Online News Consumption Research 1

© 2009 Eugenia Mitchelstein & Pablo J. Boczkowski – Do not quote, circulate or reproduce without permission from the authors

Running head: ONLINE NEWS CONSUMPTION RESEARCH

Online News Consumption Research:

An Assessment of Past Work and an Agenda for the Future

Eugenia Mitchelstein and Pablo J. Boczkowski Department of Communication Studies

Northwestern University Frances Searle Building

2240 Campus Drive Evanston, IL 60208 USA

Electronic mail addresses: eugenia@northwestern.edu / pjb9@northwestern.edu

In Press, New Media & Society

Date of this version: September 3, 2009

Authors’ bios: Eugenia Mitchelstein (M. Sc., Media and Communications, London School of Economics, 2005) is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. Her research focuses on new media, political communication, and online journalism. She has co-authored "Between tradition and change," which is forthcoming in Journalism: Theory Practice & Criticism, 10 (5). Pablo J. Boczkowski (Ph.D., Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, 2001) is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. His research program interrogates core concepts in social theory by examining cultural processes and formations made particularly visible in the transition from print to digital media. He pursues this program through ethnographic studies of journalistic work and organizations. His publications include the award-winning Digitizing the News: Innovation in Online Newspapers (MIT Press, 2004), the forthcoming News at Work: Imitation in an Age of Information Abundance (University of Chicago Press, 2010), and articles in journals and edited volumes. Authors’ note: This paper was greatly improved as a result of the most useful feedback received from four anonymous reviewers and the two journal editors. Maggie Griffith provided terrific editorial assistance. We also thank Jim Webster for helpful comments on a much earlier version of this paper, and Dan O’Keefe for his always savvy advice.

Online News Consumption Research 2

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Abstract

This paper assesses the main findings and dominant modes of inquiry in recent scholarship on

online news consumption. The findings suggest that the consumption of news on the Internet has

not yet differed drastically from the consumption of news in traditional media. The assessment

shows that the dominant modes of inquiry have also been characterized by stability rather than

change (because research has usually drawn on traditional theoretical and methodological

approaches). In addition, these modes of inquiry exhibit three systematic limitations: the

assumption of a division between print, broadcast, and online media; the notion that the analysis

should treat media features and social practices separately; and the inclination to focus on

ordinary or extraordinary patterns of phenomena but not on both at the same time. On the basis

of this assessment, this paper proposes an integrative research agenda that builds on this

scholarship but also contributes to solve some of its main limitations.

Keywords:

Online news – Online journalism – Online news consumption – Media consumption – Internet

Publics – Audiences – New media scholarship

Word count (excluding authors’ bios and note): 8941

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Online News Consumption Research:

An Assessment of Past Work and an Agenda for the Future

News consumption is a central aspect of everyday life in modern societies (Bogart, 1989;

Butsch, 2008; Dayan & Katz 1992; Luhmann, 1996; Morley, 1980; Thompson, 1995). In recent

years, the consumption of online news has experienced major growth. As online news audiences

have expanded and entered the mainstream, scholarship about them has also developed and

matured. Research has unfolded in a piecemeal fashion, with a myriad of studies tackling

narrowly defined topics. But with a few exceptions (Boczkowski, 2002), there is a dearth of

thorough examinations of this area of research. Thus, there has been a lack of attempts to offer a

panoramic depiction of the road traveled so far and a programmatic vision of possible directions

for future journeys. This paper aims to contribute to filling these twin voids by critically

assessing the recent scholarship and, on the basis of this assessment, presenting the outline of an

integrative research agenda on online news consumption that builds upon the strengths of the

existing scholarship but also helps to overcome its main limitations.

