Abstract
This study investigates which news organizations are using location-based services, particularly with geolocating content in their mobile apps, and how they are doing so. Based on findings from a content analysis of 173 mobile news apps by top U.S. media outlets (i.e., radio, television, newspaper, digital-only), broadcast mobile apps had location-based services enabled more than other media outlets. Two news radio stations had geolocated their news content.
Keywords
The news industry faces new challenges and opportunities in reaching audiences for their news products and services.
Today’s news consumer has multiple ways to get news, from websites to smartwatch apps. Industry research 1 and studies 2 show that local news is driving digital and mobile news consumption behavior. News consumers are satisfying their news appetite while on the go via the mobile device. 3
A mobile phone user can easily get the latest local headlines of what is happening in his or her town. Moreover, mobile devices are enabled with a global positioning system (GPS) that works with Wi-Fi networks and cell phone triangulation to identify the location of the mobile device and provide the user information based on where they are to find a business, locate a restaurant or find news near them. 4 A recent Pew Research Center survey identified that nine in 10 smartphone users get directions, recommendations or information related to their location, a change from 74 percent in 2013. 5
Geolocating news to the mobile user is not far-fetched. Award-winning 6 Breaking News, a media entity of the NBC network that began in 2012, sent proximity news alerts to its mobile users when news happened near them. By December 2016, Breaking News ceased operations due to not being profitable enough. The news shocked many who quickly took to Twitter to state their sadness about the outcome. 7 Another organization, Our Hometown Inc., in 2014, created a mobile app called News Bayou that aggregates news by location and plots it into a map for multiple platforms. 8 These are two examples of geolocated news, but what are other news organizations doing in this regard? This exploratory study examines which news organizations are using geolocated news and how they are doing so.
Literature Review
Mobile Devices and Mobile News
The adoption of mobile news has followed the rapid adoption of mobile devices. 9 A recent Knight Foundation report identified that 89 percent of U.S. adults are mobile news consumers. 10 Studies show that mobile news consumption behavior is shaped by the user’s overall access to other digital news platforms 11 as well as their own frequent consumption of news on the device. 12 Likewise, content, ease of use and utility play a factor in mobile news adoption. 13 The ability to get news while on the go is a crucial factor for mobile news consumption. 14
Location-Based Services
The market for location-based services has grown with the evolution of mobile technology and the inclusion of GPS chips in mobile devices. 15 Globally, the market is predicted to grow from $11.3 billion in 2015 to $54.9 billion by 2020. 16 A location-based service accesses the mobile phone’s GPS signal 17 and informs the user of information near them. In addition to GPS signals, mobile phones can identify the location of the user through cellular triangulation or Wi-Fi access. 18
Researchers 19 have identified that location-based services are transforming how a mobile user experiences the world around them. 20 Location-based services are being used in a variety of contexts today 21 : artwork, 22 gaming, 23 social networking, 24 and compositional writing. 25
Local News and Location-Based News
Local news’ importance has grown in today’s digital era, 26 in part, due to the accessibility of mobile technologies. 27 Nielsen 28 reports 30 million people in the United States use the Internet and mobile apps for local news and events.
The public’s craving for local and hyperlocal news has been satiated in some ways, at least in some places, by the recent proliferation of local news entities and community blogs. 29 The mobile platform has supported this trend by providing the news consumer with an accessible and convenient way to get local content. 30
Experiments have been run in geotagging and geolocating news content, but findings showed that few people (consumers and practitioners) were able to understand how to use it. 31 This was further compounded when news was not location-specific (e.g., culture) and/or when stories had multiple locations (e.g., climate change). 32 Furthermore, the mobile phone user’s proximity to such content was a big factor in their satisfaction of the experience. 33 A recent content analysis 34 of more than 100 top news organizations’ mobile apps showed few were using geolocation in their mobile apps and if they were, it was mainly for geolocating traffic and weather. Overall, these studies demonstrate a current mode of experimentation with location-based news content. 35
Operationalizing Location and Journalism
The idea of connecting journalism and location is conceptualized in different forms: locative journalism, 36 where location sensitivity and a mobile device are interconnected; geo-social journalism, 37 where geographic space and the social constructs of that area are connected; geomedia, 38 where media studies and geography are intertwined; and place-based journalism, 39 where the reader’s location and mobile news are intertwined.
Despite these approaches, 40 the concept has not been explicitly detailed. For example, it can be helpful in knowing how a journalist defines a location or how the news production process includes or excludes location. These details can be examined through the theoretical approach of spatial journalism. 41 Spatial journalism is defined as an emergent kind of journalism that incorporates space, place and/or location (physical, augmented and virtual) into the process and practice of journalism. Spatial journalism can show how location, space and place can be studied by examining journalists in the newsroom, journalistic routines, news creation, news consumption patterns, and news content. 42
Spatial journalism has three criteria: there must be a communication channel (i.e., smartphone), the information must be connected to a location (i.e., geolocated content), and the information must be considered a form of journalism (i.e., geolocated news). 43 Thus, spatial journalism can be examined from a content analysis of location-based news on the mobile device, which this study was designed to investigate.
Research Questions
Research shows that mobile apps users are using location-based services, 44 while location-based journalism is in early development. 45 Thus, this study attempts to answer the following questions:
RQ1:
What news organizations are using location-based services in their smartphone apps?
RQ2:
What kind of content is being geolocated?
RQ3:
How do news organizations and their location-based services via the mobile device demonstrate a form of spatial journalism?
