APS
2026 APS Annual Convention · 2026
How an Attention Economy Affects News Headlines
- Pietro Nickl
Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development - Thomas Hills
University of Warwick - Philipp Lorenz-Spreen
Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development - Philipp Lorenz-Spreen
TUD Dresden University of Technology
Abstract
In a two-stage experiment of headline production and consumption (N=1495), we investigated how an attention economy shapes the language and consumption of news headlines. We showed that paying participants for clicks threatens information quality (resulting in more informationally incomplete and incogruent headlines), but unexpectedly found no effect for negativity bias.
