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Is the Medium the Message? Predicting Popularity of Top U.S. News Sites with Medium-Specific Features Angela M. Lee Annenberg School for Communication University of Pennsylvania amlee229@gmail.com Twitter: angelamlee 12 th International Symposium on Online Journalism Austin, TX April 2, 2011 Slide 2 McDonalds wanted to improve sales of its shakes Most researchers: Should the shakes be thicker? Sweeter? Colder? Gerald Berstell: Focused on the customers Early morning Always alone Rarely bought anything besides shakes Never consumed the shakes in the store Who are they? Milkshake mistakes?: Focus only on the shakes itself; assume breakfast means bacon & eggs to all, etc. Implications: 1. Who the consumers are affect how products are produced & marketed. 2. Its not only about the thing itself, but also how and why consumers use it. angelamlee Milkshake Mistakes - Shirky Slide 3 Despite the growth in web usage, the top news sites remain stable and are mostly sites tied to legacy media outlets (2011 State of the News Media Report). Importance of branding, source credibility, and trustworthiness online (e.g., Abdulla et al., 2005; Meyer, 2009; Lin, Salwen, Garrison & Driscoll, 2005). Online news consumption: Known Note: Simulated data Slide 4 But what accounts for this exponential differences, given all top 10 sites offer news by comparably trustworthy sources? Process gratifications, measured by 5 online news-specific features Online news consumption: Unknown Source: Nielsen Slide 5 Online news: A whole new experience? In the past, differences in news media predominantly equate differences in mediated experiences regardless of genre Print newspapers: Textual and pictorial Radio news: Audio Television news: Moving pictures with audio How does the Internet change things? Same platform for all (e.g. newspapers, TV news stations, etc.) to fight for audience attention Competition for news providers online is no longer only that of content, but also consumption experiences (Seelig, 2008) New ways to consume news (i.e., much more choices) New ways to measure and study news consumption (Tewksbury, 2003) Slide 6 Mediumizing online news and the Internet How is online news a news medium? What sets it apart from other news media? What do we mean by the Internet as new media? To answer both questions require a priori understanding of medium-specific attributes Uses & Gratifications: Focuses on media uses by centering on the relationship between media attributes and the functions they serve to users Content gratifications (i.e., for entertainment or diversion purposes) Social gratifications (i.e., For conversational uses) Process gratifications (i.e., The actual mediated experience) Slide 7 Updated U&G: 5 online news-specific process gratifications 1.Interactivity Interaction and interplay between producers & consumers (Chan-Olmsted & Ha, 2003) Audience-oriented: Choices of content available to the users to interact with (Ha & James, 1998; Seelig, 2008) Source-oriented: Reciprocal communication between users and media (Ha & James, 1998; Seelig, 2008) Golden standard or key advantage of the Internet (Quinn, 2005; Ha & James, 1998) 2.Immediacy Timely updates on breaking news (Deuze, 2003) Real-time distribution of news (Quinn, 2005) Immediate correction of misinformation (Seelig, 2008) Slide 8 5 process gratifications - continued 3.Multimedia Amalgamation of texts, pictures, audio and video (Quinn, 2005) Delivery of content in more engaging and creative ways (Killebew, 2005; Sundar, 2000), which offers richer process gratifications (Spyridou & Veglis, 2008; Huang,, 2007). 4. Information availability Use of hyperlinks to additional information (Ha & James, 1998) Online news is about 4 times more likely to incorporate information from other news outlets than print newspapers (Maier, 2010) Offering of a plethora of information from rich and diverse sources (Ferguson & Perse, 2000) Slide 9 5 process gratifications - continued 5.Usability Factors that contribute to navigability, user productivity and performance (Wilberg, 2003; Nielsen, 1994; Schneiderman, 2004) Ease through which average users navigate a news site in order to locate additional information With more channel and content choices than ever before, Internet users can forgo less user-friendly sites without worrying about not getting comparable news information from elsewhere. Slide 10 Hypotheses The more a news site incorporate the 5 medium-specific features, the more likely it will attract audiences. Among the top 10 news sites in 2009, all else being equal H1: T he top three sites will utilize the five online news interface-specific features d ifferently from that of the bottom three sites H2: Use of the five online news interface-specific features will positively predict popularity of these top news sites RQ1: Which of the five online news interface-specific features is the best predictor of popularity? RQ2: How does each top news site use the five online news interface-specific features? Slide 11 Method Sample : Yahoo News (#1), MSNBC News (#2), AOL News (#3), ABC News (#8), Washington Post (#9), USA Today (#10) Data : Recorded at 11am everyday for the entire month of June, 2010 using Automator (Mac) and Safari web browser IV : Interactivity, immediacy, multimedia, information availability, usability See codebook for detailed list of all items included in each feature (all items standardized and summed) DV : Nielsens measure of unique audience visits Statistical analysis: 1. Independent Sample T-Test (H1), 2. Maximum likelihood regression using structural equation modeling Slide 12 Results Supportive of H1, the top three top 10 news sites consistently used more immediacy feature, t(166)=9.39**, multimedia feature, t(166)= 2.31*, information availability feature, and usability feature, t(166)=3.59**. Supportive of H2, use of the five online news interface- specific features significantly predicts popularity among the top sites (R 2 = 0.97). RQ3 : Information availability is the strongest predictor (b=1.22*); followed by usability (b=-.77**), immediacy (b=.46**), multimedia (b=.29**), and interactivity (b=.07*) Post-hoc: ABCs abnormally large number of popularity stories (i.e., most viewed, most commented, most emailed) contributes to the negative slope in the usability variable Note: *p