Lifestyles and gratifications obtained from news: Comparing science news with health news and political news

Abstract

This study adopted uses and gratifications theory to examine the relationships among lifestyles, gratifications obtained, and the use of science, political, and health news. Two methods were adopted, the first of which was to conduct 23 interviews. The second method was a nationwide telephone survey that obtained 949 valid questionnaires. The data analysis yielded three conclusions: (1) among the four types of variables, gratifications obtained were the most powerful predictors for the use of the three types of news; (2) users and nonusers of science news or health news were differentiated mainly by lifestyles, while users and nonusers of political news were differentiated mainly by mass media use; and (3) users of the three types of news differed greatly. Science news users used new media, and were likelier to have a lifestyle of learning and self-development, while political and health news users preferred and trusted traditional media sources, the latter seeking a lifestyle of pleasure.

Keywords

gratifications obtained health news lifestyles political news science news uses and gratifications theory

1. Introduction

Science news provides information regarding technological, scientific, and environmental issues while health news provides information regarding disease prevention, the proper use of medicine, or a healthy diet. Both science and health news report scientific findings, and have an impact on public science literacy. Political news reports governmental operations, political parties’ activities, and legislative issues. Political news constitutes the largest part of Taiwan’s news content, and more than 12 news channels are available in Taiwan, indicating that political news is popular in Taiwan (Li, 2017; Lee, 2006). The existing literature includes many empirical studies of the uses and gratifications from news (Gaskins and Jerit, 2012; Ha and Fang, 2012; Lee, 2013). However, little research has been conducted to understand the different uses of science, health, and political news and how the users of the three types of news differ in terms of lifestyles and gratifications obtained.

According to uses and gratifications theory (UGT) (Katz et al., 1974; Lee, 2013), individual media use is goal-oriented; that is, it is driven by an individual’s psychological or social needs. Thus, individuals with different needs seek different gratifications from media use. Individuals gratify their needs by returning repeatedly to a given type of media (Dobos, 1992; Rubin, 1994).

Defined as “the manner in which people conduct their lives, including their activities, interests and opinions” (Peter and Olson, 1994: 463), lifestyles reflect individuals’ psychological preferences and allow them to communicate their social differentiations (Li, 2015; Chan and Leung, 2005; Wei, 2006). Scholars have found that measures of people’s needs and desires, expressed through their lifestyles, are more effective than demographics in niche marketing (Li, 2013; Chan and Leung, 2005). Individuals develop lifestyles in part to express their psychological or social needs, therefore it is logical to expect that people with different lifestyles will obtain different gratifications from science, health, and political news. By adopting UGT, this study aimed to examine the relationships among lifestyles, gratifications obtained, and uses of the three types of news.

2. Literature review

Uses and gratifications

UGT has an audience-centered approach that assumes that individuals are aware of their psychological or social needs and actively seek media to fulfill their needs. According to this theory, individuals differ in their psychological or social needs, which drive them to seek different gratifications from media use (Cheng et al., 2015; Lee, 2013; Sundar and Limperos, 2013).

UGT (Rubin, 2009; So, 2012; Sundar and Limperos, 2013) differentiates gratifications sought from gratifications obtained. Gratifications sought are the expectations that individuals have before consuming mass media, while gratifications obtained are the need satisfactions derived from consuming mass media. According to UGT, gratifications sought are the expectations of individuals toward a given set of media, which affect individuals’ seeking gratifications. When a given set of media allows individuals to obtain the gratifications they need, they continue adopting this type of media to satisfy those needs. However, when a given set of media does not allow individuals to obtain the types of gratifications they need, they will alter their media use patterns to obtain their needed gratifications.

Scholars traditionally have classified media gratifications into two types: instrumental and ritualistic gratifications. Instrumental gratifications are obtained from the use of media content whereas ritualistic gratifications, also called processing gratifications, are obtained from the use of media. Instrumental gratifications are related to cognitive needs, including gratifications such as surveillance or decisional utility, while ritualistic gratifications are related to affective needs, including gratifications such as entertainment, passing time, escape, or para-social interaction (Rubin, 1984; Sundar and Limperos, 2013; Van der Wurff, 2011). With the popularity of interpersonal communication media, Stafford et al. (2004) suggested a third type of gratification, social gratification, which includes gratifications such as sociability or relationship maintenance. According to Sundar and Limperos (2013), gratifications are not necessarily driven by individuals’ innate needs, and some needs are triggered by the features of new technologies. Thus, they suggest a fourth type of gratification, technology-driven gratifications, which include interactivity, navigability, mobility, and modality.

One of the strengths of UGT is that it helps researchers understand what individuals do with the media (Lin, 1999; Sundar and Limperos, 2013). However, UGT has also received several criticisms, one of which is its reliance on self-reports to collect data. Nonetheless, recent studies have shown that self-reports are in fact a reliable approach to understanding people’s behaviors and motivations (Lee, 2013).

