Participation shaping the values of news articles: implications of news as anti-rival information products

Abstract

In the literature, anti-rivalry has been proposed to describe goods that become more valuable when used. Empirical testing of this theory is lacking, and the concept has not yet been applied in the context of news. This study identifies five distinctive value constructs–news value, emotional value, value of reading comments, social value of commenting and social value of sharing–from the statistical analysis of a survey of 2020 online news consumers on Finnish public broadcaster Yle’s website. We then assess changes in these values when the news is consumed and users have contributed to it by commenting on it and sharing it. The results of the analysis and additional in-depth user interviews indicate that news possesses elements of anti-rivalry. Additionally, the results indicate interesting intercorrelations among the values and user groups. When a piece of news has high news value, user contributions do not play a major role, but the value of sharing increases. When a news product is commented on, the act increases the social value of sharing for sharers, decreases the news value for readers and increases the negative emotions felt by readers.