

The Patterns Behind the “Most Shared” NYTimes Articles - jasonshen
http://blog.percolate.com/2014/03/email-twitter-most-shared-nytimes/

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protonfish
I see something totally different. The email sharers are older and
conservative, the Twitter users are younger and liberal. Older people are
finally comfortable with email but not new forms of information sharing. Also,
conservative groups prefer to use email to spread hate propaganda because it
is less public and hard to trace the source.

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jasonshen
I think we are on the same page here actually. I talk about how email sharing
is around health and aging - topics that address older folks and Twitter
sharing is around breaking news w/ an international bent + business and tech.
Not sure if I've seen a lot of evidence for liberal vs conservative but could
be.

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protonfish
Maybe I read too much into it. Sure there are mentions of Paul Ryan and Utah
on the email side and things like "Budding Liberal Protest Movements Begin to
Take Root in South" on Twitter but that is not enough to draw a conclusion.
Especially because the Ryan and Utah articles are not pro-conservative.

I guess what struck me is the fear on the email side - the headlines are of
the sensational news style of "What you don't know could kill you" plus the
common topics of safety and security. The Twitter headlines have a more
optimistic feel (and some are clearly fluff.) Compare the headlines abut
recent news in Russia: "Is Crimea the Next Yugoslavia?" vs. "If Not a Cold
War, a Return to a Chilly Rivalry"

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seizethecheese
This analysis is superficial and overcomplicated. Here's the answer: the
article's that you find in the most-emailed list are what older less tech-
savvy folks would share. The twitter-only list is the reverse.

I'd like to see an analysis that mines the articles and shows word frequencies
for twitter-only vs email-only articles. Hmmm maybe I'll do this ;)