Gratifications obtained from science, health, and political news

Lee’s (2013) study identified four gratifications—information, entertainment, social utility, and opinion gratifications—from news consumption. However, Lee’s study found that among these four gratifications, opinion was the least sought type of gratification by Americans. Several studies (Li, 2001; Randle, 2003) further divided information gratification into two types: information for daily use and information for professional use. Furthermore, Sundar and Limperos (2013) conducted a thorough review of the gratifications obtained from media use and found that surveillance was the most consistent gratification emerging across most gratification studies. Surveillance also includes information for daily use, and one of this study’s foci was health news use. Therefore, the literature review leads this study to consider—information for health condition, information for professional use, entertainment, social utility, and surveillance—as the gratifications individuals obtained from the consumption of science, health, and political news.

Science news usually contains complex information and can be difficult to understand. Some studies have shown that people consume science news to better perform their jobs (Huang, 2010 in Taiwan; Shih, 2016; Su et al., 2015). Therefore, this study predicted that the consumption of science news should be positively related to the gratification of information for professional use. Furthermore, news about scientific findings or new technological developments is often interesting and socially attractive, which should be a suitable topic in social occasions (Huang, 2014; Shih, 2016). Hence, this study deemed that science news consumption would be positively related to the gratifications of entertainment and social utility. Science news also reports many environmental issues, such as climate change, earthquakes, or flooding, which are closely related to the safety of people’s lives. In particular, earthquakes and typhoons often cause casualties in Taiwan, and people are thus able to protect themselves from the damages caused by environmental disasters through science news consumption. (Huang, 2010; Shih, 2016). However, the existing studies have not yielded conclusive findings regarding the relationships between science news use and the gratifications of information professional use, entertainment and social utility, and surveillance. Hence, this study used a research question instead of a hypothesis to explore this issue:

RQ1: Is science news consumption positively associated with the gratifications of information for professional use, entertainment and social utility, and surveillance?

Political news provides information about important issues or regulations in Taiwan. Therefore, a major function of political news is to allow individuals to monitor their environments. Past studies also showed that people used political news mainly to obtain the gratification of surveillance (Chan, 2015; Lee, 2006; Lee, 2013). Although political news allows people to monitor their surroundings, most people do not talk about political issues on social occasions to avoid embarrassing one another. A controversial issue in Taiwan is its future; some people advocate that Taiwan should be independent from mainland China, while others are in favor of maintaining the status quo. Most political issues are closely related to this controversial issue, and thus, political news can sometimes be too sensitive for use in social occasions. However, political news consumption plays a significant role in the gratification of social utility because political news consumption allows people to better understand the political atmosphere; thus, on social occasions, they know what topics are appropriate to talk about (Li, 2017; Chan, 2015; Lee, 2006). Furthermore, political news consumption will exert a significant effect on the gratification of entertainment because the respondents highly involved with political issues would selectively use the news media that had a similar political stance to their own; they thus felt singled out and entertained when consuming political news (Li, 2017; Chan, 2015; Lee, 2006). Moreover, most news media in Taiwan take a clear position regarding political ideology, and political events reported by news media with different political ideologies will show different interpretations and contents. Thus, political news is often criticized for being biased or distorted by news media’s political ideologies (Li, 2017; Chan, 2015). Therefore, this study predicted that political news would not be correlated with the gratification of information for professional use. However, the existing literature does not have sufficient evidence to fully support the predictions above, and thus, this study used a research question to examine this issue:

RQ2: Is political news consumption positively associated with the gratifications of surveillance and entertainment and social utility?

Health news is used by most people to understand their health conditions (Hinnant et al., 2013). News media in Taiwan do not allocate much time or space to health news, but several magazines that specialize on health issues are popular in Taiwan. Several studies (Common Health, 2009, 2011) have shown that people in Taiwan after their 30s become concerned with their health and are the major recipients of health news. These studies also indicate that most health news users live in urban areas, hold professional jobs, and are more likely to be females than males. Furthermore, various types of cancers have become a serious threat to most people’s health; how to eat well and live healthily thus has become a daily concern for most people. Therefore, this study expected that obtaining information for health conditions should be a major gratification obtained from health news consumption. In addition, several food crises have occurred during the past 10 years; for example, illegal additives have been used in some processed food products. Several news reports (Apple Daily, 2011) indicated that these illegal additives were poisonous and might cause some types of cancer if consumed in large quantities. Many people used health news during this time of food crises to avoid purchasing these poisonous food products. Hence, this study predicted that another gratification provided by health news consumption would be surveillance. Once again, the empirical findings do not provide sufficient evidence for this study to form a hypothesis and thus, this study used a research question to investigate this issue:

RQ3: Is health news consumption positively associated with the gratifications of information for health condition and surveillance?

Lifestyles and use of science, political, and health news

Lifestyles are a way for people to show their unique psychological preferences, which are usually associated with consumption behaviors (Lekakos, 2009; Lorenzo-Dus, 2006; Wei, 2006). Past studies have applied lifestyle to understanding media use patterns and have found that lifestyle is able to predict different media use patterns (Becker and Connor, 1981; Donohew et al., 1987; Eastman, 1979; Wei, 2006). Recent studies have investigated the effect of lifestyles on technology adoption (Li, 2013; Chan and Leung, 2005; Hawkins et al., 1998; Lekakos, 2009; Schwartz, 1992; Wei, 2006, 2014). For example, Mazzoni et al. (2007) found that people in Italy with a connected lifestyle used cell phones for entertainment, whereas people with a traditional lifestyle used cell phones primarily for maintaining relationships.

