Did clickbait crack the code on virality?

Prithwiraj Mukherjee (), Souvik Dutta () and Arnaud De Bruyn ()
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Prithwiraj Mukherjee: Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
Souvik Dutta: Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, Okhla Industrial Estate Phase-III
Arnaud De Bruyn: ESSEC Business School

Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 2022, vol. 50, issue 3, No 4, 482-502

Abstract: Abstract Although clickbait is a ubiquitous tactic in digital media, we challenge the popular belief that clickbait systematically leads to enhanced sharing of online content on social media. Using the Persuasion Knowledge Model, we predict that clickbait tactics may be perceived by some readers as a manipulative attempt, leading to source derogation where the publisher may be perceived as less competent and trustworthy. This, in turn, may reduce some readers’ intention to share content. Using a controlled experiment, we confirm that high-emotional headlines are shared more and show evidence that clickbait often leads to inferences of manipulative intent and source derogation. We then use a well-known secondary data set containing 19,386 articles from 27 leading online publishers. We supplement it with Twitter share data, sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and additional control variables. We confirm that, on average, clickbait articles elicit far fewer shares than non-clickbait articles. Our results are stable, with large effect sizes even after controlling for endogenous selection.

Keywords: Social media; Clickbait; Persuasion Knowledge Model; Source derogation; Sharing; Topic modeling; Sentiment analysis; Propensity score matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11747-021-00830-x

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