualizing the Web: Evaluating Online Design from a Visual Communication Perspective and a number of journal articles and book chapters. She is the chair of the Department of Communication at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. She has served two times as the chair of the Visual Communication Division of the National Communication Association. E-mail: [email protected]

Jessica S. Miller

Jessica S. Miller is a graduate of Weber State University's Master of Professional Communication program. As an undergraduate at WSU, Miller served as the editor in chief of the student newspaper. She currently covers courts as a reporter for the Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City.

E-mail: [email protected]