Joe Biden is dominating the 2020 Democratic field in online attention, showing the extent to which the race is being molded by the current frontrunner while other candidates are defining themselves in relation to him.
What's going on: Articles about Biden are generating farmore social media interactions (43.5 million) than any other 2020 Democrat over the last 10 weeks, according to data from Newswhip exclusively provided to Axios as part of a project that will regularly update throughout the 2020 campaign.
The next closest is Bernie Sanders, who lags far behind Bidenwith 24.8 million.
Why it matters: The data on interactions — including likes, comments and shares — highlights an important, but under-appreciated element of an election: the ability to see beyond our own social feeds and understand the broader universe playing out of how candidates and issues are moving the minds of voters.
It measures enthusiasm in a way that traditional polling does not.
The sample size taken from these social media platforms is massive.
Social media is powered by emotion-driven content, and emotional responses are likely to be aligned with a voter's true beliefs in a way that can be masked in polling.
Driving the news: It's not surprising that Biden leads this metric, but the data shows how thoroughly he's dominating social media attention — a clear sign of how Biden is shaping the race.
"Especially in the era of Trump, you want to be the center of conversation," Democratic strategist Ian Russell tells Axios. "The candidate who is the center of conversation is driving the narrative and the race is being shaped around him or her."
While much of the recent coverage on Biden has been critical, Trump showed that negative sentiment isn't such a liability when you're dominating reach and driving the race.
"If this race is a referendum on Biden, and he comes out of it as being acceptable, that’s a pretty good place to be," Russell says.
Flashback: Here's how the numbers looked in 2016. Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 1, per Newswhip:
Donald Trump: 811 million interactions, 1.7 million articles
Hillary Clinton: 502 million interactions, 974k articles
By the numbers: The volume of articles about Biden (63k) is the central reason for his high interaction numbers. (Bernie is 2nd with 27k). Over the last 10 weeks, he is only 6th in interactions per article, an indicator of enthusiasm, if not broad appeal.
Bernie Sanders — 895 avg. interactions/article over last 10 weeks
Eric Swalwell — 886
Elizabeth Warren — 789
Pete Buttigieg — 737
Bill de Blasio — 710
Joe Biden — 654
Yes, but: While the volume of interactions does not gauge the sentiment of the reactions, the ability to generate reach allows a candidate to expand the universe of potential voters.
Bots also cannot be ignored, and we will point out in this space if there are documented instances of bot activity for certain candidates or issues.
Methodology: This project measures the number of social media interactions generated on stories published about the 2020 candidates and issues.
Interactions are calculated from reactions, comments and shares on those stories on Facebook as well as the number of shares from more than 300,000 influential Twitter accounts and retweets and likes on those posts.
Tracked published stories come from a defined universe of more than 450,000 domains.
A story registers for a candidate or issue if the keyword is mentioned in the headline, summary or URL of the story.
Our search format for candidates looks like: "Joe Biden" OR ("Biden" AND ("President" OR "2020" OR "election" OR "Democrats" OR "primary").
For issues, we use a keyword tree for related terms.
Top news executives tell Axios that a real "Trump slump" is hitting digital, cable and more.
Why it matters: The shock factor around President Trump's unplanned announcements, staff departures, taunting tweets and erratic behavior is wearing off, and media companies are scrambling to find their next big moneymaker.
Driving the news: Executives tell Axios that Trump fatigue is very real: Interest in political coverage overall is down, which is spurring investments in other beats, like technology and the global economy.
Democrats don't appear to be the lifeline media companies are hoping can fill the gap for diminished Trump interest. Executives say they expect this week’s debate ratings to be nothing like the ratings for the 2016 Trump debates.
Be smart: Part of the problem is that 2020 Democrats don't have a knock-out media star to drive interest in the election. To date, the Democrats' biggest media attraction has been Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who isn't running for president.
Other candidates split the spotlight in the crowded Democratic primary field.
By the numbers: Digital demand for Trump-related content (number of article views compared to number of articles written) has dropped 29% between the first 6 months of the Trump presidency and the most recent 6 months, according to data from traffic analytics company Parse.ly.
Evidence that Trump's social media star power was also beginning to wear off surfaced last month, when Axios reported that his tweets were receiving less than half the engagement that they got when he first took office.
Similar trends are happening in more traditional media settings:
In March, New York Times COO Meredith Kopit Levien told Axios during a panel at SXSW that the paper's subscription "Trump Bump” ended in mid-2018.
In December, media research firm MoffettNathanson found that live news network ratings were down "in the -10% to -20% range" for the better part of 2018. Overall, the firm found that ratings around TV news coverage overall began to decline after the 2016 election.
Cable TV networks, which still reach a majority of Americans with political news coverage, began pulling back on Trump campaign rallies late last year because they weren't driving ratings, according to Politico.
Our thought bubble: The Trump bump that supported the news industry through difficult economic times is not sustainable, and media companies that were once reliant on politics coverage to get through tough times are going to have to pivot.
The news and information that U.S. adults actually read doesn't always match up with the topics they claim they want covered more, according to data from traffic analytics company Parse.ly and an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll.
Data: Axios/SurveyMonkey poll, Parse.ly; Note: Media, celebrity, local news and transportation topics were not tracked by both data sets and were omitted from analysis; Chart: Andrew Witherspoon/Axios
The big picture: Entertainment and emotionally charged topics over-index on how much they are read vs. readers' stated coverage preferences. More academic, less personality-driven issues end up getting read less.
By the numbers: Demand is defined as the total number of views for a topic divided by the number of articles written about that topic.
According to traffic data pulled from Parse.ly's 2000+ publisher member sites for the month of May, demand is highest for news about politics and government, followed by sports and immigration.
But while the demand for those topics is high, most consumers said in an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll that they want more news about health care, followed by climate/environment and education. Respectively, those topics ranked 7th, 5th and 11th out of more than a dozen topics in terms of demand.
Similarly, only 5% of total U.S. adults surveyed said they want more sports coverage, but sports has the third-highest demand, according to Parse.ly.
Be smart: This behavior is a symptom of our era of passive news consumption: When news is sprinkled into our social media feeds and accessed in other on-the-go environments, the items that will satisfy us in that moment will be the ones that get clicked.
An acknowledgement of important topics for coverage doesn't translate to real reading behaviors, which tend to be less holistically considered and more spontaneous.
It's easy to blame the media for overblown media coverage, but it's only half to blame. Publishers have to respond to what people actually read — not what they say they want.
It's also important to note that individual topics will vary in interest from month-to-month based on the news cycle. Interest in a topic like national security can depend on how close it runs to other wrought issues, like the role of the president in the issue or a specific storyline.
The big picture: Media companies struggling to find their footing are looking for ways to better connect with consumers. This involves finding new verticals and topics to write about, as well as more innovative ways to cover traditional topics.
Our thought bubble: Successful subscription models are able to sidestep the traffic trap of covering easy-gratification topics for clicks by reaching audiences in more intentional consumption environments — newsletters, magazines and streaming services.
