Online news consumption research: An assessment of past work and an agenda for the future

Abstract

This article assesses the main findings and dominant modes of inquiry in recent scholarship on online news consumption. The findings suggest that the consumption of news on the internet has not yet differed drastically from the consumption of news in traditional media. The assessment shows that the dominant modes of inquiry have also been characterized by stability rather than change (because research has usually drawn on traditional theoretical and methodological approaches). In addition, these modes of inquiry exhibit three systematic limitations: the assumption of a division between print, broadcast, and online media; the notion that the analysis should treat media features and social practices separately; and the inclination to focus on ordinary or extraordinary patterns of phenomena but not on both at the same time. On the basis of this assessment, this article proposes an integrative research agenda that builds on this scholarship but also contributes to solve some of its main limitations.

Incidental News: How Young People Consume News on Social Media

“…The advent of news on bulletin boards and online services first, and then on the web, triggered the emergence of scholarly research aimed at understanding the dynamics of news consumption using computerized devices [35], [36]. Two lines of research are particularly relevant for present purposes: whether the advent of online news complements or displaces news consumption in print and broadcast media; and whether online news consumption alters the temporal and spatial coordinates of getting the news in those media.…”

Learning From News on Different Media Platforms: An Eye-Tracking Experiment

“…Some argued that the rise of digital media could lead to higher levels of knowledge, while others are not that sure about the positive implications (Dimitrova, Shehata, Strömbäck, & Nord, 2014;Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2010). In this article, we discuss findings provided by previous work and link this to theoretical perspectives on the consequences of online news consumption: the impact of (a) user control and (b) linearity of use.…”

“…An exploration of the mediators of learning from the news may provide answers as to why competing findings have dominated the online news learning literature until now (Eveland & Garrett, 2014;Mitchelstein & Boczkowski, 2010). Changes in learning from different types of news might be explained by a multitude of variables, such as metacognitive beliefs about the "seriousness" of printed newspapers (Ackerman & Goldsmith, 2011), ergonomic considerations about reading on a screen (Blehm et al, 2005;Mangen et al, 2013), as well as motivation and ability to process (Eveland, Shah, & Kwak, 2003).…”

Repositioning news and public connection in everyday life: a user-oriented perspective on inclusiveness, engagement, relevance, and constructiveness

“…Digitalization broadens the issues people can connect about through news and with whom they can do so. The almost unlimited media choice to some extent causes people to move to different combinations of news outlets (see Mitchelstein and Boczkowski, 2010 for an overview). Therefore, it may diminish the overlap in content consumed, decreasing people's common experience and diversifying their rituals and habits.…”