Adapting to Affordances and Audiences? : a Cross-Platform, Multi-Modal Analysis of the Platformization of News on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter

Kurzfassung/Abstract

To capture audiences’ attention on social media, news outlets may disseminate journalistic content in line with platform instead of mass media logics, indicating a platformization of news. Taking a cross-platform, multi-modal approach, we analyze how German outlets select and adapt existing stories for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. We combine a computational and a manual content analysis of articles and social media posts (N = 4,412), including related images/videos (N = 6,850). Overall, evidence for outlets following platform logics on social media is limited: News outlets select and adapt news on a technical level, for instance by distributing more content on news-centered platforms like Twitter or by fostering on-platform engagement by excluding external links on Instagram. However, they do not systematically select or adapt news on a more communicative level, for instance by preferring specific topics for social media or by using more engaging language on platforms.