popular studies

NEWS MEDIA CONSUMPTION: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens
Sharon Coen, Salford University
James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London
Toril Aalberg, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
David Rowe, University of Western Sydney
Paul Jones, University of New South Wales
Hernando Rojas, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Rod Tiffen, University of Sydney

Abstract
As news media change, so it is apparent that media news consumption changes with them. This paper, part of a larger international research project involving 11 countries from four continents (America, Europe, Asia and Australia), is focused on news consumption. It aims to detect whether television news remains at the top of the news hierarchy among different countries, seeking to identify differences in news consumption among different countries with different media cultures and, consequently, different media behaviour, as well as to reveal differences of news media use between older and younger generations.

Introduction
The history of audience research suggests, as Sonia Livingstone has noted, that
“relations between reception and consumption are themselves historically contingent” (2004, p. 84). In effect, recent developments in the media landscape

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have had a profound impact on consumption modes and users’ demands for new services, such as user generated content, ubiquitous access on demand, social and community media and content personalization (Kennedy, 2008). In this new era, convergence and digitalization are the major drivers for the demand of new media services since they have affected the structure of whole media environments.
Citizens in advanced societies have media choices like never before. On any given day the average citizen can choose among dozens of TV channels delivered terrestrially or by cable or satellite; several FM or internet radio stations; newspapers in both paper and online form; and, of course, access the Web and other alternative media and related devices.
Although TV and its programmes remain popular, the way that audiences, especially young people, access and consume media content has dramatically changed. The media landscape is thus moving from a traditional press-broadcasting approach to more personalised and on-demand ‘solutions’, with an impact also on the infrastructure and the access technologies required (for example, content awareness, and advanced tools and systems for intuitive content creation and multimedia-based search).
The advent of digital media, their portability, and convergence have accelerated the fragmentation of media around the world with a whole new generation of consumers bypassing newspapers and television to source their news on the Internet. This shift is compounded by new consumption patterns and users’ demands for new services, while, at the same time, it affects the ways in which people consume news. This new media environment “enables those with an interest in news to indulge in round the clock exposure. On the other hand, it provides those with little or no interest endless opportunities to avoid the news” (Ksiazek et al.,
2010, p. 551). This paper aims to highlight key features of this picture based on the findings of our international survey based on eleven countries. More precisely, it aims to detect whether television news remains at the top of the news hierarchy among different countries from four continents (Americas, Europe, Asia and
Australia). Further, it tries to identify differences in news consumption among different countries with different media cultures and subsequent different media

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behaviour, as well as to reveal differences of news media use between older and younger generations.