The most widely used approach to measure lifestyle is the Activities, Interests, and Opinions (AIO) approach, which uses consumers’ activities, interests, and opinions to classify consumers into different lifestyles (Chan and Leung, 2005; Hawkins et al., 1998; Lekakos, 2009; Schwartz, 1992). The 20-item lifestyle scale adopted by this study has been frequently applied to Chinese populations, from which five types of lifestyles were consistently extracted (Li, 2013; Leung, 1998; Wei, 2006, 2015). This study used the five lifestyles to examine how different lifestyles were related to the use of science, political, and health news.

The first type of lifestyle is the fashionable lifestyle. People with this lifestyle pay attention to trends in fashion, such as owning fashionable things. People with this lifestyle use personal ornaments or new technologies that they can carry with them to exhibit their personal styles (Li, 2015; Leung, 1998). The second type of lifestyle is the life expansionist lifestyle. Individuals with this lifestyle are work-oriented; they have high expectations about themselves and will make use of all means to enrich themselves, such as taking challenges and learning new knowledge (Li, 2015; Leung, 1998). The third type of lifestyle is the pleasure-seeking lifestyle. People with this lifestyle prefer a stable and easy life and enjoy doing nothing but relaxing during holidays (Li, 2013; Leung, 1998, 2015). The fourth type of lifestyle is the lifestyle of non-media skeptics. People with this lifestyle believe that the messages in advertising or news media are reliable or that news media are credible (Li, 2015; Leung, 1998). The last type of lifestyle is the lifestyle of preference for foreign products. This lifestyle is unique in the Chinese population because it characterizes a particular consumption pattern (Leung, 1998). People with this lifestyle have a preference for foreign products and believe that they are more reliable and satisfactory (Li, 2013).

The empirical studies do not have any conclusive findings regarding how the five lifestyles predict the use of science, health, or political news, and thus, this study used a research question to explore this issue.

RQ4: Which of the five lifestyles predicts the use of science, health, or political news?

Moreover, this study classified the users of the three types of news into users and nonusers based on their use frequency. The existing literature does not provide any conclusive findings on the differences between users and nonusers of science, political, and health news regarding mass media use, demographics, and lifestyles. Hence, this study used three research questions to explore this issue:

RQ5: What are the differences between users and nonusers of political news regarding media use, demographics, and lifestyles?

RQ6: What are the differences between users and nonusers of science news regarding media use, demographics, and lifestyles?

RQ7: What are the differences between users and nonusers of health news regarding media use, demographics, and lifestyles?

The model for investigation

3. Research methodology

A preliminary study: Interviews on gratifications obtained

This study adopted two methods to identify identical questions that assessed individuals’ gratifications obtained from science, health, and political news. The first method was to refer to relevant studies (Chan, 2015; Lee, 2006; Lee, 2013; Sundar and Limperos, 2013), from which some items were identified such as reading science news for my job, or reading political news for understanding my environment. These items were only used as guidelines for interviewers to do further probing to obtain in-depth responses. The second was to conduct 23 interviews using a snowball sampling approach. This study hired five communication graduate students as research assistants who had experience in conducting interviews. After receiving several sessions of training, these research assistants were instructed to focus the interviews on the gratifications obtained from science, health, and political news. Whenever a gratification was identified, the interviewers would ask the interviewees to elaborate and compare it among the three types of news. Each interview lasted 40 to 60 minutes, and it was also recorded and transcribed for later analysis. Thirteen women and ten men with experience using the three types of news were recruited, and their education levels varied from high school to doctoral degrees. Their ages also varied, with the youngest being 17 years old and the oldest 57 years old. Furthermore, their jobs were also diversified, including students, engineers, teachers, professors, farmers, journalists, and research assistants.

Results from the interviews

The content of the interviews were analysed and the results are summarized in the following paragraphs:

For science news, four gratifications were identified including “entertainment and social utility” (13 interviewees), “information for professional use” (10 interviewees), “surveillance” (6 interviewees), and “information for health condition” (1 interviewee). Furthermore, the interviewees indicated five weaknesses of science news in Taiwan, including too few science news reports (6 interviewees), reports not being comprehensive (5 interviewees), mixed with product placement advertisements (4 interviewees), reports being difficult to understand (4 interviewees), and inaccuracy (3 interviewees).

For political news, three gratifications were identified including “surveillance” (12 interviewees), “information for professional use” (7 interviewees), and “entertainment and social utility” (6 interviewees). Moreover, these interviewees identified four weaknesses that existed in Taiwan’s political news reports, including biased reports with too much political ideology (12 interviewees), inaccurate reports (5 interviewees), too localized (5 interviewees), and too much redundancy (4 interviewees).

For health news, four gratifications were identified including “information for health condition” (17 interviewees), “surveillance” (14 interviewees), “information for professional use” (5 interviewees), and “entertainment and social utility” (1 interviewee). These interviewees also identified three weaknesses in Taiwan’s health news reports, including reports being too exaggerated (7 interviewees), too few (7 interviewees), and mixed with product placement advertisements (6 interviewees).

