News Audiences Revisited: Theorizing the Link Between Audience Motivations and News Consumption

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News Audiences Revisited:Theorizing the Link BetweenAudience Motivations and NewsConsumptionAngela M. Lee aa The University of Texas at AustinPublished online: 06 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Angela M. Lee (2013) News Audiences Revisited: Theorizing theLink Between Audience Motivations and News Consumption, Journal of Broadcasting &Electronic Media, 57:3, 300-317, DOI: 10.1080/08838151.2013.816712

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News Audiences Revisited: Theorizingthe Link Between Audience Motivations

and News Consumption

Angela M. Lee

With a plethora of news outlets today, audiences have more choices than

ever. Yet, academic and professional understanding of news audiences from

a uses and gratifications perspective remains limited. Using a national sur-

vey (N D 1143), this study uncovers distinct news consumption patterns

across 4 types of motivations, and predicts media uses across 30 sources

with noticeably higher explanatory power as compared to previous uses and

gratifications studies, answering the question: Who is using what type of news,

and why?

While debates about what the public needs to know and the role journalism

plays in a democratic society have long been examined in journalism, scholarly

and professional understanding of news audiences from a uses and gratifications

perspective remains limited, if not obsolete with the proliferation of cable news

programs, Internet-based news sources, and mobile devices (Heider, McCombs,

& Poindexter, 2005; Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism,

2012). Moreover, not only has the news media landscape undergone a transfor-

mation, but also the ways in which audiences use media for news have changed.

Particularly in today’s media landscape where information supply outweighs in-

formation demand (Chyi, 2009), news audiences can replace any content source

that they deem unsatisfactory. In other words, news audiences are not just active

(Bauer, 1964), for the first time, news audiences are more in control of what they

consume because of this shift in news supply and demand. For these reasons, the

need for scholars and news professionals to understand news audiences and what

drives their news choices in the new news environment is greater than ever.

This study therefore proposes a theory-driven way to understand news audiences,

and examines how audience motivations influence consumption of 30 news sources

that vary in content (e.g., national newspapers versus political commentaries), style

Angela M. Lee (M.A., University of Pennsylvania) is a Ph.D. student and William Powers Jr. Fellow in theSchool of Journalism at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on news consumption andjournalism ethics under the decision-making and behavior change frameworks.

The author thanks Huai Ching Lee, Dr. Paula Poindexter, Dr. H. Iris Chyi, and anonymous reviewers fortheir helpful feedback on this article.

© 2013 Broadcast Education Association Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 57(3), 2013, pp. 300–317DOI: 10.1080/08838151.2013.816712 ISSN: 0883-8151 print/1550-6878 online

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Lee/NEWS AUDIENCES REVISITED 301

(e.g., of humor and satire versus none), and delivery (e.g., in print versus broadcast

or online). The central question this study answers is: Who is using what type of

news, and why?

Uses and Gratifications Approach: A Review

To understand news audiences and their news consumption, this study draws

on uses and gratifications, an audience-based approach that seeks to understand

why and how people use media (Katz, 1959; Ruggiero, 2000). Uses and gratifi-

cations highlights the audience’s role in selecting and using media among all that

is available to them, and assumes media uses to be driven by individual needs

and gratification-seeking motives (Blumler & Katz, 1974; Huang, 2009; Krcmar &

Strizhakova, 2009; Lin, 1993). Under the uses and gratifications framework, differ-

ent media consumption motivations lead to different media consumption choices

(Rubin, 2009).

The uses and gratifications approach operates under the following tenets: 1) Au-

diences are active consumers of media. 2) Media uses are purposive and goal-

oriented (e.g., to satisfy certain needs). 3) Media uses are driven by specific reasons,

or motivations, within a wide range of gratifications that vary across individuals

and communication processes. 4) Aside from individual factors (e.g., motivations),

social (e.g., social groups or relationships) and structural determinants (e.g., channel

or media availability) also play a part in mediating communication behavior and

effects (Palmgreen, Wenner, & Rosengren, 1985; Perse & Dunn, 1998; Rubin, 2009).

