THE CONSUMPTION OF ONLINE NEWS AT WORK

Abstract

This paper examines the consumption of online news at the place of work and during work hours, which are relatively new temporal and spatial coordinates of news consumption for large segments of the population. This novel phenomenon is analysed to make descriptive and conceptual contributions to scholarship on news consumption, in particular, and technology and society, in general. Descriptively, the analysis reveals the emergence of discontinuous features of online consumption ‘at work’ within the context of continuity in some elements of news consumption in print and broadcast media. Conceptually, the analysis underscores the continued relevance of the notions of routines, space, time, and sociability to make sense of news consumption. But, it also shows the need to renew the understanding of how each of these conceptual tools matter when the media change from print and broadcast to digital and the practices of consumption coincide with those of work. The paper also suggests revisiting the boundaries between work and home and between the instrumental and leisure purposes of consuming communication technologies.

Keywords:

• online news
• news consumption
• Internet
• audience studies
• media sociology

Acknowledgements

This article draws upon material that is part of my book News at Work: Imitation in Age of Information Abundance (University of Chicago Press, 2010). © 2010 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. Adapted with permission. The research would not have been possible without the outstanding assistance of Romina Frazzetta and Victoria Mansur. For most helpful feedback on the ideas contained in this article, I thank the special issue editors and anonymous reviewers, Shane Greenstein, Keith Hampton, Eszter Hargittai, Eric Klinenberg, Eugenia Mitchelstein, Russ Neuman, Jim Webster, Viviana Zelizer, and seminar participants at the 2009 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association and the Maturing Internet Studies workshop at Northwestern University's School of Law.

Notes

This is not to suggest that the findings from this study are representative in a statistical sense, but to underscore that the data do not come from a demographically skewed interview pool.

This was part of an environmental protest in relation to the building of paper processing plants in Fray Bentos, a city across the river in Uruguay.