![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
News organizations worldwide now deliver content through multiple electronic devices such as computers, smartphones, e-readers, and tablets. While multi-platform news delivery is widely prevalent, is multi-platform news “consumption” a reality? This study examines the extent to which people own, use, and enjoy these electronic devices. Results of a national survey of US Internet users suggested that despite the excitement about newer, more portable devices, not all devices are equally “newsful.” Most people use only one electronic device for news purposes on a weekly basis. We identified the predictors of device ownership and multi-platform news consumption and discussed the implications for multi-platform news publishing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study is funded by the 2009–2010 University of Texas at Austin Faculty Research Grant. The authors would like to thank Jacie M. Yang and Kelly Kaufhold for their assistance.
Notes
1. Cross-media portfolios are best understood as the phenomena when say a newspaper enters the broadcasting market or when an online site and news magazine join hands to provide more products.
2. Including desktop and laptop (or notebook) computers.
3. Netbooks are lightweight, low-cost notebook computers with smaller screens and keyboards, reduced processing power, and no optical drives, first introduced by ASUS in 2007.
4. An Internet-enabled smartphone (i.e., a high-end cell phone with advanced features such as a touch screen), the first generation of which was introduced by Apple Inc. in 2007. Users may browse the Internet with a browser or download different applications (apps) from Apple's online App Store.
5. Smartphones manufactured by cell phone manufacturers other than Apple. These phones rely on different operating systems such as Google's Android, Nokia's Symbian, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile.
6. A portable audio and video player produced by Apple Inc., with Internet capabilities though wifi connections, first introduced in 2007.
7. Portable electronic devices designed for reading electronic books and periodicals—the most common ones (e.g., Kindle) utilize e-ink technology, which features black-and-white displays of higher readability in sunlight and longer battery life. The first generation of the Kindle was introduced by Amazon in 2007. Barnes & Noble's Nook was released in 2009.
8. A tablet computer released by Apple Inc. in April 2010, the first generation of which featured a 9.7-inch touch screen, running the same operating system as an iPhone or iPod Touch.
9. Both have been applied as the theoretical framework for studies on a large variety of communication technologies—e.g., the diffusion of inventions such as fax, personal computers, videotex, and the BITNET (Rogers, 2003), and the uses and gratifications of cell phones (Leung and Wei, Citation2000), instant messaging (Leung, Citation2001), and online and print news (Lin and Salwen, 2006), etc.
10. That was about four months after the iPad was launched.
11. An “active” panelist is defined as someone who has taken a survey within the past six months.
12. For this particular survey, respondents 18–25 received 300 points that they could cash in at a later date. All respondents who completed a survey were also entered into a quarterly drawing which was 25,000 points (100 points equals $1.00).
13. The ratios (weights) were computed for eight categories (two gender groups by four income groups).
14. It is noted that the iPad received an unusually high ratio that exceeds 1.0, the plausible reason being that some non-owners played with one that is not their own and tried to access news.
15. For example, the penetration of the iPad has been increasing.
16. Regions such as Asia and Africa report low Internet penetration at 23.8 percent and 11.4 percent (Internet World Stats, Citation2011).