Undoing Churnalism? Users sharing local news on Facebook

This study investigates the types of information that users of a local news site share on Facebook. This issue relates to the idea of "churnalism", which concerns a form of weakened journalism that diminishes the ability to perform expected tasks in a democratic society. As a major social media platform, Facebook has acquired substantial influence over news dissemination, and therefore, scholarly focus needs to be directed to users as news disseminators. The manners by which users share news on Facebook indicate whether churnalism is promoted or abated through users' interaction with online news. In this study, a quantitative content analysis illustrates how 348 news articles published on a local news site were shared 7266 times. The results show that concerns related to churnalism should be directed primarily to the fact that the news outlet only rarely provides users with opportunities to interact with serious or hard news, while lightweight news is frequently offered. Despite this, users abate churnalism in the sense that the news they prefer to share is news from in-house sources rather than from external sources. The news extensively shared covers changes in the vicinity, and health care, and has emerged from local and regional events