Validity of Criticisms?

Uses and gratifications research has often been at the forefront of new media

and technological advancements (e.g., Ferguson & Perse, 2000; Lazarsfeld, 1940;

Papacharissi & Rubin, 2000; Rubin, 1981), and the rise of cable television and

new media technologies in the 21st century is no exception (Kaye, 2007; Kink &

Hess, 2008; Ruggiero, 2000). Despite uses and gratifications’ ebbs and flows over

time, some of its early criticisms persist, and their validity warrants contemporary

reassessment.

Uses and gratifications research often relies on self-reports, and early critics have

questioned the validity of self-reports in reflecting actual audience behaviors and

motivations (Katz, 1987; Ruggiero, 2000). Despite such skepticism, recent empirical

studies across different areas of research have demonstrated self-report to be a valid

methodology (e.g., Brener, Billy, & Grady, 2003; Patrick et al., 1994; Satia-Abouta

et al., 2003). Moreover, uses and gratifications studies using a variety of other

methodological approaches (i.e., ethnography, diary, or experimental methods) have

validated rather than refuted earlier findings using self-reports (McLeod & Becker,

1974; Rubin, 2002, 2009).

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302 Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media/September 2013

Some critics have argued that uses and gratifications lacks theoretical predictabil-

ity, and is instead more descriptive in nature with its varied typologies (Bracken

& Lombard, 2001; McDonald, 1990; McQuail, 1994; Peters, Rickes, Jockel, Von

Criegern, & Van Deursen, 2006); however, the lack of empirical understanding of

audiences in the middle of the 20th century was precisely one of the primary drivers

of this audience-centric approach, which necessitated exploratory studies that were

more descriptive and qualitative in nature. Despite the dearth of quantitative the-

oretical advancements, many studies in the uses and gratifications literature have

revealed consistent findings that speak to the convergent validity of this body of

research, and serve as a platform for future theoretical advancements.1

Some critics have questioned uses and gratifications’ assumption of ‘‘active’’

audiences, arguing instead for passive audiences (Ruggiero, 2000). However, with

the exponential growth of media channels today, proactive media choices and uses

are commonplace, if not inevitable among contemporary audiences in order to

navigate the media landscape and avoid information overload, adding to theoretical

and empirical support for the assumption of active audiences (Lin, 2002; Sunstein,

2007).

Some uses and gratifications studies have been criticized for their insensitivity

to media content. For example, ‘‘news’’ has often been treated as a universal

product without taking different news genres (e.g., ‘‘hard’’ versus ‘‘soft’’ news) into

consideration (Swanson, 1979). In response to this shortcoming in the uses and grat-

ifications literature, this study examines motivation-driven news consumption across

30 different sources, and contributes to a better understanding of the relationship

between audiences and different types of news.

Literature Review

Studies of media use motivations have often been classified under the uses and

gratifications paradigm (Blumler & Katz, 1974; Katz, Gurevitch, & Haas, 1973;

Poindexter, 2008; Windahl, 1981). In the literature, gratifications and motivations

are often used interchangeably to examine predictors of audience choices in media

content–gratifications motivate media uses, and media use motivations more often

than not encompass the need to obtain, or satisfy certain gratifications (Kink & Hess,

2008; McGuire, 1974; Rubin & Step, 2000).

Motivations are important in explaining a variety of communication processes, as

different motivations often predict distinctive communication choices (Roy, 2008;

Rubin, 2009; Rubin & Step, 2000), and understanding why individuals choose a

certain type of news source over another may offer insights into how audiences use

news media (Ruggiero, 2000). With scarcity in available media choices in the past,

most early uses and gratifications studies centered on developing medium-specific

typologies. For example, newspapers were found to ease boredom, satisfy the need

to read, and address social needs (e.g., to have something to talk about with others)

(Berelson, 1949), whereas television news was found to satisfy ritualized purposes,

