Abstract
A mixed methods research project combining quantitative online survey results with semistructured interview data explored how a major metropolitan newspaper’s digital subscribers engage with mobile news. Themes of continuity indicate that motivations in traditional newspaper use remain salient in mobile news: information-seeking, the pleasure of reading and powerful daily habits surrounding news use. In addition, participants’ responses suggest additional situational or process gratifications from using mobile media devices, in addition to gratifications derived from content.
Keywords
In an era of a declining traditional newspaper model, many newspaper companies have placed their hopes on the promise of new, mobile technologies both to encourage increased news consumption and as a means of monetizing digital content. Industry research indicated that at the start of 2015, 39 of the top 50 digital news sites received more mobile traffic than from desktop computers. 1
Employing an explanatory, mixed-methods approach, this study examines whether gratifications traditionally sought by newspaper readers remain salient among the mainly mobile digital subscribers to the news content of a legacy media organization. The research focuses on one major metropolitan newspaper company on the East Coast, and the company’s apps and mobile-friendly websites that digitally reproduce the content, and even a daily, digital replica of its newspaper. An in-depth examination of the habits, practices and desires of the mobile news users in a major metropolitan region is useful as a case-study to investigate the uses and gratifications sought by digital subscribers of a legacy newspaper organization. This research further extends the uses and gratifications framework to mainly mobile users of digital news, who reported they primarily get news from tablets or smartphones.
Literature Review
Survey research indicates that news consumption ranks among the most popular activities on mobile devices: 64 percent of tablet owners and 62 percent of smartphone owners reported using the device for news at least weekly. 2 Only email use outranked news use on each of these devices. In addition, 43 percent of these respondents reported that mobile allows them to add more news to their regular consumption. Another study indicates that of U.S. adults who have adopted mobile media devices, a majority prefer getting news in this manner—53 percent reported that mobile devices were better for consuming news than printed sources. 3 In 2014, research indicated that more than 60 percent of smartphone owners routinely use news apps, and 40 percent of those news apps are from newspaper organizations. 4
As more news users turn to mobile devices, and as news organizations adapt to mobile platforms, understanding uses and gratifications sought by mobile news users is important to both scholars and journalism organizations. Uses and gratifications research has long been focused on understanding media use. The underlying theory is that people use media to fulfill—or gratify—their needs and wants 5 ; thus, audience activity is central to uses and gratifications research. 6 Gratifications may be understood as a range of desires such as escapism and entertainment, 7 as well as surveillance, which has been defined as seeking information about political affairs, communities and events. 8 The uses and gratifications approach is user-centered, and thus particularly appropriate for this inquiry into the news habits and practices of a newspaper’s digital subscribers.
The uses and gratifications approach has been used for decades to examine readers’ use of newspapers. In 1948, research during a New York City newspaper delivery strike found that while a core of readers valued the newspaper as an indispensable news source, the newspaper was also a tool in daily life, for respite and for social prestige or conversational value. 9 The newspaper further gratified its users via the pleasure of reading, and readers formed powerful daily routines and habits surrounding the newspaper. 10 An examination of the 1985 Philadelphia newspaper strike found a strong correlation between surveillance and newspaper use, 11 suggesting that media gratifications may depend more on habit, reflecting readers’ environmental factors and social situation. Print news, in particular, has been closely associated with content and information-seeking motives and gratifications. 12
The uses and gratifications approach has also been at the center of new media research, including Internet use and online news consumption. Indeed, in an age of media diversification and abundant new media sources, audience members’ choices and the motives behind those choices continue to be important—perhaps more so, given the vast array of choice now available. This line of inquiry is particularly relevant for legacy newspapers—for nearly two decades employing the Internet has been viewed as a central strategy for retaining and growing readers. 13 Now, those same organizations are prioritizing mobile digital delivery. 14 Thus, the uses and gratifications framework has practical applications as well as theoretical utility in the realm of mobile news use.
