Newspaper Readers in Europe

Abstract

■ This article discusses national and individual differences in newspaper reading in Europe. The study uses comparative data on newspaper reading from 23 European countries from the European Social Survey (ESS). By using a multilevel analysis technique, newspaper reading is analysed from the perspective of both individual and national characteristics. The authors claim the findings of this study could throw new light on Hallin and Mancini's theory of media systems. The analysis shows that individual differences explain most of the variation in newspaper reading, but some of the variance could also be explained as national variance. Age, gender, education level and household income explain differences in newspaper reading, but these variables do not have the same effect in all countries. National-level variables in newspapers' situation, other media use, demography and public opinion also improve the effectiveness of `the newspaper reading in Europe' model. ■

The New About News: How Print, Online, Free, and Mobile Coconstruct New Audiences in Italy, France, Spain, the UK, and Germany

“…With respect to age this variable has lost its discriminatory power: different generations have found their specific but balanced way to deal with print newspapers. We can make two observations regarding age in 2009: age does not produce significant differences among those reading print and free newspapers; this suggests that the map of different gratifications and rituals that various age cohorts expressed for a long time may be changing; the digital platforms miraculously reconciled youths' world with the news: the younger the respondents, the more are they likely to read online newspapers and mobile news; Elvestad and Blekesaune () have argued about an ambiguity of the role of age in the studies on newspaper readerships, but our findings suggest a historical change in the generational composition of news audiences. …”

“…Among EU5 users are restructuring their relationship with written news. Even show national media systems change, the strength of the overall variable ‘country’ remains (Elvestad & Blekesaune, ).…”

Institutional Trust, Education, and Corruption: A Micro-Macro Interactive Approach

“…For example, the more educated consistently express more interest in politics than the less educated (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996;Verba et al, 1995). Education has been shown to be positively related to time spent reading newspapers, itself an important means of obtaining political information (Dee, 2004;Elvestad and Blekesaune, 2008;Shehata and Strömbäck, 2011). Moreover, citizens with higher levels of education have a greater tendency to undertake a range of political activities that provide opportunities for learning about the quality of political institutions.…”

”I trust what’s written but I don’t think it’s good”: Old age pensioners’ persistency in the practice of obtaining information from the news media

“…According to Facht (2016), 83% of people living in Sweden aged 65-79 read a daily newspaper compared to only 41% of people aged 15-24. Traditional news media are still the fi rst choice for information about the surrounding world (European commission: Standard Eurobarometer 76, 2011;Livingstone, 2008;Carlsson, 2012;Weibull, 2011), and this is true in all Western democracies (Kaye & Johnson, 2003;Färdigh & Sternvik, 2009) although the Nordic countries all score the highest for the news press as an information source (Elvestad & Blekesaune, 2008) compared to the EU average (European commission: Standard Eurobarometer 76, 2011). Th is raises the interesting question of why traditional news media have persisted as a means for acquiring information about the world in spite of the fact that, in recent decades, we have witnessed a huge transformation not only of the news media landscape, but of the information landscape as a whole.…”