Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09136 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866913153565065216 |
|---|---|
| author | Holzleitner, Marlene Leitner, Stephan Jorgensen, Hanna Lind Schmitz, Christoph Welander, Jacob Jannach, Dietmar |
| author_facet | Holzleitner, Marlene Leitner, Stephan Jorgensen, Hanna Lind Schmitz, Christoph Welander, Jacob Jannach, Dietmar |
| contents | Personalized news recommendations have become a standard feature of large news aggregation services, optimizing user engagement through automated content selection. In contrast, legacy news media often approach personalization cautiously, striving to balance technological innovation with core editorial values. As a result, online platforms of traditional news outlets typically combine editorially curated content with algorithmically selected articles - a strategy we term controlled personalization. In this industry article, we evaluate the effectiveness of controlled personalization through an A/B test conducted on the website of a major Norwegian legacy news organization. Our findings indicate that even a modest level of personalization yields substantial benefits. Specifically, we observe that users exposed to personalized content demonstrate higher click-through-rates and reduced navigation effort, suggesting improved discovery of relevant content. Moreover, our analysis reveals that controlled personalization contributes to greater content diversity and catalog coverage and in addition reduces popularity bias. Overall, our results suggest that controlled personalization can successfully align user needs with editorial goals, offering a viable path for legacy media to adopt personalization technologies while upholding journalistic values. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_09136 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Controlled Personalization in Legacy Media Online Services: A Case Study in News Recommendation Holzleitner, Marlene Leitner, Stephan Jorgensen, Hanna Lind Schmitz, Christoph Welander, Jacob Jannach, Dietmar Information Retrieval Artificial Intelligence Personalized news recommendations have become a standard feature of large news aggregation services, optimizing user engagement through automated content selection. In contrast, legacy news media often approach personalization cautiously, striving to balance technological innovation with core editorial values. As a result, online platforms of traditional news outlets typically combine editorially curated content with algorithmically selected articles - a strategy we term controlled personalization. In this industry article, we evaluate the effectiveness of controlled personalization through an A/B test conducted on the website of a major Norwegian legacy news organization. Our findings indicate that even a modest level of personalization yields substantial benefits. Specifically, we observe that users exposed to personalized content demonstrate higher click-through-rates and reduced navigation effort, suggesting improved discovery of relevant content. Moreover, our analysis reveals that controlled personalization contributes to greater content diversity and catalog coverage and in addition reduces popularity bias. Overall, our results suggest that controlled personalization can successfully align user needs with editorial goals, offering a viable path for legacy media to adopt personalization technologies while upholding journalistic values. |
| title | Controlled Personalization in Legacy Media Online Services: A Case Study in News Recommendation |
| topic | Information Retrieval Artificial Intelligence |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09136 |