Measuring news exposure using behavioral tracking data

Measuring news exposure using

behavioral tracking data

Judith Möller

The Amsterdam Personalised Communication Project

Why are we looking

into personalised

communication?

Web-shop of ideas

Personalised news

recommondation

Personalised political

advertising

Personalised health

information websites

Personalised online shopping

Studying causes and effects of

personalised communication

Research infrastructure

Interdisciplinary network

Communication

Law

Ethics

Economics

Computer Science

Research instruments:

Panel Survey

Online tracking study

Research infrastructure

Interdisciplinary network

Communication

Law

Ethics

Economics

Computer Science

Research instruments:

Panel Survey

Online tracking study

Online tracking study

Goal: Study the personalised news menu of

internet user, taking into account that their news

feeds is individualized to their cookies and

browsing history

Clickstream is not enough

Man in the middle research infrastructure

But that is not so easy to

accomplish..... Legal constraints

PrivacyCopyright

Ethical considerations

Conflicting guidlines (transparency vs. Protection of personal data)

Panel constraints

Technical constraints: secure storage, whitelist, filters

What does this look like in practice?

11

Conceputalizing exposure

Various degrees of exposure

- Content was featured on a website you visited

- User selects content (click)

- User reads selected content until the end

- User engages with content (further clicks, comments)

Our goal: Match specific exposure measure to specific content to

media effects (e.g., agenda setting, political knowledge)

Thank you for your attention

Follow us on personalised-communication.net

First data is coming in in October/November!