Displacing and Complementing Effects of News Sites on Newspapers 1998–2009

Abstract

Media managers are facing the challenge of navigating their organizations through a series of extensive changes involving economic, editorial, and technological challenges. Media managers need to develop a better understanding of user behavior and demand. This article addresses the news media landscape and the dynamics at play between print and online media, departing from an elaboration on theories of displacing and complementing effects. The empirical journey focuses on changes over time with regard to how people make use of evening tabloids through print and online. A dataset that comprises annual postal-based surveys carried out from 1998 to 2009 is used for the analysis. The results show an historical change regarding the usage patterns of evening tabloids. First, online news, in general, has acquired a stronger position among users over time, at the expense of the readership of printed evening tabloids. Second, with regard to the interrelated roles of print and online news sites, the latter constitute the primary channel for users—in particular, among 16- to 49-year-olds. Third, gender has the strongest complementing effect, as men are distinguished users of both print and online news. When it comes to explaining displacing effects, these take place among the more highly educated, and the smallest displacing effects are found among 50- to 85-year-olds. The results illustrate the complex dynamics at hand with regard to simultaneous displacing and complementing effects, which nurtures sage managerial implications.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The article has benefited from insightful comments along the work process. Early drafts of the article were improved thanks to Jonas Ohlsson, Johannes Bjerling, and Lennart Weibull at University of Gothenburg, as well as Ingela Wadbring at Mid-Sweden University. We also acknowledge valuable input on our work in progress paper from attendees at the World Media Economics and Management Conference in Bogotá, Colombia (June 2–6, 2010). In addition, the final article manuscript has benefited from constructive criticism by François Nel at the University of Central Lancashire, as well as the three peer reviewers.

Notes

1. In 2007, the name was changed to Post- och Inrikes Tidningar. Even after the online version was introduced, each issue of the paper continues to be printed on paper in three copies. The paper got its present name in 1821 when the two papers owned by the Royal Swedish Academy were merged: from Stockholms Post-Tidningar (mainly for foreign news), och Inrikes Tidningar (for national news), to Post- och Inrikes Tidningar (Gustafsson & Rydén, 2010).

2. As of September 2009 (when the fieldwork of our postal survey started), the daily reach was highest for Aftonbladet (1,161,000), followed by Expressen (1,074,000), Dagens Nyheter (980,000), and Göteborgs-Posten (613,000), according to official industry statistics (dagspress.se).