Media changes
The media universe is changing, not only in content, but also in the ways that audiences discover, use, consume and interact with content. Nowhere is this more evident than in media rich and diverse media markets, where the transition from the old to the new media, from the traditional to advanced media societies, from analogue to digital media, is clearly evident. Citizens of the so-called Western world thirty years ago had to choose among a few, in most cases two public, TV channels, three to four radio stations and a number of print outlets (magazines, newspapers, and books), and they commonly visited a cinema to see at least one film per week.
Today, they are able to choose among numerous media outlets within their homes, in most cases in front of their TV or PC monitors, or even on their smart mobiles. In fact, the media have flooded Western societies (as well as an increasing number of
Asian countries) in the last two decades. Hand-in-hand with the growth in media available to citizens has been a change in the content available to them. A substantial part of the media industry is now devoted to creating and distributing content specifically aimed to cater to the particular segments of the audiences from children and adolescents to executives and the elderly. Television has moved from family programming to thematic outlets, and complete channels aimed at large or niche market segments (Papathanassopoulos, 2002).
Although TV programming remains fashionable, the way that the new generation of audiences access and consume content in Europe has dramatically changed. Based on existing research, we can identify a number of characteristics of this new media consumption in the European context. First, the Internet is becoming a primary means of information and entertainment at least in the developed world.
In effect, the ways in which people use the new media, especially the Internet, are various and many: for work, for study, to read websites and blogs, and to shop.
Second, citizens of advanced societies spend more and more time consuming content on the Internet. Most importantly, this Internet usage constitutes more time
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commitment than reading print media, watching movies offline or playing video games. The main reason for this shift is that high-end Internet-enabled devices (e.g. interactive TV sets, game consoles, 3G devices, etc.) are flooding the market,
Third, as Harsh, Webster, Malthouse and Ksiazek (2012, p. 2) note, “media consumption seems to have become an ‘anywhere, anytime’ proposition. Yet, no one person uses all these media. Instead, people cope with the abundance of choice, by relying upon relatively small subsets, or ‘repertoires’ of their preferred media”.
Fourth, social networks have become popular worldwide, especially among the younger people. With this type of media flood, it would be expected that citizens could get news from a variety of sources and hear radically different points of view.
However, the multitude of media outlets available (as in the case of TV content
(Bermejo, 2009)) does not necessarily mean an increased diversity of viewpoints.
Although the means by which we can receive TV is rapidly expanding, it cannot confidently be claimed that its content has become more diverse and better in quality. But, as Cushion has pointed out, the ways in which television content is watched is now less under the control of broadcasters: “For audiences, this is interpreted as empowerment since they can tune in and out, pick and choose, emailon or delete in a flash the ‘vast swampland’ of programming (Cushion, 2011).
Fifth, total media exposure has increased around the world. People consume more media content (either linear or non-linear), have greater access to media and content, and consume multiple media (linear and non-linear) at the same time. This doesn’t mean, however, that they pay more attention to media and the relevant content, but that the media surround them and have increased in volume. At the same time, the increase of media outlets has increased the fragmentation of media markets. Additionally, each generation creates new media consumption patterns, and the media are forced to follow this path, and gradually, generational change results in dramatically different profiles of media consumption. This change is occurring because the new media environment offers more media content and more media options and, at the same time, allows for “higher mobility and more control over content selection in the hands of their users (Yuan, 2011, p. 999). It seems, then, that we have entered an age-segmented media environment that, while not unprecedented in media history, is more pronounced than in previous eras
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News consumption
In effect, the growth of new media and their relevant delivery systems enables changes in patterns of consumption. It seems that people’s experience of news is being re-shaped by technological changes, of course assuming that those people pay attention to the news. As in the case of other media content, news consumption relies on multiple new media outlets. But, changes in news consumption have farreaching-implications (Maier, 2010). The new media environment leads to a fragmentation of the news audiences as well as increasing the selectivity of the members of the audiences (Webster and Ksiazek, 2012; Webster, 2005). It may also affect patterns relating to voting behaviour (Prior, 2007) or even civic participation
(Norris, 2000; Putnam, 2000), if not polarization (Sunstein, 2007, Iyengar, 2011) and isolation from a larger public discourse (Chafee and Metzger, 2001). As Yuan notes
“individual news users integrate multiple media platforms to form personal news repertoires of their own gratifications… News users actively combine different news media sources, old and new, into complex patterns of media use” (2011, p. 999).
However, it must be noted that news consumption has been undergoing changes in the last decades as audiences shift from the printed to electronic media and then, as above noted, migrated to online sources (Maier, 2010: 549). This trend can be seen in various research studies, among them the latest reports by the
Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the last decade, Weblogs and social media also have gradually captured new audiences in the US. However, there are surveys which indicate that the supposed audience migration from the traditional news media to online news media has not taken place, at least to a degree that can precipitate the demise of the traditional new media (Ahlers, 2006). Recent research also indicates that, despite there being more ways to consume news now than at any other time in history (Risk, 2011), TV is still people’s main news source. This phenomenon is demonstrated in the data we present below.
In an effort to explain the reasons for change in news consumption, Christine
Ogan (2009) notes that news consuming audiences have declined since reaching a peak sometime in the twentieth century. In effect, there has been a constant and

