Does the Long Tail apply to online news? A quantitative study of French-speaking news websites

In: New media & society: an international and interdisciplinary forum for the examination of the social dynamics of media and information change, Volume 12, Issue 8, p. 1244-1261

Abstract

The multiplicity of news available on the web is frequently presented as a positive factor leading to pluralism. The web is expected to offer a wider range of content than offline media, as the Long Tail theory more largely suggests. But such an assumption has to be proved by empirical evidence. The research presented in this article aims at testing this hypothesis through a transdisciplinary quantitative study based on a sample of several thousands of articles drawn from different categories of French-speaking websites. In fact, the editorial identification of topical issues and the lexicometric analysis of the headlines both suggest a more complex situation. The spectrum of issues that websites deal with is simultaneously characterized by diversity as well as high concentration on a few major and redundant issues. These results highlight the necessity to question the ideal of pluralism that the web is supposed to embody.