The assessment of the scholarship indicates that online news consumers have not behaved

radically differently from traditional media audiences.i The empirical studies show that despite

the proliferation of sites and technologies, most users are still influenced by past consumption

habits. Although changes have occurred, they have not drastically altered the news consumption

landscape. This assessment is presented in the next four sections. The first centers on research

about whether online news complements or displaces traditional media use. The second looks at

the links between online news and political knowledge. The third addresses analyses of audience

fragmentation and homogenization, and the fourth issues of civic participation.ii

Continuity has also often characterized the dominant modes of inquiry about online news

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consumption by relying on traditional conceptual and methodological preferences. These modes

of inquiry have yielded valuable insights, but have also proven to be limited to address

phenomena that challenge these traditional preferences. Three such limitations are salient: the

assumption of a division between print, broadcast, and online media; the notion that the analysis

should treat media features and social practices separately; and the inclination to focus on

ordinary or extraordinary patterns of phenomena but not on both at the same time. To help

overcome these limitations, this paper presents a general outline of an integrative research

agenda. This agenda advocates a) turning the often taken-for-granted assumptions that subtend

these limitations from gives into outcomes of the inquiry; b) pursuing empirical strategies that

address the multiple relevant dimensions of the phenomena studied; c) relying on mixed-methods

designs to better grasp these multiple dimensions; and, d) developing theory from explanations

of the resulting findings that resort to situational and structural factors that have been fruitful

across media scholarship.

Does Online News Consumption Complement or Displace Traditional Media Consumption?

Two positions have marked the research on the relationship between news consumption

in online and traditional media: one argues that Internet news use complements traditional media

consumption, and the other that it displaces it. We suggest that the lack of conclusive findings

might be due to an analytical stance that separates the use of print, broadcast, and online media,

thus preventing an exploration of how consumers integrate news consumption across media.

One stream of studies suggests that the use of online news media complements the

consumption of news in traditional media (Chan & Leung, 2005; Hujanen & Pietikainen, 2004;

Kayany & Yelsma, 2000; Livingstone & Markham, 2008; Nguyen & Western, 2007). On the

basis of a survey about news consumption in Texas, Chyi and Lasorsa argued that “the

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simultaneous use of the print and online editions suggested that to some extent print and online

products complement each other” (2002: 103). Findings from some analyses of the behaviors and

motivations of online news consumers support the complementarity hypothesis. Flavian and

Gurrea (2007) surveyed news consumers in Spain and concluded that accessing Internet news is

tied to seeking specific or up-to-date information, and there is a negative association between

reading the newspaper for leisure and going online for news. Drawing on uses and gratification

theory (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974), a different perspective contends that users’ goals and

interests shape consumption more strongly than medium attributes (Flanagin & Metzger, 2001).

Thus, people focus on specific types of content, such as sports, politics, and entertainment in the

multiple platforms used to access the respective stories (Lin, Salwen, & Abdulla, 2005;

Livingstone, 2004; Sheehan, 2002). Dutta-Bergman reported that, in the United States, people

who go online to get sports (or other kinds of) news also followed sports (or these other) news on

traditional media more closely than nonusers of sports information. The author thus concluded

that ‘the search for news information in a specific content area drives the consumption of

specific news types across different media outlets’ (2004: 55).

Echoing the principle of relative constancy (McCombs, 1972), an alternative research

stream contends that use of traditional media has decreased since the popularization of the Web,

thus signaling a displacement effect (Gentzkow, 2007; Gunter, Russell, Withey & Nicholas,

2003; Kaye & Johnson, 2003; Lin, Salwen, Garrison & Driscoll, 2005). The 2008 Pew Biennial

News Consumption Survey showed that the portion of Americans who read a newspaper

‘yesterday’ fell from 40 to 34 percent between 2006 and 2008, whereas the percentage who

accessed their news online ‘yesterday’ rose from 23 to 29 percent in the same period. Research

has found that the displacement trend is in part dependent upon demographic factors such as age,

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with effects appearing to be greater among young users (Ahlers, 2006; Coleman & McCombs,

2007; Lee, 2006; Ogan, Ozakca, & Groshek, 2008). In their study of news habit formation

among American college students, Diddi and LaRose concluded that members of ‘the first

internet generation’… ‘are less likely to read newspapers than older people and less likely to

watch network news’ (2006: 197 and 205). However, some studies suggest that displacement

effects among young users might not be geographically homogeneous. Hasebrink and Paus-

Hasebrink (2007) found that although 85% of young people in Germany access the Internet, only

27% used it for online news consumption.