Telephone survey

By analyzing the interview responses, this study constructed 19 items of gratifications obtained for the three types of news with a seven-point Likert-type scale. Only those gratifications that were identified by at least three interviewees were included in the survey (Wimmer and Dominick, 2010). There were five sections in the questionnaire. The first contained 57 items of gratifications obtained with 19 items for each type of news. The second section contained three questions that asked the respondents to indicate from 0 (never) to 7 (very often) if they had used political, science, and health news. The third section consisted of 20 items for lifestyles. The fourth section contained questions regarding demographics (see Supplementary Appendix, pt. 3), including personal income, education, sex, and age. The fifth section included five questions on media use (see Supplementary Appendix, pt. 2) including television, newspaper, magazine, movies, and the Internet. The telephone interviewers asked the respondents to indicate from 1 to 7 how often they used these media.

To obtain a representative sample, this study adopted the method of a telephone survey with a proportionate stratified random sampling method. Specifically, this study used the population of each county or city in Taiwan as strata for proportionate stratified random sampling. For example, the population of Taipei City was 11.5% of Taiwan’s population in 2014, and thus, this study obtained 115 valid questionnaires from Taipei City when 1,000 valid questionnaires were expected. Using a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) system, a nationwide telephone survey was conducted in October of 2014, and 20 trained interviewers supervised by the researchers performed the telephone interviews. This study also added a “1” to the number selected by the CATI system to avoid biases present in the telephone database. The telephone survey only included landline phones because landline phones are much cheaper than mobile phones in Taiwan and most households still have landline phones. According to the annual report by the government (The Executive Yuan, 2018, March), Taiwan had approximately 11.4 million households in 2017 and the penetration rate for landline phones was about 97.6%. In total, 949 valid questionnaires were obtained and the response rate was 48.74% (see Supplementary Appendix, pt. 1).

Factor analysis on gratifications obtained

This study conducted confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to obtain a uniform set of factors on gratifications obtained from the three types of news. The following steps were employed for the CFAs. This study first conducted three exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) on the 19 items of gratifications obtained from the three types of news. The results demonstrated that a four-factor model of political news had the best outcomes regarding factor loadings and percentage explained. Using the four-factor model of political news, this study performed three CFAs for the three types of news by using the linear structural relations (LISREL) package. Second, several criteria suggested by statisticians were adopted to measure the goodness of fit for the CFAs, and these criteria were: χ² (p < .05), root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (< .10), standardized root mean square residual (SRMR; <.10), non-normed fit index (NNFI; >.90), and comparative fit index (CFI; >.90) (Hair et al., 2006; Wu, 2007). The three types of news’ CFAs, summarized in Table 1, met the standards for goodness of fit; this study deleted two items that did not fit properly with their respective factors and kept the remaining 17 items for analysis.

Table 1.

Confirmatory factor analysis on gratifications obtained.

Variables	Political news	Science news	Health news
Information for health condition
To keep healthy	0.897	0.842	0.843
To prevent diseases	0.908	0.769	0.808
To monitor one’s physical condition	0.835	0.778	0.787
Cronbach’s α	0.965	0.916	0.875
Information for professional use
Because of the needs of my job or study	0.647	0.481	0.516
To find out the government’s announcements	0.652	0.577	0.631
Cronbach’s α	0.848	0.766	0.586
Entertainment & social utility
To increase conversation topics	0.706	0.619	0.690
My interest	0.782	0.782	0.772
To satisfy my curiosity	0.785	0.714	0.688
To kill time	0.673	0.498	0.537
To avoid boredom	0.765	0.711	0.732
To be entertained	0.791	0.790	0.720
Cronbach’s α	0.884	0.846	0.844
Surveillance
To monitor my surroundings	0.765	0.736	0.772
To know new trends	0.851	0.806	0.839
To obtain new knowledge	0.862	0.873	0.891
To know events’ causality	0.824	0.775	0.798
To maintain life quality	0.760	0.712	0.795
To obtain information for daily life	0.752	0.750	0.758
Cronbach’s α	0.915	0.897	0.916
Goodness of fit
χ ²	1323.474	1343.633	1190.404
RMSEA	0.092	0.093	0.087
SRMR	0.063	0.076	0.059
NNFI	0.969	0.954	0.963
CFI	0.974	0.960	0.972

χ² for science news p = .000, for political news p = .000, for health news p = .000

RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; SRMR = standardized root mean square residual; NNFI = non-normed fit index; CFI = comparative fit index.

The first factor, information for health condition, contained three items, all of which concerned gaining information for one’s health condition. The second factor, information for professional use, had two items, both of which were about how the information could be used in one’s job. The third factor, entertainment and social utility, contained six items, some of which concerned entertainment and the others involved social utility. The last factor was surveillance because the six items were about getting information to better understand one’s environment.

Factor analysis on lifestyles

An EFA was conducted on the 20 lifestyle items using the SPSS package. A principal components analysis with varimax rotations was applied to the factor analysis, and five factors were extracted (Table 2).

Table 2.

Factor analysis on lifestyles.

