The recent growth of mobile channels has provided steadily increasing opportunities for individuals to access news and other mass-mediated content. Media ecological perspectives argue that the introduction of such new technologies can shift the existing biases in prevailing social systems. According to one ecological perspective, the theory of the niche, when new media technologies are successfully introduced into a domain, displacement may occur unless some alteration is made to the resource base. Interstices are conceptualized as the gaps in the routines of media users between scheduled activities. Through the use of a diary method, participants logged access to news using a variety of communication technologies, including mobile channels. Results indicated that traditional media occupied traditional niches with little evidence of displacement, while mobile channels occupied a new niche: access in the interstices.

According to the theory of the niche, media must differentiate themselves along resource dimensions that allow for their survival to compete and coexist within a resource space. Within this study, contacts with personal relationships are framed as a key resource domain over which channels of interpersonal communication (interpersonal media) compete to occupy niches within the resource spaces of social networks. One hundred and forty-two college undergraduates completed a time/ space diary for a randomly assigned weekday in which they recorded their contacts or 'bundles' with members of their personal social network. Analysis of the data shows that interpersonal media coexist because they are differentiated from each other in the contacts they allow with different relationships at different times and locations. Although evidence is found regarding heavy competition among the media under analysis, each is used in different time/space/network relationship contexts.

According to O'Sullivan's (2000)

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The theory of niche proposes that a new medium competes with older, more established media to fulfill users' needs. This study uses niche theory, a macrolevel theory, as well as social information processing theory and the theory of electronic propinquity, both microlevel theories, to examine the niche of instant messaging (IM) in providing general gratifications. Results indicate that IM is characterized by a broad niche, surpassed only by that of the cell phone. IM had substantial niche overlap with e-mail and the cell phone, indicating a degree of substitutability between them; the least overlap was with the landline telephone (LLP). The hierarchy that emerged indicated that the cell phone was superior to IM, which was superior to e-mail, followed by the LLP for providing general gratifications. Finally, displacement tests indicated that IM use displaced e-mail and LLP but not cell phone use. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.