[2M5-GS-11d] AI and Society

3:45 PM - 4:00 PM JST(6:45 AM - 7:00 AM UTC)

[2M5-GS-11d-02] The Effects of Narrative Articles on News Reading Behavior

〇Shun Hamaguchi¹, Tetsuya Nozawa², Ryoma Komiyama², Shintaro Kimura², Toriumi Fujio¹ (1. The University of Tokyo, 2. The Asahi Shimbun Company)

Keywords:

News reading behavior,Informational health,Reading diversity

Recent advances in information technology have made information increasingly accessible. At the same time, concerns have been raised that individuals may inadvertently consume biased information, potentially fostering filter bubbles and echo chambers and undermining informational health. Using article-level browsing logs provided by The Asahi Shimbun, this study examines how content characteristics relate to news reading behavior. We define “story-type articles” as articles that describe everyday events along with the emotions or insights arising from them. We compare readers who consumed story-type articles with those who did not in terms of topical diversity and reading continuity. Topical diversity is quantified using KL divergence over genre distributions, and continuity is evaluated using long-term dropout rates. We find that readers who consumed story-type articles exhibit higher genre diversity and lower dropout rates over the long term. These results suggest that exposure to story-type articles is associated with broader news repertoires and more sustained engagement.