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steady decline in newspaper reading, and later in TV viewing of major networks, radio audiences, etc. Various studies that track long-term trends in specific news media suggest an overall decline in news consumption. This decline is not only due to the advent of a new medium in a particular period, but also to the fact that the increasing number of media outlets increased the media competition and, consequently, led to a further fragmentation of the audiences. But, as Ogan points out, “media competition-driven fragmentation is not the only reason for declines in audience. Societal changes have also contributed to the process”. One major contributing change has been the increase in the number of women in the work force. As she explains, “when women began to work outside the home in greater numbers, they devoted less time to the media and other family members took on greater responsibilities in the household. Increased variety of leisure time activities also competed with media for audience attention”. Moreover, technological and lifestyle changes contributed to changing patterns of news consumption. Needless to say, the diffusion of new media such as broadband Internet has made it both easier and faster for people to get their daily news, thereby driving traditional media outlets to either migrate to the Internet or also to provide their online version.
Ksiazek et al. (2012: 552-3) also trace recent trends in news consumption, finding, first, that those who once relied heavily on broadcast news or newspapers now often divide their news consumption across multiple platforms. Second, they found that the most important effect of increased choice is a growing polarization of news consumption, whereby people selectively attend to or avoid the news.
Nevertheless, it is questionable whether the use of online news media complements the consumption of news in traditional media or presents a quite different experience, since news audiences can take a more interactive role in their engagement with the news media that was previously impossible (Boczkowski, 2004;
Mitchelstein and Boczkowski, 2010). In effect, the Internet seems to be used to complement rather than replace traditional news (Blekesaune, Elvestad and Aalberg
2012). Additionally, traditional news media outlets taking into account audience migration to the online sources have tried to expand their services to the online world by establishing interactive news websites and services.

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In one way or another, therefore, the new abundant media landscape provides many options and ways via which citizens can be informed. They can consume news by choosing from a variety of media outlets and media platforms with, in most cases, overlapping or even replicated information (see Yuan, 2011;
Webster, 2005; Prior, 2007; Sunstein, 2007). As Chaffee (1986) has pointed out, there are two patterns of multiple media use: complementary patterns and convergent patterns. Complementary patterns appear when people use different news media for different types of news. Convergent patterns occur when news consumers use different media for overlapping news and information. It also seems that, for the time being, people often use news media with parallel content to reinforce or elaborate information that they have already acquired.
Nevertheless, the total time that users devote to consuming news is a good indicator of both user availability for, and interest in, news. As Yuan (2011, 1003) has noted “It is reasonable to assume that the more time people spend consuming news indicates the more interest they have in news. And those who have more interest tend to employ more media and therefore have more extensive repertoires than users who are less interested” (Yuan, 2011: 1003). Broadly speaking, then, contemporary citizens tend to reallocate their time using news platforms/sources to shift between and to exploit multiple platforms during their news consumption. They also ‘graze’ for news all day long, while their perceptions of news media bias have grown in the last years (Iyengar, 2011) reference?), which may also explain why they have lost their faith in news organizations, and why the aim to use different news sources and rely on different platforms for news on different subjects (see
Rainie, 2012).