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such as passing time or relaxation, and instrumental purposes, such as becoming

informed (Rubin & Perse, 1987). The rise of the Internet at the turn of the millennium

also led to a number of studies that examined the kinds of gratifications people

get from using the Internet. For example, Papacharissi and Rubin (2000) found

that the Internet is often used to pass time, for interpersonal utility, information

seeking, convenience and entertainment, and Flanagin and Metzger (2001) found

that it is also used for problem solving, status seeking, relationship maintenance,

personal insight, and persuading others. Nonetheless, a review of Internet-specific

uses and gratifications studies finds that most models account for less than 10%

of the variance, and this relatively modest explanatory power is reflective of early

criticisms about uses and gratifications’ suitability as a theory that, by definition,

should explain and predict relationships between two or more variables (Shoemaker,

Tankard, & Lasorsa, 2004).

This study expands the kinds of news consumption motivations to better reflect

the relationship between different news motivations and news consumption in the

transformed news media landscape, taking on a repertoire-oriented approach (Yuan,

2011) that is more reflective of the ways in which audiences consume news in

contemporary news media environment. Based on the synthesis of key research

in uses and gratifications, political communication, selective exposure, and media

rituals studies, four major themes emerged: information-motivated, entertainment-

motivated, opinion-motivated, and social-motivated news consumption. Drawing

on these four types of motivations, this study proposes an integrated model of

motivation-driven news consumption.

Demographic predictors have been found in the literature to influence news

consumption and media uses (Chyi & Lee, 2013; Diddi & LaRose, 2006; Pew

Research Center’s Project of Excellence in Journalism, 2011; Poindexter, 2008). To

better understand the demographic composition of different news motivations, RQ1

asks: To what extent do demographic factors predict information, entertainment,

opinion, and social motivations among news audiences?

Information-Motivated News Consumption

One of the fundamental reasons people consume news is for informational gains

(Hastall, 2009; Shoemaker, 1996). Drawing on ‘‘instrumental uses’’ (Rubin, 1984;

Rubin & Perse, 1987) and surveillance gratifications (e.g., Diddi & LaRose, 2006;

McQuail, Blumler, & Brown, 1972) from the uses and gratifications literature, inform-

ation-motivated news consumption revolves around news use for surveillance, to

fulfill the need to know, to understand what is going on in the world, and to keep

up with the way the government performs its functions (Katz, Guvrevitch, & Haas,

1973; McCombs & Poindexter, 1983). Wenner (1985) proposed the ‘‘media news

gratifications map’’ in his attempt to synthesize findings from a number of early

uses and gratifications studies on news use. Drawing on his map, information-

motivated news audiences are those who prioritize ‘‘orientational gratifications,’’

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which encompasses gratifications such as surveillance, information, decision utility,

issue guidance, and vote guidance. Following the proposed theoretical framework

where audience motivations drive news consumption, RQ2 asks: What kind of news

consumption is driven by information motivations?

Entertainment-Motivated News Consumption

Just as some people may be motivated to turn to the news for information, others

may be drawn to the entertainment aspect of news. For example, a number of

recent studies have explored the ways in which political comedy shows (e.g., The

Daily Show or Saturday Night Live) and late-night entertainment talk shows (e.g., The

Tonight Show or The Late Show) inform their viewers on political matters through the

use of humor and satire, especially among the younger population (see Cao, 2008;

Hmielowski, Holbert & Lee, 2011; Holbert, Lambe, Dudo & Carlton, 2007; Young

& Tisinger, 2006). Drawing on findings from this line of research, entertainment-

motivated news consumption encompasses news use with the following goals:

to fulfill the need for excitement, laughter, humor and relaxation (Hmielowski,

Holbert & Lee, 2011; Katz, Gurevitch & Haas, 1973; Lin, Salwen, & Abdulla,

2005; Rubin, 1984). Adopting Wenner’s conceptions (1985), entertainment-driven

news audiences are those who prioritize ‘‘para-orientational gratifications,’’ which

include gratifications such as comedy, entertainment, habit, ritual, excitement, and

diversion. Following the proposed theoretical framework where user motivations

drive news consumption, RQ3 asks: What kind of news consumption is driven by

entertainment motivations?

