IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nathum/v4y2020i12d10.1038_s41562-020-00954-0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Auditing local news presence on Google News

Author

Listed:
  • Sean Fischer

    (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Kokil Jaidka

    (National University of Singapore)

  • Yphtach Lelkes

    (University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

Local news outlets have struggled to stay open in the more competitive market of digital media. Some have noted that this decline may be due to the ways in which digital platforms direct attention to some news outlets and not others. To test this theory, we collected 12.29 million responses to Google News searches within all US counties for a set of keywords. We compared the number of local outlets reported in the results against the number of national outlets. We find that, unless consumers are searching specifically for topics of local interest, national outlets dominate search results. Features correlated with local supply and demand, such as the number of local outlets and demographics associated with local news consumption, are not related to the likelihood of finding a local news outlet. Our findings imply that platforms may be diverting web traffic and desperately needed advertising dollars away from local news.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean Fischer & Kokil Jaidka & Yphtach Lelkes, 2020. "Auditing local news presence on Google News," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(12), pages 1236-1244, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:4:y:2020:i:12:d:10.1038_s41562-020-00954-0
    DOI: 10.1038/s41562-020-00954-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-00954-0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41562-020-00954-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chuhan Wu & Fangzhao Wu & Tao Qi & Wei-Qiang Zhang & Xing Xie & Yongfeng Huang, 2022. "Removing AI’s sentiment manipulation of personalized news delivery," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Magnusson, Evan, 2021. "Local news in Google News: a response to Fischer et al. (2020)," MPRA Paper 106431, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kokil Jaidka & Sean Fischer & Yphtach Lelkes & Yifei Wang, 2023. "News Nationalization in a Digital Age: An Examination of How Local Protests Are Covered and Curated Online," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 707(1), pages 189-207, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nathum:v:4:y:2020:i:12:d:10.1038_s41562-020-00954-0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.