Scholars have employed uses and gratifications to study general use of the Internet, 15 the use of online newspapers, 16 Internet news 17 and mobile news use. 18 Newer research suggests that new technological features influence specific process gratifications (i.e., gratifications gained from using the media, as opposed to gratifications derived from media content). 19 This suggests that features of the Internet—including agency, interactivity and navigability—stimulate gratifications not previously detected in users of printed newspaper and broadcast media. A literature review reveals that, as with traditional print newspapers, the surveillance/information-seeking gratification plays a large role in both Internet use and Internet news use. 20 Convenience was another salient factor in the research. Additional research has explored how the uses and gratification model might be extended to consider whether technological features influence specific process gratifications (i.e., gratifications gained from using the media, as opposed to gratifications derived from media content) 21 —gratifications not previously detected in users of printed newspaper and broadcast media.
The uses and gratifications approach incorporates audience agency and views users’ media choices within the framework of their needs and goals. In other words, it examines how people choose and use media, and what specific satisfactions they seek when making these decisions. Given the vast array of choice offered via mobile devices, a uses and gratifications approach has great utility in this user-centered research.
Research Questions
Method
This case-study research uses an explanatory, multi-phase mixed methods design to examine the uses and gratifications sought by users of the mobile news offerings of a major metropolitan newspaper company on the East Coast with a Sunday print circulation of about 325,000. First, the researcher conducted an online quantitative survey of the newspaper company’s current digital subscribers. (In exchange for direct email access to the company’s paying customers, and because the media company was concerned about the disclosure of proprietary information about its users, the researcher agreed to keep the identity of the company confidential.) These data were subsequently enriched by qualitative telephone interviews with individual users to provide additional information, context and the user’s voice. Together, the evidence yields a contextualized understanding of the habits, practices and desires of mobile news users, given the mobile content and interactive features provided by a traditional, metropolitan newspaper organization
Quantitative Phase
For the first stage, the newspaper company provided email addresses for its nearly 50,000 current digital subscribers who used the content more than twice as of February 2014. A direct solicitation was emailed from the researcher in March 2014 and a $10 gift card incentive was offered to participants, and 632 digital subscribers completed the survey. At the conclusion, of the 632 respondents who completed the online survey, 344 were men (54 percent) and 288 were women (46 percent). Nearly half of all participants were ages 50 to 64 (M = 55.5, SD = 11.8). (This is slightly younger than Pew research conducted in 2015, which reported that 50 percent of daily newspaper readers are age 65 or older; 38 percent were ages 55-64; 28 percent were 45-54. 22 )
The 51-question survey included questions regarding which digital devices participants owned, and which was their singular main device for checking news. The instrument also asked which digital news sources participants used, which was their main digital source, how often and for what period of time do the users use the newspaper company’s digital news and what topics did they read—and read most—during the past week. The survey was further informed by the literature, particularly prior research instruments that have previously demonstrated high internal validity. To measure engagement, the instrument used six Likert-scale questions. 23 On conclusion of the data collection, quantitative results were analyzed using SPSS software to examine means, standard deviations, correlations, frequencies and other statistics.
Qualitative Phase
Because this research targets a select population of users of specific content—the current digital subscribers of one major metropolitan newspaper company—the qualitative sample for semistructured telephone interviews was drawn from the initial online survey participants. Both typical-case and outlier samples were selected to address the most-common results in contrast with extreme ones, to further understand mobile news use, to contextualize the survey data and to seek areas of triangulation between quantitative and qualitative results. Interview participants’ demographics roughly mirrored the demographics of online survey respondents. Of 30 interview participants, 17 were men (57 percent), and 13 were women (43 percent). Participants were also selected by age to reflect the age ranges of survey respondents. The average age of interview participants was 54.2 (average age of survey participants was 55.5).
Data from the online survey were used to establish the topics and questions for the semistructured telephone interview portion of the research, and specific questions posed to each interview participant were drawn from their individual responses to the online survey, to obtain context and depth of understanding of their survey responses.
To explore news habits, participants were asked about their digital source of choice, why that was their preference and what features of their choice appealed to them. Furthermore, participants were asked to “describe your habits—do you check these news sites at a specific time each day, or from a specific location or during a specific event in your day?” Participants were asked to describe how they navigate through the digital content. Finally, to ascertain whether the interviewee had long-standing newspaper habits, participants were asked whether they had grown up in a home with delivery from this newspaper company, or another newspaper. They were also asked how long they subscribed to digital and/or print delivery of the company’s newspaper.
