My article, titled “An attention economy trap? An empirical investigation into four news companies’ Facebook traffic and social media revenue” was published in the Journal of Media Business Studies in October.
The article, which is available here, argues that news companies revenue from Facebook traffic and social shares is underwhelming, and suggests that the news companies should reconsider their social media news distribution. Key findings include: estimated revenue from the social media traffic is 0.03%-0.14% of total revenue; estimated revenue from Facebook shares is 0.0009%-0.2% of total revenue. The paper concludes that news companies would not lose much revenue by abandoning Facebook, but as they rely on the platform for audiences, they are “trapped in the attention economy.”