There seems to be a complex relationship between complementarity and displacement

that is, in part, dependent on temporal and socioeconomic factors. Some contend that audience

behavior could change over time, as the appropriation of online technologies is normalized

(Metzger, Flanagin, & Zwarun, 2003; Salwen, Garrison & Driscoll, 2005; Tewksbury, 2003).

Althaus and Tewksbury suggest that studies of Internet use are time-bound, because patterns of

consumption ‘may change dramatically as use of computer technologies becomes more

widespread in the general population’ (2000: 22). Research has also found that access to online

news varies according to socioeconomic status, educational attainment, and age. Online news

audiences tend to have more years of education and higher incomes than people who do not

access online news (Chadwick, 2006; Nguyen & Western, 2007). The use of news sites may

complement traditional media use for older, less educated, and lower socioeconomic status

groups, but it may displace offline news consumption for younger and more educated users.

Thus, the latter group ‘perhaps… will never acquire the habit of reading a print version of a

newspaper’ (Davis, 1999: 42).

The lack of conclusive findings about issues of displacement and complementarity might

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result from an artificial differentiation among print, broadcast, and online news consumption in

most of the research. For instance, Nicholas and colleagues examined consumer logs to the

London Times website, and found that midweek was the busiest time for the online newspaper,

whereas Saturday – the highest circulation day of its print counterpart – was the quietest

(Nicholas, Huntington, Lievesley, & Wasti, 2000). Because this study only analyzed website

logs, it cannot ascertain whether it signals displacement or complementarity: accessing

timesonline.co.uk midweek might or might not be related to heavy reading of the paper on

Saturdays. Thus, the persistence of conflicting findings might be tied to analytical strategies that

ignore the manifold interpenetration of news consumption across media.

The Consequences of Online News Consumption for Political Knowledge

This section focuses on the ties between access to online news and political knowledge.

While some scholars have proposed that increased availability of information will lead to higher

levels of political knowledge, others have contended that access to online news is less conducive

to acquiring this knowledge. We also analyze the related area of the credibility of online content,

showing that there has been little research that links the credibility of news sites to the level of

political information acquired by their consumers. We argue that this is in part due to the

traditional separation between accounts of media features and analyses of social practices.

To some scholars influenced by Downs’ economic theory of democracy (1957), the vast

availability of online news makes it easier for citizens to access political information (Bimber,

1998; Neuman, 2001; Weber, Loumakis & Bergman, 2003). This is because ‘(t)he Web provides

a theoretically limitless news hole of up-to-date, mostly raw information that is available

whenever the user wants it’ (Johnson & Kaye, 2003: 12). But others have argued that this

availability might only increase access to public affairs content (namely, political, economic and

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international subjects) for those already engaged in the political process (Graber, 1996; Margolis

& Resnick, 2000; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2004; Tolbert & McNeal, 2003). Poindexter and

McCombs (2001) found that people who already acknowledged a civic duty to be informed were

more likely to read political news online.

Scholars have also analyzed whether online news consumption is more or less conducive

to learning political knowledge than news consumption in traditional media. Some have argued

that increased choice of online news reduces exposure to public affairs stories, and thus,

knowledge and recall of current events (Dalrymple & Scheufele, 2007; Schoenbach, de Waal, &

Lauf, 2005). In an experiment, Althaus and Tewksbury (2002) found that participants exposed to

print news could recognize and recall more public affairs stories than subjects exposed to online

news. They attributed the difference to the reduced story salience cues in the online version,

which gave subjects more freedom to follow their own interests. Still other studies have shown

that access to online news does not lead to a decrease in knowledge of public affairs in contrast

with traditional news media and might even have different cognitive effects (Drew and Weaver,

2006; Kenski & Stroud, 2006; Xenos & Moy, 2007). Eveland, Seo, and Marton (2002) exposed

subjects to television, print newspaper, and online news during the 2000 U.S. election, and found

that although both newspapers and television news produced more overall accurate recall than

online news, the Web helped users to structure political knowledge better.