Method
This study examined the mobile apps 46 of 173 news organizations (see Tables 1 and 2). A content analysis was conducted of mobile news apps from the network affiliates of all four networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) from the top 25 large-market television stations (n = 100), the top newspapers in the country by circulation (n = 25), and the top 25 digital-only news organizations in the United States, according to BurrellesLuce 47 and the top 25 news radio stations selected from the same local television station market. 48
Top 25 Newspapers and Top 25 Digital-Only News Organizations
These two sites were removed from the analysis: CNN Political Ticker and Bits Blogs because they are part of legacy media.
Top 25 Large-Market Television and Top 25 Large-Market Radio
This exact sampling method was used in previous studies 49 with a focus on digital and/or mobile news products. In addition, the rationale for the larger number of television stations sampled (n = 100), one from each major network, provides comprehensive news coverage of that market. 50
Each mobile app was downloaded and reviewed during January-March 2016 by the coders to see if location-based services were enabled 51 and if so, what type of content was geolocated. 52 The coder reviewed local news, traffic and weather in the app to see if content in those sections were geolocated or not. 53
For coder reliability, the coders coded 48 percent of the sample to identify if the geolocation feature was in the app. Reliability was conducted via simple percentage of agreement and Scott’s Pi. 54 Based on the variable of the presence or absence of geolocation in the news app, the simple agreement between coders was 81 percent, and the revised calculation for Scott’s Pi 55 was .70. Considering this research is exploratory in nature, this level can be considered acceptable. 56
Findings
In gathering data for RQ1, of 173 news organizations reviewed, 156 of them had a mobile app. Of 156 apps reviewed, 46.8 percent had location-based services enabled in comparison with 53.2 percent that did not. No digital-only news organization had location-based services in its apps.
Table 3 shows that 61.5 percent of television news stations had location-based services enabled in comparison with 40 percent of newspapers and 16 percent of news radio stations, χ2 (3, n = 156) = 27.072, p < .000.
Presence of Location-Based Services in News Mobile Apps
Note. χ2 = 27.072, df = 3, p < .000.
Of the 61.5 percent of television news station mobile apps with location-based services enabled, statistical differences did show up by network type, as shown in Table 4. NBC news stations had more of their mobile apps enabled for location-based services at 88 percent in comparison with FOX at 77.3 percent, ABC at 66.7 percent and CBS at 16 percent, χ2 (3, n = 96) = 31.843, p < .000.
Presence of Geolocated Content by Television Network
Note. χ2 = 31.843, df = 3, p < .000.
To answer RQ2, Table 5 shows local television news stations are geolocating traffic and weather in their mobile apps the most. ABC, NBC and CBS geolocated weather, whereas only one FOX station did. Twelve NBC stations and 11 ABC stations geolocated traffic, but only one FOX station did.
News Media Type by Geolocated Content Type
χ2 = 29.302, df = 2, p < .000. **χ2 = 9.827, df = 2, p < .01. ***χ2 = 22.903, df = 2, p < .000.
The Dallas Morning News was the only newspaper to geolocate weather. The Denver Post, San Jose Mercury News and Daily News from Los Angeles were the only newspapers to geolocate traffic.
Only radio had geolocated news χ2 (2, n = 45) = 29.302, p < .000, WJR in Detroit and KLIF in Dallas-Ft. Worth (see Figure 1). 57 When the user is in the app, it provides a local news section with local news headlines where the user’s mobile device is physically located.
WJR Radio Station (Left) and KLIF News Radio Station (Right) Mobile News App Geolocation Alert
In answering RQ3, only two news radio mobile apps geolocated news content according to the spatial journalism criteria that it (1) communicated information via the smartphone, (2) connected information to a physical space in relation to the user’s smartphone location and (3) demonstrated a form of journalism via the geolocated news articles featured in the app. The geolocated news represented eight to 10 news articles from local news sources (newspaper, television station, local student university newspaper, digital-only news website) that related to the vicinity of where the user’s mobile device was physically located. 58
Conclusion
News organizations are demonstrating how geolocated content and location-based services are being used in their mobile apps. Based on the Diffusion of Innovations theory by Everett Rogers (1995), geolocated content may be in an early implementation phase in which redefining and restructuring is underway 59 before it is routinized and embedded in the larger journalism practice and profession.
This study showed that most mobile news apps focused on geolocating traffic and weather. However, many consumers have access to traffic or weather apps on their mobile device already, so why should news organizations focus on this when they could focus on their own geolocated news content?
Possible reasons news organizations might not geolocate news are insufficient staffing, technical deficiencies or the journalist’s lack of interest or time. This could be investigated by conducting research on journalists’ adoption of mobile and location-based services technology through surveys, ethnographic studies or in-depth interviews via the theoretical lens of spatial journalism and Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory.
Future Work
No digital-only news organization in this study had location-based services in its mobile apps. A cursory review of other apps in the Apple and Android catalogs showed that only two digital-only organizations had geolocated news content (Blockfeed and Feecha). Potential uses of location-based news for a news organization could include sports news, restaurant or art/theater reviews from the local news critic and crime and safety news.
Discussion
The study highlights the gap between news organizations and mobile news consumption patterns. Research 60 indicates that consumers are seeking information that is near to them. As mobile news consumption grows, geolocated local news can benefit news organizations that are seeking larger audiences. The two news radio stations in this study show how location-based news can be achieved.
This study also informs journalism scholars about how location-based services are transforming the way society communicates and receives news. This study infers that journalists may have priorities and perceptions about a community that may not reflect reality based on the audience’s identification of where their community is located. This can impact the future of filtering, gathering and aggregating of news. Location-based news content can create new ways of understanding communities and how their stories are told while exposing why certain geographic areas are neglected.
Footnotes
Editor’s Note
This article was accepted for publication under the editorship of Sandra H. Utt and Elinor Kelley Grusin.