Opinion-Motivated News Consumption

With the rise of cable television and the Internet over the past decade, se-

lective exposure has resurfaced as one of the dominant ways to examine media

effects (Stroud, 2010). Many selective exposure studies analyze the relationship

between news audiences and opinionated news media, and find that whereas some

people turn to congenial information sources for opinion validation, others turn

to uncongenial information sources for exposure to different viewpoints, and still

others avoid uncongenial information sources to shun viewpoint challenges (e.g.,

Garrett, 2009; Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Johnson, Bichard & Zhang, 2009; Kaye, 2007;

Knobloch-Weterwick & Meng, 2009; Stroud, 2008, 2011, etc.). In essence, opinion-

motivated news consumption revolves around news use for opinion formation,

affirmation, or avoidance. In other words, opinion motivations include the need

to seek assistance in forming opinions on certain issues, to expose one to other

viewpoints, and for views from like-minded individuals. Following the proposed

theoretical framework where motivations drive news consumption, RQ4 asks: What

kind of news consumption is driven by opinion motivations?

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Social-Motivated News Consumption

Social-motivated news consumption refers to consumption of news for social

values or interpersonal utilities (Palmgreen & Rayburn, 1979). Drawing on studies

in media rituals and ritualistic news consumption (Berelson, 1949; Chen, 2011; Lee,

2009; Martin, 2008; Weldon, 2008), social motivations include the need to keep

up with what those around us are talking about, to appear informed to others, to be

more sociable, and to follow what one’s friends are doing. Following the proposed

theoretical framework where motivations drive news consumption, RQ5 asks: What

kind of news consumption is driven by social motivations?

Whereas RQ2 through RQ5 aim to uncover the relationship between different

motivations and news consumption patterns, two hypotheses are proposed to em-

pirically evaluate the theoretical link between audience motivations and news con-

sumption—that is, to assess the former’s ability to explain and predict the latter

(Shoemaker, Tankard, & Lasorsa, 2004). Specifically, H1 examines audience moti-

vations’ impact on frequency of news consumption, and H2 investigates audience

motivations’ influence on variety in news consumption:

H1: The more one is motivated to consume news, the more frequently one will

consume news.

H2: The more one is motivated to consume news, the more variety there will be

in one’s news consumption.

Method

To answer the five research questions and test the two hypotheses, a national

survey was conducted February 23–29, 2012. The sample consisted of 1,143 adults

(18C years old) representative of the U.S. adult population, and Office of Survey

Research (OSR)2 was commissioned to conduct the survey. The survey measured

news consumption motivations and uses, and it took on average 10 minutes to

complete. Completion rate is reported for this Web-based panel survey, and it is

66%.3 The size of the sample (N D 1143) and its representativeness of the U.S. adult

population in terms of age, gender, income and race contribute to the reliability,

stability, and generalizability of this study’s statistical inferences.

Measurements

Demographic Predictors.

To answer RQ1, which asks about demographic compositions of the four motiva-

tions (information, entertainment, opinion and social), five demographic predictors

are analyzed, including age (18–29, 30–49, 50–64 and 65C), gender (male or

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female), education (ranging from some high school or less to Masters, M.D., J.D.,

or Ph.D.), race (White or Non-White), and income (ranging from under $20,000 to

$100,000 or more).

Whereas RQ1 examines demographic predictors of the four news consumption

motivations, RQ2 through RQ5 investigates the extent to which news consumption

motivations drive different news consumption patterns. To create the four news

consumption motivations, the respondents were asked to strongly disagree (1) to

strongly agree (7) to four sets of news motivations presented below.

Information-driven Motivations.

To construct an index for information-driven motivations, the following six infor-

mation motivations were summed: To find out what’s going on in the world; to keep

up with the way your government performs; to make yourself an informed citizen;

because it helps you learn about others; to gain important new information; and to

fulfill your ‘‘need to know’’ (˛ D .90).

