Do Chinese Internet users care about news? Tracking news consumers on the Internet in a metropolis 2009–2011

Abstract

This study aims to explore the patterns and trends of Internet news use in a Chinese metropolis, Shanghai. By analyzing news webpage browsing data from three selected months in 2009, 2010, and 2011, we seek to present some evidence other than self-report data, which were widely used in past research but subject to the influence of memory limitation and social desirability. Our findings are: First, Internet users in Shanghai paid more attention to soft news, and finance and economy news, than to social and political news both in terms of visit times and visit duration. Second, news page visits and the amount of time people spent on reading news online suggest clear monotonic growth across all categories of news content over a three-year period. Third, despite the growing amount of visits and time used for online news, the proportion of visits and time devoted to news viewing to total webpage visits and time spent online decreased significantly. However, “social and political news” and “finance and economy news” did not experience any decline. Finally, existing gaps were identified between different demographic groups in terms of news reading frequency online, but no clear trends were identified concerning how the gaps developed over time.

Keywords::

• Internet news use
• China
• civic culture
• user tracking data

Notes

^1. CNNIC, The 28th Report on the Development of the Internet in China, http://www.cnnic.cn/dtygg/dtgg/201107/W020110719521725234632.pdf

^2.Xinming Evening News, January 3, 2012, http://enjoy.eastday.com/e/20120103/u1a6290731.html

^3. Internet News Information Service Regulation, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2005-09/25/content_3538899.html

^4. People.com.cn, February 22, 2010, http://media.people.com.cn/GB/40606/10997717.html

^5.Beijing Morning News, January 17, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/tech/2012-01/17/c_122595694.htm

^6. The authors wish to thank iresearch.com.cn for sharing the data set used for this study. See http://www.iresearch.com.cn/

^7. Readers might find that the top news portal sites according to iResearch's news releases are Xinhua.com and People.com (e.g., http://www.iresearch.com.cn/View/163306.html). But neither of them is ranked high according to our findings. There are three likely explanations for this. First, iResearch did not define comprehensive commercial portal websites (e.g., qq.com, sina.com.cn, 163.com, sohu.com, and yahoo.com) as “news portal sites” in the analysis they described in their news releases despite the fact that a huge portion of information on these homepages is news. Second, iResearch's ranking is based on the number of unique visitors, but our ranking is based on absolute visiting frequency (i.e., if the same user visits the page two times, it will be counted as two visits). Third, our finding is based on users from Shanghai while the findings described in the news releases were based on national samples.

^8. This could be attributed to both demographic and measurement differences. First, CNNIC surveys use a national sample but our data are based on Shanghai users, who in general have higher levels of education than the national average. Second, as mentioned earlier, CNNIC surveys employ a crude measure of online news use which only differentiates users from non-users, but does not capture the frequency and time people read news online.

^9. CNNIC, The 28th Report on the Development of the Internet in China, 11.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Fei Shen

Fei Shen is assistant professor in the Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include public opinion, media effects, the sociology of news, and social movement.

Hai Liang

Hai Liang is a PhD student in the Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on social-media data mining, public opinion, and the social psychology of attitude change.