Applying “Negativity Bias” to Twitter: Negative News on Twitter, Emotions, and Political Learning

ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of negative news on Twitter users’ emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses. Four hundred twenty subjects participated in an online experiment and read 10 news stories, modified as Twitter newsfeed. The results show that news negativity had a significant effect on anger and disgust. A significant link was found between exposure to negative news and information seeking. The impact of news negativity on emotions and political learning was moderated by age. Findings also reveal that experiencing negative emotions as a result of exposure to negative news on Twitter is not necessarily at odds with achieving political learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotions
• negative news
• negativity bias
• political learning
• Twitter

Notes

1. Although the research background is South Korea, the current study tried to secure external validity by recruiting participants from various segments of the Korean population.

2. See http://www.statista.com/statistics/284473/south-korea-social-network-penetration.

3. Cohen (1988) has provided benchmarks to define small (η²= 0.01), medium (η²= 0.06), and large (η²= 0.14) effects.

4. In some cases, the mean change between the low negativity and the high negativity condition yielded unexpected results. For example, the level of fear among middle-aged and old adults decreased as news negativity increased. It seems that the erratic results are mainly caused by the small sample size of this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chang Sup Park

Chang Sup Park is an assistant professor of mass communications at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. His research interests are in social/mobile media, civic engagement, political participation, and digital journalism.