Effect of online video infotainment on audience attention

Based on the attention economy theory, this study used regression analysis to examine how online video infotainment affects audiences’ attention breadth, depth, engagement, and validity. Empirical results show that highly positive and negative emotions significantly impact audience attention. Content storytelling, star characters, soft news themes, and sensational headlines have significant positive effects. From the perspective of online video and media platforms, time fragmentation significantly impacts audience attention both positively and negatively. Diversification of presentation methods, the number of labels (tags), and authoritative media have significant positive effects, whereas the number of topics has a significant negative impact.

Xinran Dai, Jing Wang