Figuring out how to engage audiences online can be tricky. There are lots of ideas out there, but which ones work? That's where the Engaging News Project comes in. During this workshop, ENP Director Dr. Talia Stroud will share some of our research findings covering topics such as comment sections, engagement buttons, polls and quizzes and website design. We also will discuss how our findings can be used in newsrooms, on the web more broadly, and in the classroom.

1. How To Make Online News More
Commercially Viable &
Democratically Beneficial
Talia Stroud
Director of the Engaging News Project
Associate Professor at the UT-Austin
@EngagingNews / @TaliaStroud

2. ENGAGING NEWS PROJECT
To provide research-based techniques for
engaging online audiences in commercially
viable and democratically beneficial ways.

3. Polls & Quizzes
Comment Sections
Engagement Buttons
Site Design

4. POLLS ON NEWS SITES
Interactive polls are
common on news sites

5. AN ALTERNATIVE: A QUIZ

6. AN ALTERNATIVE: A QUIZ
Quizzes are engaging

7. AN ALTERNATIVE: A QUIZ
Quizzes are informative

8. ENGAGINGNEWSPROJECT.ORG/
CREATE-A-QUIZ

9. ENGAGINGNEWSPROJECT.ORG/
CREATE-A-QUIZ

13. QUIZTIPS: POSSIBLE CANDIDATES

14. QUIZTIPS

15. QUIZTIPS

16. QUIZTIPS

18. A QUIZTOOL

22. Polls & Quizzes
Comment Sections
Engagement Buttons
Site Design

23. COMMENT SECTIONS:THE GOOD
Examples culled from GateHouse Media organizations

24. COMMENT SECTIONS:THE BAD

25. COMMENT SECTIONS:THE UGLY

26. COMMENT SECTIONS:
THE STAKES FOR NEWSROOMS
1. Comments can affect what people think about your
journalism
2. Incivility in the comments can affect what people take
away from your journalism
3. Comments can build community
4. Comment sections can be a source of revenue

27. COMMENT SECTIONS:
STATE OFTHE SPACE

28. GETTING INVOLVED IN COMMENT
SECTIONS
Journalistic Involvement: TwoViews
Comments are the
purview of the site
users and newsroom
staff should not
respond …
Diakopoulos & Naaman, 2011,Towards
quality discourse in online news comments.
The tone changes
simply because the
user realizes
someone … is
listening
Jon DeNunzio, Washington Post

29. REPORTER INVOLVEMENT IN
COMMENTS
Design
Partner with local news station
Across 70 different political
posts, we randomized whether:
1)Reporter engaged
2)Station engaged
3)No engagement
Engagement was respectful,
highlighting strong comments
Results
Reporter engagement …
• Reduced incivility
• Increased provision
of evidence

30. REPORTER INVOLVEMENT IN
COMMENTS
Techniques to spark conversation and highlight productive
comments:
1. Answer legitimate questions (e.g. “Good question Mandy…”)
2. Ask questions (e.g. “What are your thoughts on that?”)
3. Provide additional information (e.g. “Here’s a link to the bill text.”)
4. Encourage and highlight good discussion (e.g. “Tom, you bring up something
interesting”)

31. TESTIMONIALS
“I’ve had a really positive experience getting
involved in the comments. It encourages me to
look at the comments section more.The readers
respond well when I go in and comment.They
generally will thank me for my response.”
-Jessica Parks, county reporter
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“(Engaging News Project) put out a study that
showed that having writers moderate and
comment on their own stories improved the tenor
of comments overall. A handful of reporters for the
Inquirer and Daily News have started to do this and
anecdotally, we feel it’s been pretty successful.”
-Erica Palan, audience engagement manager

32. Experiment to evaluate commenting behavior:
(1) Background Information
(2) Facts
(3) Both Background & Facts
(4) Control
Results
(1) More comments with background
information
(2) Comments more relevant with background
information
(3) Facts made people less calm, satisfied
(4) The more perceived civility and balance,
the more interest people had in returning
to the site

33. Polls & Quizzes
Comment Sections
Engagement Buttons
Site Design

36. ENGAGEMENT BUTTONS

37. Polls & Quizzes
Comment Sections
Engagement Buttons
Site Design

38. DESIGNINGTHE COMMENT SECTION
One-column
vs. three
columns

39. Limited page views, limited learningPAGE DESIGN

40. SUMMARY
Use quizzes instead of polls
Have journalists get involved in the comment section
Add pro/con arguments before a comment section
Use “Respect” instead of “Like”
Consider new comment section designs
Use contemporary homepage layouts

41. Questions & Comments?
/engagingnewsproject
engagingnewsproject.org
@engagingnews