Emotion Sells: Rage Bait vs. Information Bait in Clickbait News Headlines on Social Media

Despite the widespread use of clickbait news headlines, the concept and function of clickbait remain underdeveloped. This study examined clickbait headlines on social media, focusing on which types of news organizations tend to use this content strategy and whether these strategies effectively drive audience engagement. In this article, rather than treating clickbait as a single, uniform category, we distinguish between information bait and rage bait. Our findings show that digital-born media and conservative media were more likely to use rage bait, while no significant difference was observed in their use of information bait. In addition, rage bait headlines were linked to higher levels of audience engagement, while information bait was associated with lower engagement. These findings highlight the importance of differentiating emotion-driven bait from information-driven bait, as they exhibit different characteristics and message effects. The mechanism of underlying emotion-triggered audience responses is further discussed.