What Makes A Research Article Newsworthy?

TL;DR

This study investigates factors influencing the newsworthiness of research articles by developing classifiers to predict press coverage based on online attention metrics, achieving high accuracy with a Random Forest model.

Contribution

The paper introduces a predictive framework for assessing research article newsworthiness using online attention features, with a focus on classifier performance.

Findings

Random Forest classifier achieved 92% accuracy.

Online attention metrics are strong predictors of press coverage.

The approach helps identify research articles likely to gain media attention.

Abstract

There has been tremendous growth in the amount of scientific literature being published every year. Yet, very little of it receives press coverage. Mentions by news outlets often establish the relevance the research has to society in general. In the present study, we focused on better understanding the factors that contribute to a research article's newsworthiness. We have built three classifiers to predict the likelihood of research article receiving online press coverage, based on features that quantify the attention it has received on various online platforms. The Random Forest classifier performed best with an accuracy rate of 0.92.