To some scholars, use of the Internet might increase the likelihood of incidental news

knowledge. Consumers are often exposed to online news as a consequence of general Web use,

which in turn can lead to greater awareness about public affairs subjects (Lupia & Philpot, 2005;

Salwen, 2005). These findings echo Baum’s (2003) research on the positive effects of soft news

programs on the political knowledge of otherwise inattentive television audiences. Tewksbury,

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Weaver, and Maddex analyzed survey data and found that overall exposure to the Internet was

positively associated with incidental exposure to news. They concluded that ‘for this reason,

perhaps more than for many other hyperbolic claims one hears, the Web may be a positive force

in American politics’ (2001: 547).

A cognate area of scholarship has examined the role of media and social factors in the

credibility of Internet knowledge. Regarding media factors, some studies have argued that online

news is more credible than television and radio, but less than newspapers (Flanagin & Metzger,

2000; Kiousis, 2001; Schweiger, 2000). However, drawing on a survey of news consumers in the

United States, Abdulla, Garrison, Salwen, Driscoll and Casey (2005) reported that respondents

rated online news highest in credibility. Other studies looked at differences concerning the

institutional affiliation of online news sites and found that users rate traditional media sites as

more credible than independent sites (Flanagin & Metzger, 2007; Kiousis, 2006; Pew, 2008).

Melican and Dixon (2008) found that survey respondents considered online counterparts of

traditional media to be just as credible as offline news, whereas nontraditional Internet sources

ranked lowest in terms of credibility. Concerning credibility as a function of social factors, some

studies have shown that more experienced users rate online news as more credible than less

experienced users (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Johnson & Kaye, 2000; Johnson, Kaye, Bichard,

& Wong, 2007). Other analysts have suggested that younger users tend to find online

information more credible than older consumers (Bucy, 2003; Metzger, Flanagin, & Zwarun,

2003). Although some studies have indicated that users report credibility problems in online

information (Flanagin & Metzger, 2000; Savolainen, 2007), Flanagin and Metzger found that

Internet users are ‘skeptical of web-based information, know they should verify the information

they get online, and yet fail to do so’ (2007: 334).

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Like research about the effects of online news consumption on traditional media,

scholarship about the relationship between the credibility of, and knowledge acquisition from,

news sites has also yielded a body of often conflicting findings. We suggest that one reason for

this state of affairs is that studies have often looked at either media features or social practices,

but less frequently at the interactions between these two dimensions. These studies frequently

fail to capture how users may variously enact different appropriation practices of diverse media

features, and these factors may be tied to varying levels of credibility and knowledge. By

contrast, in one of the few studies looking at both features and practices, D’Haenens, Jankowski

and Heuvelman found that subjects’ gender and interest in specific topics had a larger influence

on recall of news articles than the medium, and concluded that “the manner in which readers

consume and recall news provided by online and print newspapers is (…) complex and varied”

(2004: 380). Further research that explores the connections between media features and social

practices may shed additional light on the conflicting findings on issues of knowledge and

credibility—and, as argued below, other key topics.

Fragmentation and Homogenization among Online Media Audiences

This section explores scholarship on whether increased content choice online is tied to

either fragmentation or homogenization of the audience. It examines two streams of research.

The first has looked at the highly diversified supply of online news and inferred that the audience

is more fragmented than in the past. The second contends that the public is not becoming

increasingly fragmented, and that, on the contrary, content online is increasingly more

homogenous. We suggest that the tension between fragmentation and homogenization might be

in part due to the tendency to focus on either ordinary or extraordinary patterns of phenomena.

Drawing on selective exposure theory (Zillmann & Bryant, 1985), some scholars have

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argued that the diversification in online news supply may lead to polarization as people obtain

their information increasingly from, and discuss public affairs with, like-minded individuals

(MacDougall, 2005; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Stroud, 2008; Sunstein, 2001). The possibility

of polarized news audiences ‘has raised fears of political balkanization and break-down of the

national political consensus’ (Graber, 2006: 376). Other analysts have proposed that a lack of

interest in public affairs news is particularly problematic in relation to the fragmentation of the

news supply (Davis, 1999; Mutz, 2006). Prior examined the links between content preferences

and the media environment and concluded that the proliferation of choices ‘causes increasing

segmentation between news and entertainment fans’ (2007: 274).

