News Consumption in the Mobile Era The role of mobile devices and traditional journalism's content within the user's information repertoire

Mobile devices allow users to keep ubiquitously connected to the internet. Consequently, they change the reception of information by faster access, greater timeliness, and new media usage contexts. At the same time, many traditional media organizations already produce content for mobile websites and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDigital journalism Vol. 3; no. 5; pp. 759 - 776
Main Authors Wolf, Cornelia, Schnauber, Anna
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 03.09.2015
Subjects
brand transfer
information repertoire
mobile devices
mobile journalism
news consumption
standardized survey
user typology
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Summary:Mobile devices allow users to keep ubiquitously connected to the internet. Consequently, they change the reception of information by faster access, greater timeliness, and new media usage contexts. At the same time, many traditional media organizations already produce content for mobile websites and apps in line with cross-media strategies. Reflecting severe structural changes in the journalism market, they are hoping to manage the digital transition successfully by mobile publishing, (re)gaining especially the digital natives. Referring to the media repertoire approach, we examine the role of mobile devices on two different levels. First, from a technical point of view, we consider the platform repertoire of mobile internet users for information. Focusing on the use frequency of online (computer, mobile devices) and offline media (printed newspaper, television set, radio set), a quantitative study (N = 498, face-to-face interviews) reveals six different user types. Second, we examine the new medium's use for information purposes by drawing on the unique specifics of mobile devices compared to other media. Results show that the new medium is frequently used for information due to its particular qualities. Third, we look at the users' selected mobile news sources from an institutional perspective. Our results indicate that, although new online-only providers are of a certain relevance to mobile internet users, traditional journalism's content dominates the mobile information repertoire.
ISSN:2167-0811
2167-082X
DOI:10.1080/21670811.2014.942497