Online headlines shift from concise to click-worthy
Over the past 20 years, online news headlines have become longer, more negative, and increasingly focused on click-through rates—regardless of journalistic quality. This is the conclusion reached by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, who analyzed about 40 million headlines from English-language news outlets across the last two decades. Their study has been published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
Over the past 20 years, online news headlines have become longer, more negative, and increasingly focused on click-through rates—regardless of journalistic quality. This is the conclusion reached by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, who analyzed about 40 million headlines from English-language news outlets across the last two decades. Their study has been published in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