Variables	Style					h ²
Variables	Factor1	Factor2	Factor3	Factor4	Factor5	h ²
Factor 1: Being fashionable
Enjoy owning new and fashionable things	.787	.133	.131	.060	.180	.691
Like a fancy and distinctive lifestyle	.769	.171	.149	.070	.073	.654
Attending to trends in fashion	.758	.216	.081	.104	.134	.657
Fashionable in the eyes of others	.748	.121	.166	.024	.131	.620
Enjoy a romantic lifestyle	.723	.191	.132	.128	.064	.597
Dress up to express my personality	.681	.179	.076	.103	.114	.526
Factor 2: Life expansionists
Take classes to brighten my future	.157	.805	−.045	.128	.116	.705
Like to learn new knowledge and technology	.179	.794	.010	.164	.000	.689
Have high expectations about what I can achieve	.227	.710	.137	−.050	.092	.585
Taking on challenges and risk in life	.293	.648	.092	−.093	.119	.537
Don’t like to be idle in life	.061	.631	.132	.020	.009	.420
Factor 3: Non-media skeptics
Trust what newspapers say	.170	.046	.812	.200	.024	.730
Advertised products are more reliable	.213	.145	.768	.038	.182	.692
Trust in advertising	.213	.118	.750	.069	.272	.701
Factor 4: Pleasure seeking
Prefer stable and secure jobs	−.045	.027	.062	.729	.133	.556
Like to have my own living space	.060	.291	−.092	.726	.112	.637
Happy if I can live a leisurely life	.186	.039	.119	.711	−.056	.558
Like to do nothing but relax during holidays	.165	−.157	.200	.584	−.040	.434
Factor 5: Preference for foreign products
Although expensive, I prefer foreign products	.272	.114	.166	.069	.871	.879
Foreign products make me feel more satisfied	.249	.121	.211	.065	.864	.872
Eigenvalue	6.731	2.123	1.844	1.467	1.143
% of variance explained	32.055	10.109	8.781	6.986	5.441
Cronbach’s α	.881	.802	.787	.642	.904

Note: The factor loadings that are bolded are the highest across the five factors and above .55. h² = Communality, α = Cronbach’s alpha for the items loading on the factor. n = 949.

The first factor, being fashionable, contained seven items, but one item was deleted due to its cross-loading on two factors. The remaining six items concerned every aspect of fashion in one’s life. The second factor, life expansionists, had five items, all of which concerned how to enrich oneself by taking classes or challenges. The third factor was pleasure seeking because the three items stress the importance of being relaxed and easy in one’s life. The fourth factor, non-media skeptics, contained three items, all of which stress the reliability of the messages in advertising or in news media. The fifth factor, preference for foreign products, had two items, both of which were about how reliable or satisfied people were with foreign products. The reliability analysis showed that four factors had Cronbach’s alphas above .75 and that the fifth factor had a Cronbach’s alpha at .64, which was acceptable.

The sample profile

Among the sample, 56.2% were women. For education, 6.3% of the sample had received a junior high school education; 31%, a high school education; 38.8%, a college education; and approximately 10%, a graduate school education. Regarding age, approximately 7% of the respondents were younger than 20 years, 11.9% were between 21 and 30 years, 18.3% were between 31 and 40 years, 26.1% were between 41 and 50 years, 11.3% were between 51 and 55 years, and 24.8% were older than 55 years. This sample profile was generally consistent with Taiwan’s population, except that women were overrepresented in the sample (Monthly Report from the Executive and Yuan, 2015).

4. Research findings

Lifestyles, gratifications obtained, and news use

This study further classified the respondents into users and nonusers based on use frequency. According to UGT, individuals have to have used a given type of news in order to know what gratifications they obtain from this type of news, and thus, this study excluded those respondents who never (0) or seldom (1) use science, political, or health news from regression analyses. This study specifically designated the respondents as users if their use frequencies were between 2 and 7 and as nonusers if their use frequencies were between 0 and 1. The results showed that 713 of 949 were users of science news, 693 of 949 were users of political news, and 855 of 949 were users of health news. This study analyzed the users to investigate the relationships between gratifications obtained and news use. Three multiple regression analyses were conducted using the use frequency as dependent variables, and demographics, media use, gratifications, and lifestyles as independent variables. Table 3 summarizes the results.

Table 3.

Regression analyses on the use of science, political, and health news.

	Science Standardized β	Political Standardized β	Health Standardized β
Block 1: Demographics
Age	.042	−.001	−.018
Education	−.063	−.024	.019
Personal income	.071*	.056	.046
Gender (female coded high)	−.024	.004	.065
Increased R² (%)	.001	.009	.013
Block 2: Media Use
TV	−.006	.005	−.007
Newspaper	−.058	.008	.063*
Magazine	.006	.023	.040
Movie	.061	.050	−.011
Internet	.033	−.096*	−.016
Increased R² (%)	.009	.015	.005
Block 3: Gratifications
Health condition	−.039	−.067	−.117**
Professional use	.013	−.108*	.003
Enter & Social	.264***	.373***	.091
Surveillance	.203***	.288***	.477***
Increased R² (%)	.175	.257	.225
Block 4: Lifestyles
Being fashionable	.005	−.035	.072
Life expansionists	.068	−.037	−.038
Non-media skeptics	−.004	.072*	.011
Pleasure seeking	−.105*	−.009	−.010
Preference for foreign products	.045	.048	.007
Increased R² (%)	.005	.002	−.001
Total R² (%)	.190	.283	.242
Sample Size	713	693	855