Entertainment-driven Motivations.

To create an index for entertainment-driven motivations, the following five en-

tertainment motivations were summed: For entertainment; because it’s exciting; for

laughter; because it’s a habit that you have; and when there is nothing better to do

(˛ D .82).

Opinion-driven Motivations.

To operationalize the opinion-driven motivations index, the following four opin-

ion motivations were summed: To help you form opinions on issues; to know about

other people’s opinions; for views from like-minded commentators; and to expose

yourself to views that are different from your own (˛ D .88).

Social-driven Motivations.

To create this motivational index, the following six social motivations were

summed: To keep up with what other people around you may be talking about;

to appear informed to those around you; because most of your friends do; to make

you more sociable; to have something to talk about with others; and to feel a part

of a community (˛ D .92).

News Consumption Frequency.

To measure news consumption, respondents were asked a matrix question about

how often they read, watch, or listen to 30 news sources (1 D Never. 2 D Seldom.

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3 D Sometimes. 4 D Often). See Table 2 for a list of all the news sources examined

in this study.4

News Consumption Variety.

This variable is the sum of all the news sources that respondents read, watch, or

listen to at least seldom. Specifically, ‘‘1’’ is assigned to all news sources that the

respondents reported using at least seldom, and ‘‘0’’ is assigned to all news sources

that the respondents reported they never use. For example, those who reported

habitually using four news sources (out of 30) at least seldom will receive a score

of four. This variable ranges from 0 to 30.

Statistical Analyses

Ordinary least square (OLS) multiple regression analyses were used to answer the

research questions and test the hypotheses. Whereas the five demographic predictors

were used in RQ1 as the independent variables, in the remaining research questions

and hypotheses they were entered into analyses as control variables.

Suitability of OLS multiple regression analyses for the data was assessed, and

no violation against its assumptions was observed (e.g., homoskedasticity, normal

disturbance), suggesting OLS to be an appropriate regression analysis for the data

(Allison, 1999). Moreover, a correlation matrix including all independent variables

was evaluated, and there was no discernable threat of multicollinearity.

Results

Sample Overview

As a general survey that is representative of the U.S. adult population, the sample

compares favorably to the 2010 U.S. census data on age, income, gender, and race

(U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Over a quarter (28%) of the respondents reported their

age as 18–34, 36% reported being 35–54, and 35% reported being 55 or older.5

Close to half of the respondents (49%) reported making less than $50,000 a year,

32% making between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, and 19% making $100,000 or

more a year.6 Forty-nine percent of the respondents are male.7 Seventy-one percent

of the respondents reported being White, 16% Hispanic, 15% African American,

and 7% Asian.8

The data revealed that the general U.S. adult population was most driven by

information motivations when consuming news (M D 33.39, SD D 7.18), followed

by social motivations (M D 23.91, SD D 9.47), entertainment motivations (M D

20.95, SD D 7.08), and opinion motivations (M D 19.27, SD D 6.00).

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Table 1

Demographic Predictors of News Consumption Motivations

Demographics

News Consumption

Motivations Age Educ

Race

(White)

Gender

(Male) Income

Information .19c .09b — �.08a —

Entertainment �.12c — �.07a — —

Opinion .08a .08a — — —

Social �.13c — — — —

Note. N D 1143. ap < .05. bp < .01. cp < .001. Cell entries are standardized coefficientsfrom OLS multiple regression, controlling for other demographic variables.

Demographic Predictors of News Consumption Motivations

To answer RQ1, which asks about the extent to which demographic factors predict

information, entertainment, opinion, and social motivations among news audiences,

analyses were conducted with five demographic variables. As Table 1 shows, age

was the predictor of all four news consumption motivations, education predicts two,

and gender and race each predict one. Income was not a predictor of any news

consumption motivation. To examine the four news consumption motivations, the

analyses found that older adults were more likely to consume news for information

and opinion motivations, whereas younger adults were more likely to consume

news for entertainment and social motivations. Those with higher education were

more likely to consume news for information and opinion motivations. Non-Whites

were more likely to consume news for entertainment motivations. And women were

more likely to consume news for information motivations.

