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The power of social cues in the battle for attention: Evidence from an online platform for scholarly commentary

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  • Chan, Ho Fai
  • Bodiuzzman, Sohel Md
  • Torgler, Benno

Abstract

Because humans have limited resources and capacities to digest and comprehend the unprecedented amount of information bombarding today’s world, human attention is a scarce resource and the problem of information overload is becoming increasingly serious. In this study we aim to contribute to an understanding of how humans make decisions about the value of complex sources of information, specifically in the context of online scholarly platforms, online news, and social media. We thus use almost 5000 research-based VoxEU texts, together with the corresponding authors’ characteristics, to test whether, as an evolutionary approach would suggest, author success, skills, and prestige serve as strong cues in readers’ attentional decisions, by analyzing reading, sharing, and searching behaviors. In addition to finding strong support for this assumption, we also show that readers respond to such visual cues as article title, number of words in the abstract, and/or text content, with a clear favoring of figures over tables.

Suggested Citation

  • Chan, Ho Fai & Bodiuzzman, Sohel Md & Torgler, Benno, 2020. "The power of social cues in the battle for attention: Evidence from an online platform for scholarly commentary," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:14:y:2020:i:4:s1751157719303438
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2020.101077
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Yu, Houqiang & Li, Longfei & Cao, Xueting & Chen, Tao, 2022. "Exploring country's preference over news mentions to academic papers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    2. Chan, Ho Fai & Önder, Ali Sina & Schweitzer, Sascha & Torgler, Benno, 2023. "Twitter and citations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    3. Ho Fai Chan & Ali Sina Önder & Sascha Schweitzer & Benno Torgler, 2023. "Twitter and Citations," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2023-04, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Attention; Information overload; Heuristics; Prestige; Readership;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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