CANCELLED: How Digital Media Markets Amplify News Sentiment

The paper presented in this research seminar investigates whether digitization, by increasing incentives to capture reader attention, leads to more sensational news headlines. Comparing online and offline editions of major newspapers, I find that online headlines are significantly more emotional — particularly more negative — than their print counterparts. Two experiments with professional journalists further suggest that these differences at least partially arise from stronger economic incentives: When journalists are compensated based on click or subscription rates, they systematically choose more emotional headlines. Connected reader experiments reveals that such sensational framing increases reading times, but reduces factual retention; highlighting potential social costs of an intensified emotional slant in digital news environments.