RQ2 through RQ5 surveyed news consumption patterns by different news con-

sumption motivations. As Table 2 indicates, although all four motivations were likely

to lead to consumption of all 30 news sources, different motivations contributed to

rather distinct news consumption patterns. This suggests that it was the relative

weight of news motivations that drove different news consumption patterns.

News Consumption Driven by Information Motivations

RQ2 asked about news consumption driven by information motivations. As Ta-

ble 2 indicates, information motivations most strongly predict consumption of cable

Sunday talk shows, local television newscasts, network Sunday talk shows, CNN,

network national news, FOX and Google News, and least so Facebook, Twitter, The

Rush Limbaugh Show, The Onion, political blogs, Real Time with Bill Maher and

The Rachel Maddow Show.

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Table 2

Predicting News Consumption by News Consumption Motivations

News Consumption Motivations

News Choices Information Entertainment Opinion Social

Cable Sun. talk shows .32c .29c .35c .28c

Local TV newscasts .31c .17c .19c .15c

Network Sun. talk shows .30c .28c .33c .32c

CNN .29c .24c .28c .21c

Network national news .28c .22c .24c .22c

FOX .27c .22c .26c .22c

Google News .27c .28c .26c .28c

National newspaper .25b .26c .26c .25c

Yahoo News .24c .23c .21c .21c

The O’Reilly Factor .23c .20c .28c .22c

Local newspaper .22c .21c .19c .22c

MSNBC .22c .24c .24c .25c

Jimmy Kimmel Live! .22c .31c .27c .29c

Huffington Post .20c .22c .23c .24c

Saturday Night Live .20c .32c .23c .27c

The Daily Show/Jon Stewart .20c .28c .27c .23c

Late Show/David Letterman .19c .30c .23c .25c

Drudge Report .18c .21c .23c .25c

The Tonight Show/Jay Leno .18c .32c .25c .29c

The Colbert Report .18c .25c .25c .21c

Conan/Conan O’Brien .18c .30c .26c .28c

Hardball W/Chris Matthews .18c .24c .26c .30c

The Sean Hannity Show .18c .18c .25c .22c

The Rachel Maddow Show .17c .23c .28c .29c

Political Blogs .17c .24c .23c .24c

The Onion .17c .24c .21c .27c

Real Time W/Bill Maher .17c .27c .25c .25c

Twitter .16c .30c .25c .30c

The Rush Limbaugh Show .16c .17c .23c .21c

Facebook .15c .23c .19c .25c

Note. N D 1143. ap < .05. bp < .01. cp < .001. Cell entries are standardized coefficientsfrom OLS multiple regression, controlling for age, education, race, gender and income.

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News Consumption Driven by Entertainment Motivations

RQ3 asked about news consumption driven by entertainment motivations. As

Table 2 shows, entertainment motivations most strongly predict consumption of

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Saturday Night Live, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Conan

with Conan O’Brian and Twitter, and least so local television newscasts, The Rush

Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, The O’Reilley Factor, local newspapers,

and Drudge Report.

News Consumption Driven by Opinion Motivations

RQ4 asked about news consumption driven by opinion motivations. As shown in

Table 2, opinion motivations most strongly predict consumption of cable Sunday

talk shows, network Sunday talk shows, CNN, The O’Reilley Factor, and The Rachel

Maddow Show, and least so local newspapers, Facebook, local television newscasts,

Yahoo News, and The Onion.

News Consumption Driven by Social Motivations

RQ5 asked about news consumption driven by social motivations. As Table 2

suggests, social motivations most strongly predict consumption of network Sunday

talk shows, Hardball With Chris Matthews, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Jimmy

Kimmel Live!, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Twitter, and least so local television

newscasts, CNN, The Colbert Report, Yahoo News, and The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Predicting News Consumption Frequency With Motivations

Empirically testing the theoretical link between audience motivations and news

consumption, H1 hypothesized that the more news consumption motivations one

has, the more frequently one will consume news. OLS multiple regression analysis

offers support for this hypothesis (b D .52, p < .001), controlling for age, gender,

education, race, and income. In terms of explanatory power, this model accounts

for about 34% of the variance in news consumption frequency across 30 news

sources (R2D .34).

