Semantic structure of clickbait headlines and internet user activities

Abstract

The article explores the relation between clickability, measured in click-through rate (CTR) with the system of meanings the headline comprises. The authors apply graphic-semantic approach when analyzing headlines with reference to their variable clickability. The article describes a case reconstructing the system of meanings, represented by the news headlines in Russian cyberspace, taking into consideration the CTR as a popularity factor among the readers. The material of the study is 4900 headlines of Russian news media for May 2019, provided by the news aggregator SMI2. The authors consider clickbait headline as a standalone text, communicating information, related to the material they headline only indirectly. Based on these basic constituent features of the clickbait titles the researches revealed frequency distribution of semantic fields, representing the most popular meanings, communicated in the headlines to the news content in Russian mass media. Besides, having analyzed CTR values growth/decrease, the authors defined the most and the least popular semantic fields, indicating the most promising vectors for further development of the media space. The system of meanings transmitting concepts formed by media agents (publishing houses, journalists) turned out to be highly clichéd and based on manipulative rhetorical devices (fields “Russia”, “Headlines promising to give the answer in the article below, Speech activity”, “New and unexpected”). Performers (actants) and actions here assume a secondary position. Actual interests of the audience — news content readers — focus on such concepts as character, event and chronotope (fields “Celebrities”, “Putin, Incidents”, “News”, “Death”, “Donbas”, “Kazakhstan”, “Crimea”, etc.). CTR analysis also demonstrates the growth of the users’ self-awareness as active participants of the media environment, due to their interest to journalism and PR, since they no longer passive receptors, but more often experts able to evaluate events and interpret facts.