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Michelle McNally
mmcnally009@ufl.edu
Journalism Studies—Midterm Paper
October 7, 2016
Clickbait and Its Place in the Digital World of Journalism
Online news readers constantly fall victim to clickbait content. The current digital sphere
is filled with it, especially social media platforms. What was once thought to be the product of
sites like BuzzFeed and Vice, is now done by the some of the most traditional news
organizations in existence. Contrary to popular belief, the idea behind clickbait content is
nothing new. Sensationalized and misleading content has been around since the beginning of
journalism (Frampton, BBC News). Yet, the invention of the internet and journalism’s forced
adaptation to digital has only made this arguably unethical practice more prevalent.
Jon Stewart, the famous American comedian who hosted the satirical news program The
Daily Show from 1999 to 2015, compared clickbait content to walking through the Coney Island
theme park during an interview with New York Magazine in 2014. “It’s like carnival barkers,
and they all sit out there and go, ‘Come on in here and see a three-legged man!’ So you walk in
and it’s a guy with a crutch” (Oremus, Slate). Put simply, clickbait means headlines and social
media posts that tempt readers to click story links (Frampton, BBC News). These headlines and
posts, which intend to deceive readers into clicking a story, have become an ethical problem
within the journalism industry (Buttry, ONAethics).
Clickbait headlines use tone, volume, and the curiosity gap—the use of seduction as a
means to get readers to click a story link by telling them enough to whet their curiosity, but not
enough to fulfill it—to pique readers’ interests (Oremus, Slate). The word bait implies a trap, so
it’s no surprise that these headlines are sensationalized and/or misleading. Some clickbait
headlines are based on the “you won’t believe what you’re about to read” idea. This is not
necessarily wrong when a writer has information that is very interesting for his or her readers.
However, writers must not overplay the information given in the headline or readers will realize
that what the story offers does not match what the headline promised (Frampton, BBC News).
A headline should entice, and a story should deliver. This means that a story needs to
back up its headline. Yet, to be clear, if a headline is “teasing,” meaning it purposefully holds
back information or asks a question as a means to make readers click on the story, it does not
mean that headline is absolutely unethical. However, that headline becomes unethical if the
reader feels cheated after reading the story, if the question was not answered, or if holding back
information was only used to dramatized the story (Buttry, ONAethics).
A lot of clickbait headlines and social media posts tend to be “fluff” content. “Fluff”
includes content such as horoscopes, cute animal videos, crossword puzzles, pop-culture quizzes,
and more. Although, “fluff” content is not necessarily unethical so long as the content’s headline
does not mislead readers (Buttry, ONAethics).
Yet, this change in journalism has brought readers frustration (Frampton, BBC News).
Not only are readers clicking on stories with headlines that promise more than the story can
deliver, there also seems to be a lot more “fluff” content and a lot less “watchdog journalism”
content online (Buttry, ONAethics). Nevertheless, this trivial content is popular. It’s rarely
newsworthy, but it does attract readers. The assumption seems to be that audiences may stay for
the “serious” content after devouring the “fluff” (Dvorkin, PBS News Hour).
So why is this happening? The reason clickbait content has been saturating the digital
journalism world is simply because of economics (Frampton, BBC News). News companies
have always monitored their audience in one way or another, using tools like Nielsen and
Arbitron ratings, but now these companies need a way to monetize online stories (Buttry,
ONAethics). The way digital monetization works is the more clicks a brand gets means the more
people on their site and the more the brand can charge for advertising (Frampton, BBC News).
Digital revenue is largely dependent on how much traffic a brand receives online, along with the
amount of uniques— the number of distinct visitors going to a website during a certain time
period (Shire, The Daily Beast).
Jake Beckman, who works for RebelMouse, which runs a Twitter account called
@SavedYouAClick, said the value of a regular, loyal readership has diminished financially in
the current world of online news. “Advertisers care about bringing new readers into the fold”
(Shire, The Daily Beast).
With that said, media companies have been found to pay writers more money for more
clicks. For example, the online magazine Slant pays writers $100 per month, plus $5 for every
