Driving factors of social media article diffusion: Empirical evidence from WeChat

Yunze Zhao, Guoning Zhao, Qianru Yang, Xiaoning Wang, School of Journalism and Communication, Renmin University of China, School of Information and Communication, Communication University of China, School of Data Science and Intelligent Media, Communication University of China

Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism

Published online on July 10, 2026

Abstract

Journalism, Ahead of Print.
This study constructs three logistic models to predict whether an article on social media can achieve a high reading volume (100,000+), a high liking volume (above 1,099), and a high reading and liking volume simultaneously. Our findings are based on the ...