What’s APPening to news? A mixed-method audience-centred study on mobile news consumption

Abstract

News is increasingly being consumed on a multitude of media devices, including mobile devices. In recent years, mobile news consumption has permeated individuals’ news consumption repertoires. The main purpose of this study is twofold: (a) gain insight in how mobile news outlets infiltrated the broader news media repertoires of mobile device owners and (b) understand in what circumstances mobile news is consumed within these news media repertoires. The key is to understand how and why this widening agency in appropriating various places and social spaces in everyday life relates to general news media consumption (Peters, 2012). This two-phased study aims to illuminate how mobile device owners position their mobile news consumption in relation to other types of news media outlets. First, a guiding cluster analysis of a large-scale questionnaire ( N = 1279) was performed, indicating three types of news consumers. Second, in order to thicken the originally derived clusters, a mixed-method study was set up, combining objective data originating from mobile device logs with more subjective audience constructions through personal diaries and face-to-face interviews ( N = 30). This study reveals the Janus-faced nature of mobile news. On the one hand, the majority of news consumers dominantly relies on traditional media outlets to stay informed, only to supplement with online mobile services in specific circumstances. Even then, there is at least a tendency to stick to trusted brand materials. On the other hand, these mobile news outlets/products do seem to increasingly infiltrate the daily lives of mobile audiences who were previously disengaged with news.