Potential interview participants were selected via purposive sampling, and 139 individuals were solicited by personal emails from the researcher in May and June 2014. As an incentive, prospective participants were told that three $25 Target gift certificates would be awarded via lottery among the participants. Thirty interviews were conducted.
To analyze the qualitative data, the researcher used a thematic content analysis approach to the interview transcripts. In some cases, when a theme occurred repeatedly across the span of several interviews, or if it emerged only once or twice, the researcher quantified the theme and noted it in the results. Transcript content was also examined for concepts and patterns among responses, and with an eye as to how the content addressed the research questions and provided context to explicate the quantitative data. Interview transcripts were coded by the researcher, and themes were subsequently grouped together and analyzed.
Findings
Quantitative Phase
The online survey was administered over the course of Wednesday, March 5 and Thursday, March 6, 2014, to current digital subscribers. The dates were two midweek, typical news days with no exceptional news events appearing in the various digital publications included in this research.
Of the total sample of 632 respondents, participants reported substantial daily use of mobile technology to keep up with the news: 356 (56.3 percent) daily read “in-depth articles” on these devices. On tablets, 298 (47.2 percent) reported checking headlines daily, and 221 (35 percent) reported reading in-depth articles. On smartphones, 302 (47.8 percent) participants reported checking headlines daily, while 130 (20.6 percent) reported reading in-depth articles.
To drill down to “mainly-mobile users”—participants who indicated that a tablet or smartphone was their main device for checking or reading news—the number of mainly tablet users (n = 186) was added to mainly smartphone users (n = 89). That yielded 275 “mainly mobile” participants, or 44 percent of the initial sample, isolating them from the 357 participants (56 percent) who indicated that a desktop or laptop was their main device for checking or reading news.
Mainly mobile users reported that traditional newspaper gratifications 24 remained salient when getting news via mobile devices. In fact, these gratifications showed statistically significant higher degrees of salience when compared with digital subscribers who primarily used desktop/laptop computers for news.
Five measures relating to traditional news gratifications produced statistically significant differences (see Table 1) on a seven-point Likert scale. The relevant gratifications measures included the following: Users reported that mobile content from the newspaper was useful (relating to notions of surveillance), entertaining, enjoyable, convenient and accessible, and its conversational value reflected in their self-reported desire to discuss the content. Notably, the age of participants did not produce any statistically significant correlations.
Gratification Measures Producing Statistically Significant Differences
Paired samples t-tests (using a subset of 275 desktop/laptop users randomly selected via SPSS to equal the number of mobile users) indicated that these differences were statistically significant:
Useful/surveillance (t = 2.678, df = 548, p = .008, two-tailed),
Entertaining (t = 4.111, df = 548, p = .000, two-tailed),
Enjoyable (t = 3.982, df = 548, p = .000, two-tailed),
Convenient/accessible (t = 2.787, df = 548, p = .006, two-tailed) and
Desire to discuss (t = 3.061, df = 548, p = .002, two-tailed).
These quantitative results, based on survey items that produced a Cronbach’s alpha of .87 for this study, indicate that not only do traditional newspaper gratifications remain salient for mainly mobile digital news subscribers, but in fact, they produce statistically significant higher measures than digital news subscribers who primarily use desktop or laptop computers for news.
Qualitative Phase
Semistructured telephone interviews (n = 30) were conducted over the course of several weeks in May and June 2014. The researcher found notable consistencies across the interviews, and the majority of participants reported long-standing newspaper-reading habits—first print, now digital. A prevailing theme of continuity emerged—continuity in news use, and gratifications sought and obtained, from the traditional, printed newspaper to the digital forms of news content now available on mobile devices.
The traditional printed-newspaper gratification of surveillance remained highly salient among many mainly mobile news users. For example, an 81-year-old retired nurse who is digital-only via her tablet said, “I read the newspaper every day [via a tablet]. . . . I just like to keep up on the news—what’s going on locally as well as in the world.”
And a 42-year-old woman, a part-time insurance representative and a smartphone-first consumer of news, explained, “I’m interested in learning new things, and I’m constantly wanting to stay abreast of what’s going on in the world.”