All entries are standardized regression coefficients (standardized β). The incremental R² indicates the percentage explained by that block.

p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

Table 3 shows that science news consumption was positively correlated with two gratifications: entertainment and social utility (β = .26, standard error (SE) = .01, p = .000) and surveillance (β = .20, SE = .01, p = .000). For political news, the data show that political news consumption was positively associated with two gratifications: entertainment and social utility (β = .37, SE = .01, p = .000) and surveillance (β = .29, SE = .01, p = .000) but was negatively correlated with information for professional use (β = −.11, SE = .03, p = .022). For health news, this study found that health news consumption was positively associated with surveillance (β = .48, SE = .01, p = .000) but negatively associated with information for health condition (β = –.12, SE = .02, p = .010).

For lifestyles, this study found two significant relationships, the first of which is a positive relationship between the lifestyle of non-media skeptics and the consumption of political news (β = .07, SE = .01, p = .045). The second is a negative relationship between a pleasure-seeking lifestyle and the consumption of science news (β = −.11, SE = .02, p = .011).

For demographics and media use, Table 3 shows three significant relationships: (1) personal income (β = .07, SE = .02, p = .046) was positively associated with science news consumption, indicating that those respondents with higher personal incomes used science news more frequently; (2) Internet use (β = −.10, SE = .02, p = .011) was negatively associated with political news consumption. That is, those respondents who consumed more political news used the Internet less frequently; and (3) health news consumption (β = .06, SE = .04, p = .043) was positively associated with newspaper reading, demonstrating that the respondents who consumed more health news read newspapers more frequently. Furthermore, Table 3 shows that sex exerted an almost significant effect on the consumption of health news because its p value (β = .07, SE = .06, p = .056) approached a significant level, indicating that females used health news more frequently than males.

Differences between users and nonusers

To answer RQ5 to RQ7, this study conducted several t-tests, summarized in Table 4, to examine the differences between users and nonusers regarding their demographics, media use, and lifestyles. To avoid a type I error, this study followed statisticians’ suggestions (Chyu, 2000) to adjust the pair-wise α to keep the family α at .05 by dividing the significant level of .05 with 3 because this study compared users and nonusers on each variable three times. Therefore, the significant level for t-tests was .017.

Table 4.

Differences between users and nonusers.

Variable	Type	Science		Political		Health
Variable	Type	Mean	t	Mean	t	Mean	t
Demo
Age	NonuserUser	7.977.09	2.04	6.897.47	−1.37	7.647.27	.58
Education	NonuserUser	4.735.05	−3.04** (p = .002)	5.014.95	.57	5.044.96	.54
P_income	NonuserUser	5.364.75	2.48* (p = .014)	4.864.91	−.24	5.154.87	.80
Media Use
TV	NonuserUser	4.113.99	1.06	3.704.14	−3.90*** (p = .000)	4.034.02	.099
Radio	NonuserUser	2.232.17	.41	2.142.21	−.51	2.002.21	−1.04
Newspaper	NonuserUser	2.192.16	.27	1.962.21	−2.85** (p = .005)	1.962.19	−1.55
Magazine	NonuserUser	1.942.24	−2.54* (p = .012)	2.102.19	−.74	1.832.20	−2.56* (p = .012)
Movie	NonuserUser	1.291.35	−1.21	1.421.30	2.20(p = .028)	1.321.34	−.26
Internet	NonuserUser	6.216.51	−1.22	6.756.32	1.94	6.606.42	.51
Lifestyles
Being fashionable	NonuserUser	22.9624.37	−1.94	23.6224.17	−.78	22.2324.21	−1.89
Life expansionists	NonuserUser	21.2223.69	−5.11*** (p = .000)	23.2323.01	.45	22.6523.12	−.66
Non-media skeptics	NonuserUser	21.2020.79	−3.69*** (p = .000)	20.6420.99	−1.12	19.5421.04	−3.20*** (p = .001)
Pleasure seeking	NonuserUser	7.788.75	1.24	8.388.56	−.71	7.458.63	−3.08** (p = .002)
Preference for foreign product	NonuserUser	5.547.10	−2.18(p = .030)	6.926.97	−.22	6.736.98	−.68

N of users/nonusers of science news = 713/236; N of users/nonusers of political news = 693/256; N of users/nonusers of health news = 855/94.

p < .017; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

For science news, Table 4 shows that compared to nonusers, users were better educated and read more magazines but had lower personal income. Furthermore, users tended to have the following lifestyles: life expansionists, pleasure seeking, and a preference for foreign products (p = .030 was approaching a significant level of .017). For political news, Table 4 shows that compared to nonusers, users watched more television and read more newspapers but viewed movies (p = .028 was approaching a significant level of .017) less frequently. For health news, Table 4 shows that compared to nonusers, users read more magazines and tended to have pleasure seeking and non-media skeptic lifestyles.

