Psy Post talks about research in which people were given a free subscription to the online version of their closest regional daily newspaper, in both Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Note that I said regional. Not the nearest local five-day daily (or smaller). But, the regional paper. In Pennsylvania, either the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or the Philadelphia Inquirer. The Raleigh News & Observer in North Carolina.
More than 2,000 free subscriptions, over several weeks, in Pennsylvania. Only 44 signed up to renew paid on their own. That's 2.2 percent if out of an even 2,000. Actually, there were enough beyond 2,000 in the offer that the story says the 44 were 1.7 percent.
Actually, that's not true, in part because of a slight misreading by me originally, that makes the hook better yet. Or worse.
That wasn't churn. Over 13 weeks, those more than 2,000 were offered a free subscription for 13 weeks. Only 44 said yes.
But wait, it gets worse!
The unexpectedly low response led to the second phase of the experiment, where the researchers shifted strategies to direct content promotion. In this phase, the researchers created sponsored posts on Facebook that promoted specific articles from the two state newspapers. These articles covered prominent state-level issues like COVID-19 policies, the governor’s political activities, and fiscal challenges.
Each Monday over several weeks, the team identified and promoted a new article, aiming to boost engagement with regional issues. This intervention resulted in thousands of targeted Facebook impressions, allowing researchers to see whether directly delivering news content through social media feeds would effectively increase engagement.
Despite generating tens of thousands of impressions, this strategy did not significantly improve participants’ political knowledge or engagement. The researchers found those exposed to promoted local news stories on Facebook did not demonstrate any significant increases in local political knowledge compared to the control group.
Similarly, the interventions did not significantly affect measures of civic engagement, such as participation in local elections or activities, or attitudes toward local governance. The surveys administered before and after the interventions showed that participants’ levels of engagement and their attitudes remained largely unchanged.
In a sense, this is no surprise. The story's already given more confirmation to what appears apparent otherwise: Contra the old cliché, all politics is national, at least for Republicans. When state House and state Senate candidates in contested GOP primaries are groveling for a Trump endorsement, what else could it be?
And, they're not disengaged. A survey said 92 percent voted in the 2018 midterm general election. Rather, they're SO engaged, in all politics as national, that the regional paper can't make a dent.
North Carolina? Similar if not quite so bad:
A similar study conducted by Andrew Trexler at Duke University found strikingly similar results. About 500 registered voters in North Carolina were offered a two-month free digital subscription to the Raleigh News & Observer. But uptake was exceptionally low, with only 3.8% of those who received the offer activating their free subscription.
Ye gads. And, the kicker at the end is right. Even if you could get people to read, what can you get them to do?
No comments:
Post a Comment