Mainly mobile interview participants expressed high degrees of enjoyment and satisfaction with aspects of the newspaper company’s mobile news, including the pleasure of being informed. A 48-year-old man, who uses his smartphone as his main device for news, explained, “I’m a news junkie. . . . I like getting news, I like getting information. I like knowing about stuff. . . . I like being informed first, and entertained second.”
Another digital-only subscriber, a 41-year-old man who uses his tablet as his main device, explained that for him, the convenience of mobile and the pleasure of feeling informed go hand-in-hand when it comes to mobile news from the newspaper company:
I think more than anything is just the pleasure of feeling connected. . . . I just really enjoy feeling informed and knowing what’s going on around me, and being able to have conversations about that with other people. . . . So it’s just the pleasure of being informed and reading about the stories that are happening that are interesting, as well as just the convenience of it.
Like this participant, most participants cited the convenience of digital access to news via mobile devices as one of the central aspects of their news use on tablets or smartphones. Many further indicated that this convenience led them to be more deeply engaged with news and consume more news. A 74-year-old retired lawyer who reads news every day on his tablet said, “I love the convenience of it. I love how it’s updated. . . . I’m not sitting down at my desk. I can sit in my living room, I can sit in my garden, I can read it anywhere.”
A 26-year-old woman, who co-owns a small business, explained that she enjoys that her iPad allows her to read news from any location: “It’s always readily available and, you know, I’m not tied to any specific location in my house or otherwise. So, it’s just simple convenience.”
In addition, some mainly mobile digital subscribers described the value in sharing or discussing the news content they obtain from mobile devices. One 26-year-old woman who relies on her tablet said the news is “usually more like a talking point. I . . . read it and then bring it into conversation when talking to people about stuff.”
When the researcher attempted to determine why these mobile news users were digital subscribers, and why they reported frequently selecting the replica presentation of the daily newspaper, participants indicated that it was due to habit. Most were longtime print newspaper subscribers, who had moved to digital subscriptions or combined digital news use with print.
These digital news users reported powerful daily routines and habits surrounding their news use—some immediately checking digital news when they first wake up, or over breakfast, and checking for updates throughout the day. A 42-year-old female insurance representative reported she wakes up next to her phone:
Usually the first thing in the morning . . . I check my phone and I check the news. It’s the first thing I do. I check the headlines and see what’s up, and I’ll check my [digital newspaper]. So the first thing in the morning is my phone, because it’s quick and it’s easy.
In the vein of prior research during newspaper strikes, when the newspaper was largely unavailable, one participant in this research, a 54-year-old pharmaceutical drug researcher, explained that he is distressed any time he cannot read the morning newspaper:
It’s just the way I start my day and I’m somewhat discombobulated actually if my morning paper’s not here. Actually, that’s really why now I have the digital version and that over the last few years my newspaper delivery service has been spotty at best, but, if I don’t start my day with coffee and the newspaper I’m all messed up.
In his case, he said a digital subscription on his tablet ensures he has the daily news always at hand, suggesting that as habit plays an important role in newspaper use, it appears to hold true with mobile news.
Analysis of the qualitative portion of this research indicates that mobile news users may seek some additional gratifications that are specific to their device of choice—including mobility. In all, the mobile users interviewed expressed appreciation and even “love” for mobile devices, and the freedom it allows them to stay connected to news. Many reported that mobile devices are with them most of the time—and this is particularly true for smartphones, which one 40-year-old male mortgage broker noted: “I have it on me 24-7, pretty much.”
A 34-year-old schizophrenia researcher explained that accessing the mobile digital replica allowed her the freedom to look at the daily paper anywhere and anytime: “[My iPad tablet] is just always with me. I take it everywhere I go, so I can—just anywhere I’m sitting—just pull it up and read it. . . . I’m more interested in seeing what’s going on.”
Discussion
Combining the quantitative online survey results with the qualitative telephone interview data provides a deeper, more contextualized understanding of the news habits and practices of the digital subscribers to a major, metropolitan newspaper. Together, the quantitative and qualitative research revealed dominant themes of continuity among the uses of mobile news and the gratifications sought by mainly mobile news users.
