# Demographics of News Sharing in the U.S. Twittersphere

## TL;DR

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of news sharers on Twitter in the U.S., revealing demographic patterns and content preferences that influence news dissemination and audience composition.

## Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive characterization of news spreaders' demographics, content sharing behaviors, and audience reach on social media.

## Key findings

- Males and white users are more active in sharing news.
- News sharing biases the audience towards certain demographic interests.
- Differences in interests across demographics impact personalized news delivery.

## Abstract

The widespread adoption and dissemination of online news through social media systems have been revolutionizing many segments of our society and ultimately our daily lives. In these systems, users can play a central role as they share content to their friends. Despite that, little is known about news spreaders in social media. In this paper, we provide the first of its kind in-depth characterization of news spreaders in social media. In particular, we investigate their demographics, what kind of content they share, and the audience they reach. Among our main findings, we show that males and white users tend to be more active in terms of sharing news, biasing the news audience to the interests of these demographic groups. Our results also quantify differences in interests of news sharing across demographics, which has implications for personalized news digests.