Gossip at one’s fingertips: Predictors of celebrity news on Twitter

Abstract

The present study collected 2223 tweets of news about the Top 100 celebrities from People Magazine’s Twitter account during the year 2016. A combination of content analysis and social network analysis was used to examine celebrity attributes, news features, and the relationships between celebrities and news topics. Results indicated that news agendas and audiences’ responses were highly different. News coverage was primarily determined by news features, yet audiences cared only about big stars. Regular topics centered on the themes of celebrity news. The celebrity-by-topic network was topic-driven rather than human-driven, demonstrating the nature of the celebrity industry as an embodiment of capitalist society.