People don't use Facebook for news.
Yes, shocking, but a recent study describes an online survey of 1,050 respondents, a mix of college students, faculty, and staff, from a "large Midwestern university" (The Ohio State University?) to find this heady mix of folks don't really use FB for news.
There's some interesting stuff here, once you get beyond the odd sample, especially the use of variables called Facebook Intensity (frequency of use, along with how much it's a part of your life) and Presence (number of friends and how often you post). We can quibble for hours with what these mean conceptually and whether methodologically the measures make sense together, but by using these variables in analysis some interesting results are produced.
Table A4, near the bottom, provides a multivariate analysis with the dependent variable being FB news use. The authors run the model in three steps. First, they entered sex and age. Both significantly predict FB news use (younger and female respondents were more likely to use it for news). Second, they entered FB Intensity and Presence. When that happens, the statistical contribution of age is no longer significant. The variables Intensity and Presence steal all the variance that was explained by age. Third, they enter some Life Satisfaction and Introversion into the model. The former is statistically significant, the latter not, and neither affect the other variables.
What can we make of this? It's tempting to say that it isn't so much age as it is your relationship with Facebook that explains your likelihood to use the social networking site to keep up with news. But if you look at the correlations, younger respondents report significantly higher Intensity and Presence scores. Those variables just do a better job of explaining news use than mere age, which is important to know, because it suggests our relationship with a social networking site is better predictor of how we use it than simply age.
Showing posts with label news consumption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news consumption. Show all posts
Friday, December 9, 2011
Friday, October 22, 2010
Given the Right Platform
People will Pay for News
According to a new study (or here), people with an iPad are willing to pay for apps, and they will use the device to access magazines and news. Forty-four percent used the iPad to read the news and 25 percent used it to read a magazine.
If we do enough fuzzy math, we can suppose a sizable chunk of them will combine the two and pay for news.
Sixty-three percent of users say they've paid for and downloaded an app. A third have never done so. The leading apps are no surprise: games, books, music. But the findings for "news & headlines" is heartening.
If we do enough fuzzy math, we can suppose a sizable chunk of them will combine the two and pay for news.
Sixty-three percent of users say they've paid for and downloaded an app. A third have never done so. The leading apps are no surprise: games, books, music. But the findings for "news & headlines" is heartening.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
The Rise of Grazing
An increase in mobile media is largely driving this grazing habit. It's so easy to check your iPhone or digital device, to make yourself feel informed, in a hurry, on the go, staring at that itty bitty screen. How informed one actually is from such grazing is hard to predict, but hopefully some aggressive scholar out there will attack this question. My guess is, grazing leads to superficial current events knowledge but not deep understanding of the issues. But that's just a guess.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Flash -- Americans Love the News
Obviously, looking at the graph to the left, there are winners and losers over time. The results are hardly surprising. What's good to know, though, is the total amount of time spent with the news, on average.
This bodes well now only for political knowledge but the health of organizations that provide the news -- assuming they can figure out a way to successfully monetize the online access.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Young People and the News
We've known for quite a while that young people tune out the news, or at least the news offered in traditional formats. There was a brief book on this that, while it received more attention than it deserved, was the right topic at the right time -- so it really struck a chord. Now here's an article that sums up how technology isn't necessarily drawing younger folks to the news.
There has always been an "age effect" when studying political knowledge, what people know, and if younger Americans continue their disinterest toward news, then this gap will increase. But it's not quite that simple. We're seeing hints of young folks picking up bits and pieces of news from social networking sites, from haphazard exposure to aggregators like Yahoo News, and all the rest. So it may not be as bad as we think, calling of course for that phrase all scholars love to hear -- deserves more research.
There has always been an "age effect" when studying political knowledge, what people know, and if younger Americans continue their disinterest toward news, then this gap will increase. But it's not quite that simple. We're seeing hints of young folks picking up bits and pieces of news from social networking sites, from haphazard exposure to aggregators like Yahoo News, and all the rest. So it may not be as bad as we think, calling of course for that phrase all scholars love to hear -- deserves more research.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Skimmers and Scanners
Further evidence people skim and scan the news? According to this E&P piece, new research shows that an increasing number of people visit news aggregators like Google News and 44 percent rely just on that bit of info and don't visit the actual source of the news -- usually a newspaper-based site.
Most of this is a business issue between those who produce the news and those who do little more than point to it, but from a what people know perspective it is further evidence that we simply do not process the news as deeply as we once did. This can have profound effects on political knowledge and a deeper understanding of local, national, and world events. Or you can take this away -- it's all part of our shift from knowing, to knowing how to find stuff. Two different takes, but neither are promising when it comes to social and political judgments.
Most of this is a business issue between those who produce the news and those who do little more than point to it, but from a what people know perspective it is further evidence that we simply do not process the news as deeply as we once did. This can have profound effects on political knowledge and a deeper understanding of local, national, and world events. Or you can take this away -- it's all part of our shift from knowing, to knowing how to find stuff. Two different takes, but neither are promising when it comes to social and political judgments.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Does Media Exposure Mean Anything Today?
A couple of days ago I blogged about a new POQ study that found people overestimate in surveys how much they consume news media (in this instance, TV news). Young people in particular were found to significantly overestimate their use of TV news.
So what?
From a data analysis standpoint this causes all kinds of problems. Imagine you're studying how media exposure is related to political knowledge. Now imagine you're particularly interested in how young people use the news media to keep up with politics and public affairs. For young people, though, you find no significant relationship between their media consumption and what they know.