Some scholars have tied audience fragmentation to socioeconomic factors (Castells,

1997; Graber, 1996). Papacharissi has suggested that ‘access to online information is not

universal and equal to all [because] those who can access online information are equipped with

additional tools to be more active citizens’ (2002: 15). Few studies on this topic analyze actual

consumption patterns. One exception is Tewksbury, who found that news sites users had

distinctive profiles in terms of demographic characteristics and topic selection, and concluded

that ‘fragmentation may reduce the likelihood of sustained, widespread attention to political

issues, thereby weakening the potential of consensus’ (2005: 346).

The opposite camp contends that the public is not becoming increasingly fragmented

(Chadwick, 2006; Neuman, 2001). Some authors have focused on the construction of the news

agenda (Boczkowski, 2009; Boczkowski & de Santos, 2007; Lee, 2007). Others have looked at

the reception side. Coleman and McCombs studied agenda-setting effects among consumers of

different media in the United States and argued that ‘there is little support for the logically

intuitive idea that this diversity of media will lead to the end of the public agenda as we have

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known it’ (2007: 503). Hindman has argued that audience distribution on the Web shows the

existence of ‘a small set of winners that receive the lion's share of the traffic, and a host of tiny

Web sites that, collectively, receive most of the remaining visitors’ (2009: 134).

The conflicting evidence about homogenization and segmentation could be related to the

tendency to look into either ordinary or extraordinary phenomena. That is, while an exclusive

focus on ordinary patterns reveals the existence of homogenization, a concentration on

extraordinary ones shows the presence of segmentation. By contrast, Boczkowski argues that

‘homogenization might characterize the center of the media spectrum and segmentation its

periphery’ (in press: 250). He adds that if consumption ‘was arrayed in a single dimension, the

more frequent activities would be located at the center and marked by rising homogenization,

and the less frequent ones would be placed at both ends and be signaled by increasing

segmentation’ (Ibid: 250). Thus, studying ordinary and extraordinary patterns of online news

consumption could help to furnish more comprehensive and nuanced accounts of the tension

between homogenization and fragmentation.

Online News as a Resource for Civic Participation

This section explores two strands of research about whether online news consumption

might contribute to civic participation. The first examines the impact of online news

consumption on democratic processes. Two positions have emerged in the literature: one posits

that there is no positive effect, and the other argues the existence of a positive effect but

mediated by variables such as political talk and type of news source. The second stream analyzes

online discussion and user-authored content as forms of civic participation fostered by the online

environment. This stream is also divided between studies that underscore the possibility of

changes, and those that center on why these changes have not been very likely so far. We suggest

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that the lack of a consensus on the link between online news and civic participation might be

related to the divisions across media, between media features and social practices, and between

ordinary and extraordinary patterns of audience behavior.

Some authors have proposed that there are no significant links between online news

consumption and civic participation (Bimber, 2001; Kenski & Stroud, 2006; Margolis &

Resnick, 2000; Weaver & Drew, 2001). Scheufele and Nisbet surveyed Internet consumers in the

United States and found that informational uses played “a very limited role … in promoting

levels of efficacy, knowledge, and participation” (2002: 65). However, other studies have shown

a positive relationship (Amadeo, 2007; Johnson & Kaye, 2003; Norris, 2003). Esser and de

Vreese found that searching for information online was a strong predictor of voter turnout in the

European parliamentary election of 2004, and concluded that ‘all modes of communication are

positively correlated to young people’s political engagement—interactive forms … even more so

than traditional one-way forms’ (2007: 1208).

Some researchers have noted that the ties between online news consumption and civic

participation may be mediated by political discussion because consumers who talk about public

affairs are more likely to increase this participation than those who do not do so (Eveland &

Dylko, 2007; Hardy & Scheufele, 2005; Nisbet & Scheufele, 2004; Xenos & Moy, 2007). Shah,

Cho, et al. studied media consumption and civic participation during the 2004 U.S. election and

found that ‘media effects were largely indirect, channeled through political discussion and

messaging’ (2007: 696).