5. Discussion

Gratifications obtained and news consumption

Regarding the findings for RQ1, this study found that the respondents used science news to obtain the following gratifications: entertainment and social utility and surveillance. These findings were congruent with past studies (Huang, 2014, 2010; Shih, 2016; Su et al., 2015) and with this study’s interviews. Among the 23 interviewees, 13 identified “Entertainment and social utility,” and six identified “surveillance” as the gratifications they obtained from science news consumption. For example, one interviewee stated that information in science news was usually interesting and that he often used the information for conversation during social occasions. For surveillance, one interviewee indicated that she paid close attention to pollution-related issues and that she would wear a mask to go out when air pollution was heavy. Regarding information for health condition, many reports of science news also contain health information, and thus, it is usual for people to obtain information for health condition from both science and health news. However, this study unexpectedly discovered that science news consumption was not associated with the gratification of information for professional use. This finding is also inconsistent with the responses from the interviews because ten interviewees indicated that one gratification they obtained from science news was information for professional use. A possible explanation for this unexpected finding is that not enough science news reports were presented in Taiwan’s news media, and thus, respondents were unable to obtain information relevant to their work or studies. This possibility was also reflected in some of our interviews. For example, six interviewees who were not satisfied with science news indicated that science news only constituted a small percentage of news reports in news media, and more often than not, they were unable to get their needed information from science news. Furthermore, five interviewees stressed that science news often covered scientific issues without giving detailed or comprehensive information, which did not allow users to gain useful information for professional use.

As the findings for RQ2 showed, surveillance was the gratification obtained by the respondents from political news consumption, which is also congruent with past studies’ findings (Chan, 2015; Lee, 2006; Lee, 2013) and with this study’s interviews. Twelve of the twenty-three interviewees identified surveillance as the gratification they obtained from political news. For example, one interviewee indicated that he used political news to determine what happened in society and to better understand his environment. Another interviewee stated that the information from political news allowed her to know the opinions of political candidates and how to cast her votes in elections. Moreover, Table 3 shows that political news consumption was positively related to the gratification of entertainment and social utility, which is in accordance with past research findings (Lee, 2006; Lee, 2013) and with the interviews. Six of the twenty-three interviewees identified entertainment and social utility as the gratifications they obtained from political news. For example, one interviewee mentioned that political news always reported important events in Taiwan; thus, by consuming political news, he was able to join conversations on social occasions.

As the findings for RQ3 showed, surveillance is the gratification obtained by the respondents from health news, which is consistent with past research findings (Common Health, 2009, 2011) and with the interviews. Fourteen of the twenty-three interviewees indicated that they used health news because they wanted to do surveillance of the environment for self-protection. For example, one interviewee mentioned that during the outbreak of bird flu, she used health news to obtain basic knowledge of this disease to not panic. Another interviewee stated that she paid close attention to health news to understand which food products were unsafe during crises involving food products.

However, this study unexpectedly discovered that health news consumption was negatively associated with the gratification of information for health condition. This finding is also inconsistent with the interviews because 17 of the 23 interviewees identified information for health condition as the gratification they obtained from health news. There are two possible explanations for this unexpected finding: (1) one explanation is that many reports in health news were not accurate or too exaggerated; thus, the respondents did not think that they could rely on health news. This possibility was validated by several studies in Taiwan, showing that the news in Taiwan contained many pseudoscience reports, most of which were related to health issues (Cheng, 2013; Yeh, 2001). Additionally, 7 of the 23 interviewees mentioned that a major weakness of health news in Taiwan was that the information provided was often inaccurate or exaggerated. (2) Another explanation is that health news is mixed with too many product placement advertisements due to which the respondents were unable to differentiate between news and advertising; they thus considered the information contained in health news to be unreliable. This possibility is supported by the interviews because 6 of the 23 interviewees identified the prevalence of product placement advertisements in health news as a major weakness of health news in Taiwan.

Lifestyles and differences between news users and nonusers

For science news, this study found that the pleasure-seeking lifestyle exerted a negative effect on its use frequency. Past research showed that individuals with a pleasure-seeking lifestyle did not like challenges or hardship in their life and they preferred to adopt entertainment-oriented technologies because these technologies allowed them to enjoy their life (Li, 2013; Leung, 1998, 2015). This study found that the respondents who used science news more frequently were less likely to have a pleasure-seeking lifestyle, which is consistent with the nature of this lifestyle because science news often contains complex information and individuals who want to obtain useful information from science news have to make more effort and may encounter many challenges.

Moreover, three lifestyles were able to differentiate users from nonusers. Specifically, users were discovered to be more likely than nonusers to have the lifestyles of life expansionists, pleasure seeking or having a preference for foreign products. Specifically, this study discovered that science news users tended to have a life expansionist lifestyle, which is consistent with past research findings. Efficiency and achievement are primary concerns for people with the life expansionist lifestyle. The life expansionist lifestyle expresses a desire for learning and self improvement, which might feasibly be gained by consumption of science news. Moreover, this study found that science news users were more likely to have a lifestyle of a preference for foreign products. Past studies showed that having the lifestyle of a preference for foreign products was a predictor of the adoption of both information-oriented and entertainment-oriented technologies (Li, 2013). This study’s finding is congruent with those of past research because science news allows people to better understand what technologies are available and thus is a positive predictor for technology adoption. However, the findings in Table 4 show that compared to nonusers, science news users tended to have a pleasure-seeking lifestyle, which is conflicting with the findings in Table 3 that show that science news use was negatively associated with the pleasure-seeking lifestyle. A possible explanation for the contradictory findings is that for science news users, the more frequently they used science news, the less likely they were to have a pleasure-seeking lifestyle. Nevertheless, when comparing users with nonusers, the overall tendency for users to have a pleasure-seeking lifestyle was higher than nonusers. That is, this study found that a pleasure-seeking lifestyle was a negative predictor for science news use.