If indeed young people overestimate their media use, the typical relationship between news exposure and political knowledge, for them, may well disappear when actually it exists. In other words, their overestimation of news media suggests there ought to be a stronger relationship than actually exists because, well, they said they use the news media more than they really do. A usual positive association between news media exposure and political knowledge, for young people, may well turn negative. And that's bad news.
Can we correct for this statistically? I don't think so. Can we preface our news exposure questions to make it okay for people to admit they don't consume as much news as they might want to answer to make themselves sound better? Yup. Can we go to some measure other than mere exposure? Attention helps some, but it also rides on top of exposure and that may create similar problems.
Is time spent with the media even meaningful? In our ADD culture, skimming and grazing and getting bits and pieces of news from here and there, I'm not sure time spent with the media even works today. ANES tried some experimental media exposure items in the 2008 pre- and post-election surveys, but I'm saving that for another post on another day, but my overall sense is they're no better than the original ones. I'll do actual analysis of the two and report back.
So what?
From a data analysis standpoint this causes all kinds of problems. Imagine you're studying how media exposure is related to political knowledge. Now imagine you're particularly interested in how young people use the news media to keep up with politics and public affairs. For young people, though, you find no significant relationship between their media consumption and what they know.
If indeed young people overestimate their media use, the typical relationship between news exposure and political knowledge, for them, may well disappear when actually it exists. In other words, their overestimation of news media suggests there ought to be a stronger relationship than actually exists because, well, they said they use the news media more than they really do. A usual positive association between news media exposure and political knowledge, for young people, may well turn negative. And that's bad news.
Can we correct for this statistically? I don't think so. Can we preface our news exposure questions to make it okay for people to admit they don't consume as much news as they might want to answer to make themselves sound better? Yup. Can we go to some measure other than mere exposure? Attention helps some, but it also rides on top of exposure and that may create similar problems.
Is time spent with the media even meaningful? In our ADD culture, skimming and grazing and getting bits and pieces of news from here and there, I'm not sure time spent with the media even works today. ANES tried some experimental media exposure items in the 2008 pre- and post-election surveys, but I'm saving that for another post on another day, but my overall sense is they're no better than the original ones. I'll do actual analysis of the two and report back.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Going Newsless
People don't read the newspaper as much as they used to. Nor do they watch as much TV news.
But wait! There's the Internet! We're saved!
Despite a growth in the ways to find out what's happening in the world, the proportion of young people who get no news has grown. Among 18-24 year olds, the proportion who went newsless increased from 1998 to 2008, from 25 to 34 percent. That's a scary number. From what was one-quarter of young people going newsless has grown to one-third of young people.
What's worse -- they're not alone.
Nearly every age group shows a growth in no news, all except the 50-64 year olds. Thank goodness for that brilliant and stunning age group.
The growth in online news consumption is not making up the difference. Not in time spent, and for struggling news organizations, not in advertising dollars either.
So when we ask what people know, the answer may turn out to be -- not a helluva lot.
But wait! There's the Internet! We're saved!
Despite a growth in the ways to find out what's happening in the world, the proportion of young people who get no news has grown. Among 18-24 year olds, the proportion who went newsless increased from 1998 to 2008, from 25 to 34 percent. That's a scary number. From what was one-quarter of young people going newsless has grown to one-third of young people.
What's worse -- they're not alone.
Nearly every age group shows a growth in no news, all except the 50-64 year olds. Thank goodness for that brilliant and stunning age group.
The growth in online news consumption is not making up the difference. Not in time spent, and for struggling news organizations, not in advertising dollars either.
So when we ask what people know, the answer may turn out to be -- not a helluva lot.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
News and Work
A new Pew report states:
Now this isn't a big surprise. People are also online at work checking sports, checking porn, checking this blog for any exciting new updates. That they also check news and blogs and the like is to be expected.
And there is a political knowledge connection. The report notes that few in the public can answer the most basic of knowledge questions. However:
So keep checking the news from work. It's gotta help, even if it's on someone else's dime. Among the pubic at large, only 18% got them all right and 33% got all three questions wrong.
This does raise a few interesting questions, at least for me, about whether reading the news at work influences certain kinds of knowledge over others, such as big splash controversies versus more mundane stuff, like basic stands of candidates on issues. It's hard to say from this data, but this is probably an area ripe for research -- news consumption from work and how it differs from news consumption at home, and the consequences of either.
There ya go, aspiring PhD's, a dissertation waiting to be tackled. I'll wait for the check.
Of the 44% of the public who regularly go online while on the job, more than two-thirds (70%) check the news during the course of the day according to a recent Pew Research survey on media trends.
Now this isn't a big surprise. People are also online at work checking sports, checking porn, checking this blog for any exciting new updates. That they also check news and blogs and the like is to be expected.
And there is a political knowledge connection. The report notes that few in the public can answer the most basic of knowledge questions. However:
among those who regularly go online from work political knowledge is somewhat higher. Fully 28% are able to answer all three political knowledge questions correctly. Only 20% of this group answered all three questions incorrectly.
So keep checking the news from work. It's gotta help, even if it's on someone else's dime. Among the pubic at large, only 18% got them all right and 33% got all three questions wrong.
This does raise a few interesting questions, at least for me, about whether reading the news at work influences certain kinds of knowledge over others, such as big splash controversies versus more mundane stuff, like basic stands of candidates on issues. It's hard to say from this data, but this is probably an area ripe for research -- news consumption from work and how it differs from news consumption at home, and the consequences of either.
There ya go, aspiring PhD's, a dissertation waiting to be tackled. I'll wait for the check.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)