Other scholars have argued that the conflicting evidence about the connections between

online news consumption and civic participation might be due to the differences among Internet

sites and among consumption practices (Kenski & Stroud, 2006; Lupia & Baird, 2003; Shah,

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Kwak & Holbert, 2001). Lupia and Philpot contended that that the Internet is not a monolith, and

urged to focus ‘on how certain kinds of web sites affect certain kinds of people’ (2005: 2). In an

experiment that exposed subjects to sites with political information in either interactive or

noninteractive conditions, Tedesco (2004) showed that exposure to the interactive condition

resulted in stronger levels of political efficacy—and the noninteractive one in lower levels of

efficacy. Tedesco concluded that ‘interactive features on Web sites help young adults feel more

informed about politics and more valuable or useful to the political process’ (2004: 196).

The second strand of research examines online discussion of public affairs as a form of

civic participation. Some authors have argued that online media have lowered the cost of

debating opinions in public (DiMaggio, Hargittai, Neuman, & Robinson, 2001; Papacharissi,

2004). For Etzioni, ‘it would be much easier online than offline for millions not merely to gain

information and to vote, but also to participate in deliberations’ (2003: 97). Yet, studies of online

discussion forums have shown that the dominance of vociferous minorities, the lack of civility in

the exchanges, and the exclusion of disagreeing voices hampers deliberation (Davis, 1999;

MacDougall, 2005; Margolis & Resnick, 2000; Schultz, 2000). Ye and Li (2006) looked at users’

forums in American online newspapers and found that the number of participants was low,

postings were trivial, and public affairs topics were not the readers' first preference. They

concluded that ‘the value of forum messages is fairly limited, if measured by the high standards

of democratic deliberation’ (2006: 255).

Researchers have warned that access to online information may foster participation

among consumers who are already engaged in the political process (Bimber & Davis, 2003;

DiMaggio et al., 2001; Norris, 2000; Prior, 2007). Bimber has argued that the informed citizen

may be more likely to engage in the practices of democracy, but ‘increased availability of low-

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cost information is not likely to change greatly who is informed and who is not’ (2003: 210).

However, Krueger found that the Internet during the 2000 United States election had the

potential to act as a political outlet for those previously unengaged, because ‘using the Internet

allows individuals to acquire the medium-specific skills required to overcome the technical

obstacles associated with the medium’ (2002: 494).

Finally, scholars have also argued that the Internet can foster news production as a

collective effort between journalists and consumers (Bentley et al., 2007; Boczkowski, 2004;

Deuze, 2003; Pavlik, 2000; Russell, 2007). However, research has identified limitations in user-

authored news as a form of participation. Some studies have shown that most blogs do not

feature public affairs content and instead resemble the personal journal format (Herring, Scheidt,

Bonus & Wright, 2005; Papacharissi, 2007; Trammell, Tarkowski & Sapp, 2006). Ornebring

analyzed users’ blogs in Swedish and British tabloids and found that they ‘mostly function as an

online diary where the most popular topics are every-day life things such as love, work, children,

etc.’ (2008: 780). Furthermore, analyses of public affairs user-authored content have shown that

bloggers and other consumers rely heavily on journalists for that information (Daniels, 2006;

Deuze, Bruns & Neuberger, 2007; Haas, 2005; Reese, Rutigliano, Hyun & Jeong, 2007). Lowrey

and Latta interviewed political bloggers in the United States and concluded that they ‘tend to

reproduce rather than challenge the work of mainstream media, and many adopt similar

practices’ (2008: 187).

Research on the link between online news consumption and political participation might

have suffered from the three limitations identified in prior sections. First, the differentiation of

print, broadcast and online media may hinder the identification of the benefits of online news

consumption for civic engagement. Audience members may integrate consumption of different

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media, for instance, surfing the web while watching the evening newscast, or using the internet

to search for in depth information about an issue they initially learned via print or broadcast

media. This makes it difficult to separate the effects of one modality of media consumption from

the others. Second, research on users as content producers has usually focused either on media

features or on social practices. By dividing content from practices, this scholarship has been

unable to illuminate whether it is the mere availability of media features or the sheer practices of

their consumers or both what accounts for the varying realizations—from writing to reading to

ignoring to resisting—of user-authored news. Third, the separation between ordinary and

extraordinary behaviors might also account for some conflicting findings. For instance, studies

on user-authored news which have usually relied on purposive or self-selected samples of

subjects or content have tended to over-represent this news and their creators: the behavior of

highly motivated user-authors has not characterized that of their less motivated counterparts

(Johnson & Kaye, 2004; Lowrey & Latta, 2008; Reich, 2008).