Research Design and Sample
This paper is part of a larger international research project called ‘Media System,
Political Context and Informed Citizenship: A Comparative Study’, which involved 11 countries (Australia, Canada, Colombia, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, South
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Korea, United Kingdom and United States) divided in two phases. The choice of countries, among other considerations, was based on a sample containing different media systems (which have witnessed deregulation, privatization and Internet development); different media cultures and contexts, ranging from old to new democracies; developed and developing economies; and partisan and bipartisan political cultures. Needless to say, considerations of the topic and the relevant questions of this paper are, to a certain extent, biased since it was largely grounded in the existing relevant literature, which is rather Euro-American in nature following the emergence of a Euro-media culture in last decades (Tunstall, 2008). Nonetheless, the study embraced scholars and countries from other parts of the world. In effect, our knowledge of how the media ‘work’ and are received and used in different national communities and on a comparative, transnational level is still elementary
(Nordenstreng, 2004).
Among other areas of focus, the research addressed national differences in news diets and media use. The general picture, for example, in Europe is that a high level of newspaper readers in Northern countries and fewer readers in Southern countries, with Central and Eastern European countries tending to be located in the middle (Elvestad and Blekesaune, 2008). In the case of the Internet, there are divides around the world. For example, the penetration of the Internet in 2011 in North
America, in Oceania and Europe was 79%, 68% and 62% respectively, whereas in
Latin America, Asia and Africa it was respectively 40%, 26% and 13.5 (Internet World
Statistics, 2012). There are definite divides within these regions, either North-South and/or East-West. The first phase of our study took the form of a quantitative analysis of major news media (broadcast, print and web) during three predetermined, non-sequential weeks (excluding weekends) in the period May-June
2010. This phase was combined within a second one, in particular with a survey administered to a representative sample of the population (n = 1000 in each of the participating countries. With the exceptions of Greece and Colombia (who could not otherwise guarantee representativeness), all surveys were administered online. In this second phase, the survey instrument included a battery of knowledge questions designed to reflect citizens’ awareness of hard and soft news, and familiarity with domestic and foreign news. A set of common questions were asked in all countries
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regarding media use. This article is focused on news consumption as reported by the respondents in the panel of the 11-countries project. Of course, consideration must be given to those respondents - at least in the nine out of the eleven countries in our sample – who were users of the Internet since, as noted, the surveys were administered online (for similar considerations see also Strabac and Aalberg, 2011).
Our survey has three central research concerns in, first, seeking to detect whether television news remain at the top of the news hierarchy among different countries from four continents (Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia); second, to identify differences in news consumption among different countries with different media cultures and so potentially different media behaviour; and third, to reveal any emergent differences of news use media between older and younger generations.

Results
Media preferences and habits seem to depend not only on taste and culture, but also on the status of the available infrastructure (Webster, 2005). Our research confirms the findings of other studies which indicate that, although we have entered the ‘Internet galaxy’, the proportion of people claiming to attend regularly to television news is higher than is applicable to the Internet in nine out of eleven countries, the exceptions being Norway and South Korea. This phenomenon may be attributed to the fact that both of these countries have very high penetration of broadband Internet. This to an extent echoes, Prior who has noted that “news consumption, learning about politics and electoral volatility have changed not so much because people are different today, but rather because the media environment is different” (Prior, 2007, p. 19).
In Table 1 below it is shown that television is the most regularly consulted source of news, with the press and the Internet vying for second place. The Internet more often features in second place in those countries, like South Korea and the
United States, where the press is relatively weak, with its use as a source of news least, among our sample, in Colombia. India’s high newspaper reading levels are likely to be related to the low penetration of broadband Internet. Broadly speaking, it can be proposed that, considering the average exposure to news media across all
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countries, TV comes first, followed by the online media outlets and newspapers, which share a similar frequency of exposure.

Table 1: Average self-reported exposure media across countries (1 to 5 scale, where 1= hardly ever and 5= everyday)
Medium

AS

CA

CO

GR

IN

IT

JP

KR

NO

UK

US

Total

TV

4.18

3.68

4.37

3.87

4.47

4.48

4.37

3.73

3.97

4.07

3.83

4.09

Newspapers

2.78

2.88

2.67

1.99

4.47

3.19

3.3

2.72

3.90

2.87

2.75

3.05

Online

3.12

2.78

2.08

2.23

3.4

3.68

3.46

3.8

3.97

2.95

3.58

3.19

Radio

3.37

2.94

-

2.35

2.51

2.92

1.86

2.04

3.25

3.30

2.86

2.74

Overall

3.10

3.07

2.87

2.68

3.55

3.38

3.01

2.86

3.41

3.08

3.19

3.11

A MANOVA with country as the only between participants factor reveals reliable differences across countries in the five measures of media exposure (F (50, 41844) = 123.30, p 53.14, all p