Furthermore, this study found that compared to nonusers, science news users were better educated, read more magazines, and had lower personal incomes. The distinctive lifestyle of science news users is similar to that of those who adopt information technologies (Sarrina Li, 2015), which were more similar to the adopters of information technologies (Li, 2015). Past studies showed that the two lifestyles—life expansionists and a preference for foreign products—were able to predict the adoption of information technologies (Li, 2013, 2015).

For political news, the data indicate that the lifestyle of non-media skeptics was able to predict political news use and that among the three variables, only mass media use was able to differentiate users from nonusers. Specifically, compared to nonusers, political news users used more television and newspapers but watched movies less frequently. This study discovered that the respondents who trusted more in media messages were more likely to use political news, but these respondents were less likely to use new media and the internet. This resonates with past research, which showed that The non-media skeptic lifestyle was negatively associated with the adoption of information technologies (Li, 2013; Leung, 1998). In summary, compared to nonusers, political news users tended to be more traditional and less skeptical, using and trusting more traditional media such as television and newspapers, and less likely to use new media.

For health news, the data showed that the five types of lifestyles did not affect its use frequency; however, two lifestyles were able to differentiate users from nonusers. That is, compared to nonusers, health news users were more likely to have the lifestyles of non-media skeptics and pleasure seeking. The pleasure-seeking lifestyle is the tendency for people to enjoy an easy and stable life. Past studies showed that a pleasure-seeking lifestyle was a positive predictor for the adoption of entertainment-oriented technologies and that people with this lifestyle preferred using traditional mass media (Li, 2013; Leung, 1998, 2015). In summary, compared to nonusers, health news users were those respondents who not only trusted media messages but also preferred an easy life. These findings indicate that health news users differed greatly from science news users and that the two groups possessed distinctive lifestyles.

6. Conclusion

This study adopted UGT to examine the relationships among lifestyles, gratifications obtained, and the use of science, political, and health news. The data analysis yields the following three conclusions: (1) among the four types of variables, gratifications obtained were the most powerful predictors for the use of the three types of news, while lifestyles, mass media use, and demographics only played a minor role in news consumption. Furthermore, this study found that the respondents obtained different gratifications from science, political, and health news, whereas surveillance was the gratification that was obtained across the three types of news, which is consistent with the study by Sundar and Limperos (2013); (2) users and nonusers of science news or health news were differentiated mainly by lifestyles, while users and nonusers of political news were differentiated mainly by mass media use; and (3) users of the three types of news differed greatly. Science news users were similar to the adopters of information technologies, while political news users and health news users were more traditional with health news users having distinct lifestyles unlike their political news user counterparts.

This study is not without limitations, one of which is that the data were collected from Taiwan; thus, the findings may not be applicable to other cultures. Cultural differences greatly influence news content and consumption (Huang et al., 2017). For example, Huang’s study examined two websites of science news in Taiwan and China and found that many differences existed between the two websites, one of which was that the topics differed greatly in the two websites. Huang et al. explained that the difference in topics reflected the different developments of science subjects in the two areas. However, the existing literature lacks studies that compare science, political, and health news in different cultures. Future studies may focus on cross cultural comparison of news use with a focus on lifestyle and gratification. Another limitation is that this study did not differentiate between different types of news media use, such as television, print media, or online news. Political news constitutes the largest part of news content in Taiwan, and users thus might rely on traditional media for consuming political news, while for science news, users might depend on the Internet for science news consumption because little time or space has been allocated for science news in the traditional news media. Future studies should explore this issue to understand how satisfied news users are with different types of news media. The third limitation is that the telephone survey only targeted landline phones, and future studies should consider using both landline phones and mobile phones to make the samples more representative.

The contribution of this study is to offer the first comparison of science, health and political news use in Taiwan. The findings of this study showed that the users of the three types of news in fact differed greatly in terms of lifestyles, gratifications obtained, and mass media use.

Supplemental Material

PUS836626_SUPPLEMENT – Supplemental material for Lifestyles and gratifications obtained from news: Comparing science news with health news and political news

Supplemental material, PUS836626_SUPPLEMENT for Lifestyles and gratifications obtained from news: Comparing science news with health news and political news by Shu-Chu Sarrina Li in Public Understanding of Science

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This manuscript was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan. MOST 106-2511 -S-009-009-MY3

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available at

ORCID iD

Shu-Chu Sarrina Li

Author biography

Shu-Chu Sarrina Li (PhD, University of Iowa, 1993) is a Professor in the Institute of Communication Studies at National Chiao Tung University. Her research interests include new media, environmental communication, and the management of media organizations. Some of her recently published articles appear in Computers in Human Behavior, New Media & Society, Journal of Environmental Education, and Telematics and Informatics.

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