Steps Towards an Integrative Research Agenda

The previous sections have offered a critical assessment of recent research on online

news consumption. This assessment shows that despite the growth and innovation in technology

and site offers, online news consumption routines appear to be shaped to an important extent by

consumption habits that characterized the traditional media landscape. The assessment indicates

that continuity has also frequently marked the typical scholarly approaches to online news

consumption. These approaches have generated valuable knowledge, but have also exhibited

three important limitations: the assumption of a division between print, broadcast, and online

media; the notion that the analysis should treat media features and social practices separately;

and the inclination to focus on either ordinary or extraordinary patterns of phenomena but not on

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both at the same time.

These limitations arise, at least in part, from epistemological preferences that have long

marked the domains of research that are concerned with the study of online news. First, the

analytical distinction among types of media is a legacy of mass communication scholarship that

tended to divide the analysis of print and broadcast media and has now added online media as

another component of the news landscape. Second, the focus on either media features or social

practices stems from a research strategy that emphasizes either product characteristics often

elucidated through content analyses or media effects that are usually examined through surveys

or experimental designs. Third, the split between studies that look solely at extraordinary

patterns and those that focus exclusively on ordinary ones is an expression of the divergent ethos

of scholarship on innovation (which tends to highlight the kind of novelty that is most visible in

extraordinary situations) and on institutionalized phenomena (which often underscores continuity

in social life that ordinary circumstances bring into particularly sharp relief).

The existent research has made important contributions in a relatively short period of

time. But it has failed to take full advantage of online news consumption for more extensive

empirical, methodological, and theoretical renewal. Undertaking this renewal would not mean

setting aside the existing empirical foci, methodological approaches, and theoretical lenses. But

it would mean broadening the aspects of the phenomena that deserve examination, the tools

utilized to learn about them, and the analytical perspectives that explain the resulting findings.

The remainder of this paper outlines four building blocks of an alternative, integrative research

agenda that offers an initial step in this direction of scholarly renewal.

The first building block consists of making explicit the assumptions that have been taken

for granted and considering them an outcome of the inquiry rather than its starting point. Thus,

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rather than assuming that news consumption is divided across media types, research should

inquire into when, where, how and under what conditions this happens—and does not happen—

and its consequences for issues such as displacement, complementarity, and civic participation.

Similarly, rather than assuming either that media features find direct expression in social

practices or that social practices can be understood without also making sense of the media

features that are tied to them, the analysis should look at whether there is interdependence

between features and practices, under what circumstances and with what effects for issues such

as knowledge acquisition and credibility. In addition, rather than focusing on extraordinary (or

ordinary) patterns of phenomena and assuming that it also characterizes their ordinary (or

extraordinary) counterparts, research should make explicit whether the phenomena are of one

kind or the other (if not both) and reflect on the implications of this choice for the resulting

findings.

The second building block centers on issues of empirical strategy. Rather than narrowly

segmenting the empirical landscape into a) distinct media, b) either features or practices, and c)

either extraordinary or ordinary patterns of phenomena, the research process should examine the

multiple pieces and dimensions of the puzzle. This includes acknowledgment that sometimes

consumers integrate across multiple media types and others they do not. Therefore, the analysis

should examine how this integration happens—and does not happen. These issues of empirical

strategy also affect inquiry by orienting the gathering of data towards the mechanisms that

connect media features and social practices—and those that disconnect them. Along similar

lines, scholars should also look at both ordinary and extraordinary phenomena within a single

study and determine whether, for instance, the behavior of consumers during ordinary news

periods changes in periods marked by extraordinary events.

