The Effects of Facebook Referrals and Mobile Devices on Online News Consumption

The expansion of social network, particularly Facebook and the ubiquitous use of mobile device has reshaped the way people consume news. In our study, we analyze Web server logs of a daily online newspaper in Malaysia to investigate the effects of Facebook referrals and mobile devices using Spearman rho. We found the following; (i) half of the pages accessed in that period are referred from Facebook; (ii) mobile device is used mainly to access the news website; and (iii) in terms of content, articles are the one type of content that is popularly accessed. Our findings are significant to the news provider for them to amplify their presence in social media.