News circulation on social media platforms: A longitudinal study of news sharing and source diversity
2026-05-04
This study investigates the extent to which Dutch-language Twitter did reflect a diverse news ecosystem by examining how structurally distinct news sources were shared between 2016 and 2022. While platforms are often seen as democratizing news distribution, few studies have analyzed how different media categories adapt to the same infrastructural conditions over time. Drawing on a longitudinal large-scale dataset of tweets containing URLs, we measure both source diversity and relative prominence across four media categories (newspapers, broadcasters, online news platforms, and other sources). Findings reveal a convergence in diversity across institutional actors, suggesting isomorphic adaptation to platform logics. However, this structural convergence is accompanied by divergent prominence: legacy newspapers grow more prominent, while diverse but marginal categories (broadcast media, online news media, and other sources) decline. Twitter emerges as an infrastructural filter that reshapes news distribution online. The Dutch case, marked by high public trust and digital saturation, offers new insights into how platformization (re)structures authority and diversity in hybrid news environments.