1. Joshua M. Scacco, PhD (@joshscacco)
Assistant Professor, Purdue University
Faculty Research Associate, Engaging News Project
The Future of Headlines?
You’ll Never Believe How People Reacted to Clickbait

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

3. CLICKBAIT

4. TRADITIONAL NEWS HEADLINES
● Overview of the main idea in an inverted pyramid-structured
news story

5. FORWARD-REFERENCE HEADLINES
● Create more uncertainty about information in a story
compared to traditional headlines

6. QUESTION-BASED HEADLINES
● Designed to create uncertainty by posing a question about
information contained in a news story

7. YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT WE
FOUND!
• Question-based headlines lead to more negativity from audience.
• Forward-reference headlines do not lead to different reactions.
• Types of headlines and policy issues should be paired carefully.

8. OUTCOME: REACTIONS
● Headline Reactions: (Un)civil, (Un)trustworthy,
(Non)partisan, (Un)informative, boring/entertaining,
(In)appropriate, confusing/clear, silly/serious, (Not) credible
● Result: Compared to traditional headlines, people had
slightly more negative reactions toward the question-based
headline.

9. OUTCOME: EXPECTATIONS
● Article Expectations: Do you expect the article following
this headline to be…(Un)civil, (Un)trustworthy,
(Non)partisan, (Un)informative, boring/entertaining,
(In)appropriate, confusing/clear?
● Result: Slightly more negative expectations of the news
articles that would follow question-based headlines
compared to articles that would follow traditional headlines.

10. OUTCOME: ENGAGEMENT
● News Engagement: How likely would you be to…read the
article, “Like” or “Favorite” the article via a social media site,
comment in the comment section, talk to someone about
the article, or pay a small fee for the article?
● Result: Question-based headlines slightly decreased
anticipated engagement with the news.

11. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
1. People responded more positively overall to
traditional headlines compared to question-based
headlines.
2. Forward-reference headlines did not change
opinions relative to traditional news headlines.

12. HEADLINES PAIRED WITH POLICY
ISSUES
To explore whether the effects
of the headlines were influenced
by the topic of the headline, we
tested the headline types across
three different topics:
- Immigration
policy
- The economy
- The U.S.
Congress

13. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
When the question headline was matched with Congress –
which was the most negatively received topic in our study
– the combination led to the most negative responses to
the headline.

14. HEADLINES IN ELECTION NEWS
2,941
1,665
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
Traditional Headline Clickbait Headline
PredictedPageViews
Headline Type and
Predicted Page Views
Data from the Engaging News Project and American Press Institute
Analysis controls for news organization, word count, federal/state race, issues mentioned, strategy
components, and hard news/opinion article
• Examining local news coverage of 2016 primary election

15. HEADLINES IN ELECTION NEWS
• Examining local news coverage of 2016 general election
5,713
3,982
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
Traditional Headline Clickbait Headline
PredictedPageViews
Headline Type and
Predicted Page Views
Data from the Engaging News Project and American Press Institute
Analysis controls for news organization, word count, federal/state race, issues mentioned, strategy
components, and hard news/opinion article

16. TRY THESE HEADLINES INSTEAD
Based on our research comparing solutions-
focused and non-solutions-focused headlines in
regard to popularity, solutions-focused
headlines resulted in more clicks.

17. SOLUTIONS HEADLINES
- Including a “mysterious” unnamed location in a
headline increases the click-through rate (e.g. “This
City Has a Solution to Poverty”).
- Adding the word “simple” can affect headline clicks
(e.g. “A Simple Way to Address Climate Change”).

18. SOLUTIONS HEADLINES
- Tacking solutions-oriented information onto a headline
does not significantly affect the click-through rate
(e.g. “This is a Problem. Here’s How to Help”).
- Adding the word “you” does not significantly
influence the click-through rate (e.g. “Here’s How You
Can Help Save The Rainforests”).

19. CONCLUSION
- Headlines styled as questions led to the most negative
reactions compared to traditional and forward-
reference headlines, especially when paired with a
topic the participants found particularly unappealing.
- Consider using different types of headlines, such as
solutions headlines.

20. OTHER ENP RESEARCH
Comment Sections
Engagement Buttons
Quizzes

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