News Consumption Revisited: Examining the Power of Habits in the 21st Century

Angela M. LeePh.D. CandidateAnnenberg School for CommunicationUniversity of Pennsylvaniaalee@asc.upenn.edu

11th International Symposium on Online Journalism April 24th, 2010 // Austin, TX

Michael X. Delli CarpiniDeanAnnenberg School for CommunicationUniversity of Pennsylvaniamxd@asc.upenn.edu

The New Era: Journalism In Transition

Optimism among 1st wave of online journalism studies: Internet liberates news information. “A revolution”; “future of journalism”; “a

whole new journalism” Q: How does the Internet make a

difference in online news consumption? Democratize news information?

Online News: Old Wine in New Bottle?

Dominance of tradition news entities online Supply most news content; “Shovelware” of content; Have most traffic.

Hindman (2008): “Accessibility does not equate visibility” In theory: Internet allows all voices to be heard In practice: Only those with megaphones are

heard (i.e., Yahoo, MSNBC, CNN) “Myth of digital democracy”

(New) Theory of Media Attendance

Def.: People lapse into habitual patterns of media consumption when supply > demand.

Habits = “gratifications” in U&G, but rarely examined in Communication research

Habits: An activity that is routinely performed, and often developed early on in one’s life. Primacy Frequency

Habits & Digital Divides

Contemporary Americans have grown up in three different news media and technological environments: Digital Natives (18-29): Print’s less central,

TV&Radio news are still influential but declining. Grew up with Internet.

Digital Immigrants (30-64): TV&Radio news dominated, though print was still important. Adopted the Internet later in life.

Digital Settlers (65+): Print dominated, TV&Radio news on the rise. Grew up in analog-only environments

Source: Palfrey & Grasser, 2008

Data & Method

Biennial Media Consumption Survey 2008 (BMCS) by the Pew Research Center for the People & The Press N=3600 nationally representative sample of

adults Survey administered from April 29-May 21, 2008

Logistic Regression Analysis SPSS 17. Chi-squares, Gamma and OLS also performed,

and all findings yield the same conclusion as that of Logistic Regression Analysis

H1a-d & H2a-d

In traditional media landscape… H1a: Settlers’ (65+) primary & most

frequented news medium = Print H1b-c: Immigrants’ (30-64) primary &

most frequented news medium = TV/Radio H1d: Natives’ (18-29) primary & most

frequented news medium = Internet As would be expected, all hypotheses

are supported, except for TV news use. Q: TV?

Post-Hoc Analysis of TV Usage (freq.)

N= 271

Broadcast: ABC, NBC, CBS

Cable: CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, CNBC, FOX, BBC

H3a-d (Migration of Offline Habits Online)

Specific websites that one turns to online will be influenced by one’s offline consumption habits H3a: Settlers (65+): Primarily visit print

newspaper sites H3b,c: Immigrants (30-64): Primarily visit

TV/radio sites H3d: Natives (18-29): Primarily visit non-

traditional news sites i.e., Drudge, Digg, Slate, Topix,

Blackamericaweb, Charter, Cox.net

…H3e

Being natural inhabitants of the Internet, Natives (18-29) will visit a greater variety of news websites than Immigrants or Settlers.

H3a-d Findings

Newspaper: TV: Half Radio: Untraditional: Note: CNN, MSNBC and Fox = 70% of TV news sites

Q: Untraditional: Weird pattern? 6% total Settlers; Small N

N= 485*See paper for logistic regression analyses*

Post-Hoc: “YI” (30-47) look more like Natives; “SI” (48-64) look more like Settlers.

Q: Convergence of online news uses among younger population?

N= 485

H3e Findings (Supported) Significantly more natives (29%) reported a

greater variety of news sources than immigrants (27%) or settlers (11%). Also:

Limitations

Suitability of data Exploratory in nature Possibility of alternative explanations

Nonetheless… Emergence of interesting patterns Suggestive role of habits both offline and online

Implications

1. Habits dictate traditional news medium choices

2. Habitual offline news uses influence online news uses

3. Even if there is accessibility and visibility, as long as news consumers don’t have the habit of seeking alternative sources, “digital democracy” is merited only in theory but not practice

4. Possible maturation of habitual news uses over time

5. Younger population (18-47) is converging in their online news use patterns

Future of (Online) Journalism?

“We can only change what we understand” (G.S. Adam, 1993)

We need to understand why and how people consume news across media Angela’s forthcoming dissertation:

Examining news consumption via Uses & Gratifications + Integrative Model of Behavior Change

Thank you for your time and attention

Angela M. Leealee@asc.upenn.edu

Michael X. Delli Carpinimxd@asc.upenn.edu

Photo by: Angela M. Lee