Online News Consumption Research 19

© 2009 Eugenia Mitchelstein & Pablo J. Boczkowski – Do not quote, circulate or reproduce without permission from the authors

The third building block revolves around matters of research design. In light of the broad

and multi-dimensional aim of the empirical strategy, an integrative approach calls for mixed-

methods studies. It also implies an effort to triangulate the findings obtained through the multiple

methods used. The limitations of the existent scholarship are in part related to a tendency to

focus on a single aspect of phenomena at a time (at the expense of other relevant aspects), and to

apply a single set of methodological tools. Thus, the rationale for the alternative position

advocated here is twofold. First, different methods allow gathering various kinds of data and

analyze them in different ways. This is further enhanced by a combination of quantitative and

qualitative data collection and/or analysis techniques. Second, triangulation of findings obtained

with the different methods helps distinguish the results that converge from those that do not. In

this way, triangulation affords a more complete and nuanced rendition of phenomena. Issues of

integration across media could be further clarified through circulation, ratings, and site usage

data coupled with diaries of news consumption followed up by in-depth interviews. The

connections between media features and social practices could be illuminated through a

combination of content analyses of news sites and surveys of, and focus groups with, their

consumers. The role of extraordinary versus ordinary distribution of phenomena could be

captured by relying on sampling strategies that included average, frequent and sporadic

consumers, as well as ordinary and extraordinary events.

The fourth building block concerns theory development. The integration of consumption

across multiple media, the connections between media features and social practices, and the

interactions between ordinary and extraordinary patterns of phenomena create opportunities for

the actors. Whether and how these opportunities are realized (or not) depends on a number of

possible structural and situational factors, and combinations of both. These factors range from

Online News Consumption Research 20

© 2009 Eugenia Mitchelstein & Pablo J. Boczkowski – Do not quote, circulate or reproduce without permission from the authors

large patterns of income, skill, gender, and ethnic distributions to micro dynamics affecting the

interpretive, relational, spatial, and temporal character of everyday life. Theory development in

the integrative research agenda occurs by explaining the findings generated through the

implementation of the three previous building blocks in a way that links these explanations to

existing theorizing on traditional news consumption in particular, and broader aspects of

communicative action and experience in general. Theoretical renewal emerges by highlighting

how new concepts emerge from existent ones rather than by assuming that new phenomena are

better understood through either an automatic application of the current theoretical tool-kit or the

creation of an entirely new conceptual framework.

This brief outline of an integrative research agenda does not exhaust the possibilities

opened up for the study of online news consumption. It simply provides some initial steps for

much needed empirical, methodological, and theoretical renewal. At stake in this type of inquiry

is not just examining the dynamics of online news consumption, but also challenging traditional

assumptions and tackling unresolved dichotomies in the broader study of new media and society.

Online News Consumption Research 21

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Endnotes

i Several definitions are in order. In this paper we use the notions of “use” and “consumption”

somewhat interchangeably, even though we are aware of the different connotations of these

various terms in other contexts. We use “audience” to refer to consumer behavior in the

aggregate. By “traditional media” we mean print, television and radio news. “Mainstream

media” refers to established media operations which disseminate their work either online or

offline. “Online news” and “online media” refer to content that is accessible through the Internet

and other digital environments, regardless of whether it also appears in print, radio or television.

Finally, this paper mirrors the literature’s focus on news and, particularly, public affairs news.

We are mindful of the role of entertainment in cultural and political life, and we acknowledge

that news and entertainment are becoming increasingly blurred. However, it is beyond the scope

of this paper to address the changes in the online consumption of entertainment.

ii The scholarship included in this paper was retrieved in three ways. First, we conducted

keyword searches of databases such as the Social Sciences Citation Index. Second, we tracked

references in the originally retrieved papers. Third, we also read edited volumes and theoretical

books that do not carry empirical material. To organize the material, we looked for patterns of

thematic similarity and came up with the four topics covered in this paper. When a study fit in

more than one topic, we included the reference in two or more of the relevant sections. Taken

together, these four topics cover the overwhelming majority of the reviewed scholarship.

Attention to them is explained, at least in part, by the importance that the role of media in the

democratic process has had in communication studies.