Rethinking the generational gap in online news use: An infrastructural perspective

Abstract

Our study investigates the role of infrastructures in shaping online news usage by contrasting use patterns of two social groups-millennials and boomers-that are specifically located in news infrastructures. Typically based on self-reported data, popular press and academics tend to highlight the generational gap in news usage and link it to divergence in values and preferences of the two age cohorts.In contrast, we conduct relational analyses of shared usage obtained from passively metered usage data across a vast range of online news outlets for millennials and boomers. We compare each cohort's usage networks comprising various types of news websites. Our analyses reveal a smaller-than-commonlyassumed generational gap in online news usage, with characteristics that manifest the multifarious E Equal contributors (names in alphabetical order).An Infrastructural Perspective on Online News Use 2 effects of the infrastructural aspect of the media environment, alongside those of preferences.

Beyond the Here and Now of News Audiences: A Process-Based Framework for Investigating News Repertoires

“…3) Online news diets, or habits, can be measured with large-scale metered "big data" drawn from a large representative panel (Taneja et al, 2018). Following the second type of synchronic design outlined above, this approach allows the changing repertoires of multiple age cohorts to be compared in relation to geography, topical focus and partisan leaning.…”

“…three-wave study by Ekström et al, 2013). The latter, a synchronic research approach, takes place in a "present moment", and can take two paths: a) a memory-based discursive archeology of media use, in which participants take a retrospective glance at their media repertoires at specific moments in the distant or near past (different life stage, previous homeland, etc.see Höijer, 1998); or b) a simulation of the historical process by adopting a generational lens, where a comparison of repertoires of different age cohorts provides insights about influences and preferences shaping the media universe over time (Taneja et al, 2018). Surveys and interviews are typical methods employed in both chronological perspectives, but a number of others are appropriate and desirable, depending on the objectives at hand.…”

Do High-Choice Media Environments Facilitate News Avoidance? A Longitudinal Study 1997–2016

“…Some scholars have argued that the Internet does not constitute an open high-choice environment in the sense implied by the high-choice argument. Instead, departing from an "infrastructural perspective" to news consumption (see Webster, 2014), digital media systems can be perceived as networked structures that enable and constrain news dissemination in specific ways through their design (Taneja et al, 2018). From this "network structure perspective," it follows that the structural aspects of the Internet moderate the effect of preferences on media use.…”

“…An alternative view, which we call the "network structure perspective," holds that the Internet should not be analyzed as an open market of free choice but as a networked structure that serves to disseminate news in ways that may still constrain choice (Taneja et al, 2012(Taneja et al, , 2018. Relevant model subcomponents include: the "power law distribution" (Easley & Kleinberg, 2010), which implies that some news sources gain very high visibility and dissemination; and "social media curation," which suggests that a small number of power users drive news sharing (Taneja et al, 2018). Both factors might lead to people consuming news from online sources, without actively seeking out these sources.…”

Exploring digital divides in older adults’ news consumption

“…Media routines are well-developed and more markedly displayed among older adults (Konig et al, 1998). Socialised in a broadcast age, and with established habits and routines, members of this group most likely bring traditional media practices to the digital age (Taneja et al, 2018). An in-depth interview study of older adults show that newspapers are consumed in both print and digital formats, and that some use both formats depending on context and purpose (Quan-Haase et al, 2016).…”