Study Finds that News Content is a Driver for Traffic to Non-news Content on Aggregator Sites and Social Media Platforms

Key Takeaways:

• When news aggregators carry news content, there is a spillover effect on non-news content.
• Study findings help inform the debate over whether news aggregators and social media platforms should compensate news publishers for content that is shared on their sites.

CATONSVILLE, MD, June 6, 2025 – The consumption of news has undergone a sea of change in the last decade, with a significant proportion of the population consuming content on news aggregator sites and social media. New research published in the peer-reviewed journal Marketing Science has found that when digital news aggregators and social media sites carry news content, there is a spillover effect, attracting traffic to non-news content on the same sites. Both user engagement and content generation of non-news content rides with increases and decreases in the posting of news content.

The research study, published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science, is titled, “Does Carrying News Increase Engagement with Non-News Content on Social Media Platforms?” The authors of the study are Yu Song and Puneet Manchanda, both of the University of Michigan.

Because online traffic and user engagement patterns are often used to set advertising rates and structures, data on how digital users consume information online is extremely valuable to both news aggregators and news publishers. “Our findings have provided helpful information to regulators, news publishers and social media platforms, which carry news and user-generated content,” says Manchanda.

“One of the issues that has emerged is a dispute between news publishers and news aggregators over whether news aggregators should pay news publishers for redistributing their content,” says Manchanda. “News publishers say that news aggregators, especially large tech firms like Meta, cannibalize advertising dollars from news publisher websites. On the other hand, news aggregators assert that they provide a channel that connects people to news websites, and this helps publishers reach a wider audience and boost their advertising revenues.”

This research confirms that to drive online traffic and user engagement, there is an interdependency between news aggregators and news publishers.

To study this issue, the researchers conducted in-depth analysis of a real-world situation that occurred in February 2021 when the Australian government approved legislation aimed at compelling tech companies to compensate news publishers for featuring or sharing their news content. Facebook objected to this legislation and decided to block all news from being viewed or shared by Facebook users in Australia.

The study researchers conducted an analysis using Facebook New Zealand as a control group. They found that after Facebook stopped carrying news content, total user engagement with non-news content decreased by 10.7%, and the number of daily posts generated by non-news accounts dropped by 8.8%. 

“We found that there is indeed a spillover effect on non-news content, and that featuring news has an economically significant impact on Facebook Australia’s advertising revenues,” says Song.

https://pubsonline.informs.org/stoken/default+domain/PR-6-2025/full/10.1287/mksc.2024.0993

About Marketing Science and INFORMS

Marketing Science is a premier peer-reviewed scholarly marketing journal focused on research using quantitative approaches to study all aspects of the interface between consumers and firms. It is published by INFORMS.

INFORMS is the world’s largest association for professionals and students in operations research, AI, analytics, data science and related disciplines, serving as a global authority in advancing cutting-edge practices and fostering an interdisciplinary community of innovation.

With a network of more than 12,000 members spanning academia, industry and government, INFORMS connects thought leaders, experts and emerging professionals who advance and apply AI, mathematics, analytics, and other sciences and technologies to solve complex challenges and drive impactful decision-making.

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Discover more at www.informs.org

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