[Paper Review] Junk News & Information Sharing During the 2019 UK General Election.

Nahema Marchal, Bence Kollányi+3 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Feb 27, 2020

Social Media and Politics1 references4 citations

TL;DR

This study analyzes political information sharing on Twitter and Facebook during the 2019 UK General Election, using Twitter streaming and CrowdTangle data to classify content. It finds that junk news constituted less than 2% of shared links on Twitter—significantly lower than in 2017—while professional news dominated; however, junk news on Facebook triggered more extreme user reactions, primarily targeting mainstream media like the BBC with conspiratorial narratives.

ABSTRACT

Today, an estimated 75% of the British public access information about politics and public life online, and 40% do so via social media. With this context in mind, we investigate information sharing patterns over social media in the lead-up to the 2019 UK General Elections, and ask: (1) What type of political news and information were social media users sharing on Twitter ahead of the vote? (2) How much of it is extremist, sensationalist, or conspiratorial junk news? (3) How much public engagement did these sites get on Facebook in the weeks leading and (4) What are the most common narratives and themes relayed by junk news outlets

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate the prevalence and nature of junk news and misinformation during the 2019 UK General Election campaign.
• To understand how political information, especially from professional and junk news sources, was shared across Twitter and Facebook.
• To examine public engagement patterns and narrative themes in high-performing junk news content on Facebook.
• To assess shifts in information ecosystems compared to previous elections, particularly the 2017 UK General Election.
• To evaluate the impact of platform self-regulation and policy changes on disinformation flows.

Proposed method

• Collected 1.76 million Twitter tweets using the Twitter Streaming API between November 13–19, 2019, using 40 election-related hashtags.
• Extracted 308,493 tweets containing URLs, identifying 28,532 unique web links for analysis.
• Classified sources using a grounded typology with three coders achieving Krippendorff’s alpha of 0.77, labeling 96.4% of links.
• Analyzed hashtag usage, retweet patterns, and user engagement levels on Twitter to map political conversation dynamics.
• Used CrowdTangle to measure public engagement (likes, shares, comments) on Facebook for content from junk and professional news outlets (November 6–27, 2019).
• Conducted thematic analysis of the most-engaged-with junk news stories to identify dominant narratives and ideological framing.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What types of political news and information were shared on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2019 UK General Election?
• RQ2 What proportion of shared content on Twitter and Facebook constituted junk news, and how did it compare to professional news?
• RQ3 How did public engagement differ between junk news and professional news outlets on Facebook?
• RQ4 What were the dominant narratives and themes in the most viral junk news stories on Facebook during the campaign?

Key findings

• Fewer than 2% of links shared on Twitter during the data collection period were classified as junk news, a significant decrease from the 2017 UK General Election.
• Professional news content accounted for 57.1% of all links shared on Twitter, with major news brands (e.g., The Guardian, BBC) being the most prominent sources.
• Labour-related hashtags dominated Twitter traffic for most of the week, but Conservative hashtags surged threefold during the first televised leaders’ debate.
• Although professional news outlets had far higher overall reach, junk news content on Facebook triggered more extreme user reactions, such as outrage and emotional engagement.
• The most viral junk news stories on Facebook primarily targeted mainstream media—especially the BBC—with narratives accusing them of bias, misinformation, or using outdated footage.
• Ad-hominem attacks against specific political figures, particularly Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn, were also common themes in high-engagement junk news content.