The surveillance motivation remained particularly salient in mobile news use, as it has for newspaper readers before the advent of the Internet. This newspaper company’s mainly mobile digital subscribers rely on news content via their tablets and smartphones when seeking information about affairs and events in their community, nation and the world. Quantitative data revealed that surveillance was the most salient among the traditional gratifications measured. In addition, mainly mobile participants reported statistically significant higher levels of the surveillance value and utility of news, compared with digital subscribers who used desktops and laptops. Qualitative interviews confirmed the data and contextualized the importance users placed on this notion.
Convenience/accessibility was the second-most salient factor in mobile users’ choice to get news on tablets and smartphones, instead of desktops, laptops or other traditional forms of news media, including the printed paper. Due to the constant availability of mobile news, and because many participants reported that their mobile devices are nearly always with them, they reported that smartphones and tablets are their primary choices for getting news. In addition, these mainly mobile participants said they believed mobility allowed them to consume more news from this newspaper company, and at multiple times during the day.
Feeling “connected” was also reported as an aspect of enjoyment of getting mobile news from the newspaper company, as was the pleasure of being informed in their enjoyment of mobile news, and the pleasure of reading. These results suggest that for mobile news users, these motivations from the uses and gratifications framework that have been traditionally tied to legacy news media continue to play a significant role in mobile news use.
Similarly, digital news users reported powerful daily routines and habits surrounding their news use—some immediately checking digital news when they first wake up, or over breakfast, and checking for updates throughout the day. “I’m a news junkie,” one mobile news user explained. Just as habit plays an important role in newspaper use, this appears to hold true with digital and mobile news users who reported longtime daily newspaper-reading habits.
This research suggests that mobility increases convenience, and may be viewed as a powerful gratification in smartphone and tablet news use. In this research, most mobile news users interviewed expressed appreciation and even “love” for the convenience of mobile devices, and the freedom it allows them to stay connected to news. Mobility resulted in statistically significant greater rates of both enjoyment and engagement with news content, even though the majority of participants were turning to identical content and form of presentation. This suggests that in addition to enjoyment as a gratification, 25 situational engagement 26 —the connection between a users’ interest and the mobile environment—may be a powerful gratification particular to mobile news. Furthermore, Sundar and Limperos (2013) suggested that new technological features influence specific and unique “process gratifications” (i.e., gratifications gained from using the media, as opposed to gratifications derived from media content). These authors suggest that Internet features stimulate unique gratifications when compared with other media forms. In this research, participants’ self-reported enthusiasm and “love” for their tablets and smartphones indicate device mobility may be a salient gratification in the realm of mobile news use.
Conclusion
This user-centered research study revealed strong themes of continuity in the habits and practices of the digital subscribers and mobile users of the news content of a legacy, major metropolitan newspaper company. This study also suggests the continued relevance of uses and gratifications theory in journalism research. As with newspaper readers before the advent of digital news, the “surveillance” (information-seeking) motivation for news use remains salient for digital news subscribers who are mainly mobile. Other, traditional, newspaper-use gratifications, including convenience/accessibility, enjoyment, entertainment and the desire to discuss content remain important to these mainly mobile news users. In addition, mobile users reported these aspects of motives and gratifications at statistically significant higher levels, compared with the newspaper company’s digital subscribers who primarily use desktop or laptop computers. These data suggest that the traditional notions of gratifications are particularly salient in examining mobile news use. Results indicate that motivations in traditional newspaper use not only remain salient in mobile news but yield statistically significant higher measures among mainly mobile digital subscribers, compared with digital subscribers who primarily use desktop or laptop computers to access news content from these same sources. Participants’ responses further suggest additional situational or process gratifications from using mobile media devices, in addition to gratifications derived from a newspaper’s digital content.
Limitations and Future Research
This research involved only one major metropolitan legacy newspaper organization. By using a population of the company’s digital subscribers, research participants may be viewed as a narrow group of loyalists who are paying customers. In addition, a methodological limitation to this research is that it depended on self-selected participants who were willing to take an online survey and those further willing to participate in telephone interviews.
Further research is recommended to examine the news habits and practices of nonsubscribers who use the content on the newspaper company’s free website and app. These users might have different news habits and practices, and may exhibit different uses and gratifications than their paying counterparts.
Footnotes
Editors’ Note
This article was accepted for publication under the editorship of Sandra H. Utt and Elinor Kelley Grusin.