Who talks about what? Comparing the information treatment in traditional media with online discussions

TL;DR

This study compares how traditional media and online discussions differ in content and engagement, revealing distinct attention patterns and the influence of social media on journalistic coverage during COVID-19.

Contribution

It provides a large-scale analysis of media and social media interactions, highlighting how follower interests and discussions are shaped by the media they follow.

Findings

Followers of different media show distinct discussion patterns.

Twitter discussions influenced the journal's coverage on social issues.

Differences in attention to political events between media and followers.

Abstract

We study the dynamics of interactions between a traditional medium, the New York Times journal, and its followers in Twitter, using a massive dataset. It consists of the metadata of the articles published by the journal during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the posts published in Twitter by a large set of followers of the @nytimes account along with those published by a set of followers of several other media of different kind. The dynamics of discussions held in Twitter by exclusive followers of a medium show a strong dependence on the medium they follow: the followers of @FoxNews show the highest similarity to each other and a strong differentiation of interests with the general group. Our results also reveal the difference in the attention payed to U.S. presidential elections by the journal and by its followers, and show that the topic related to the ``Black Lives Matter'' movement started in Twitter, and was addressed later by the journal.