Predicting News Consumption Variety With Motivations

Alternatively assessing the theoretical link between audience motivations and

news consumption, H2 hypothesized that the more news consumption motivations

one has, the more variety there will be in one’s news consumption. OLS multiple

regression analysis offers support for this hypothesis (b D .46, p < .001), controlling

for age, gender, education, race and income. Moreover, this model accounts for

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about 29% of the variance in news consumption variety among 30 news sources

(R2D .29).

Discussion

With the shift in contemporary news media landscape and the exponential growth

of news media choices today, the ways in which audiences use news media have

undergone significant transformation. Amidst these changes is the need to better

understand news audiences and news consumption in the context of the modern

media environment. Drawing on the uses and gratifications approach, this study

revisits news audiences by theorizing the link between audience motivations and

news consumption. Results of this study provide insight into the composition of

news audiences and their media repertoires across 30 news media, as well as news

audiences’ varying motivations for consuming news from different sources.

Whereas a large number of previous uses and gratifications studies account for

less than 10% of variance (LaRose & Eastin, 2004), this study accounts for more than

three times the variance (34%) in frequency of news consumption, and about three

times the variance (29%) in variety of news consumption. These findings provide

media scholars with reasons to revisit uses and gratifications approach from an

advanced theoretical lens, and speak to this study’s theoretical contribution.

The data suggest that different kinds of people have different kinds of news

motivations. Age was the most important and consistent predictor across all four

motivations. Particularly, whereas older adults were more likely to be motivated to

consume news for information and opinion purposes, younger adults were more

likely to be motivated to consume news for entertainment and social reasons. This

finding suggests a motivational divide between older adults and younger adults’

news consumption, and offers explanations as to why, for example, older news audi-

ences are generally more likely to watch cable Sunday talk shows (Calderone, 2010)

and network television news (Hockberg, 2010), whereas younger news audiences

are more likely to use Twitter (Smith, 2011) and watch Saturday Night Live (Hill

& Weingrad, 2011). With the rise of social media as new pathways to news (Pew

Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, 2012), this study contributes

to the literature by documenting motivational differences in Facebook and Twitter

uses for news. Specifically, compared to Facebook, Twitter is consistently used

more among those with entertainment, opinion, and social motivations. On the

other hand, both Twitter and Facebook are used least frequently by those with

information motivations.

When examining the sample as a whole, the data suggest that U.S. adult news

audiences were most driven to consume news for information purposes, and least

driven to consume news for opinions. This finding helps explain the Pew Research

Center for the People & the Press’s report (2011) that Americans want more news

with less, or no particular viewpoints. Such insights contribute to a scholarly un-

derstanding of news audiences in today’s media landscape.

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The data also suggest that motivation-driven news consumption is not a zero-sum

game (cf. Elliot & Quattlebaum, 1979). In other words, news consumption in the

contemporary media environment is not driven by the mutual exclusivity of news

motivations, but by the relative weight of importance of a variety of motivations,

making up a network of repertorial consumption (Webster & Ksiazek, 2012). For

example, while all four motivations are likely to lead to Twitter uses, such use is

nearly twice as likely to be driven by entertainment and social motivations than

information motivations.

Moreover, while late-night talk shows and political comedy shows might have

information values for their viewers (Feldman, 2008; Hollander, 2005), those with

entertainment and opinion motivations were most driven to watch these programs,

whereas those with information motivations were least motivated to watch them.

Future studies are encouraged to explore news outlet overlaps9 to further analyze

the interrelationships between the four motivations and unique characteristics of

such outlets through content analysis, as these patterns may suggest novel news

repertoires unique to contemporary media environment.

Recent research (David, 2009) has identified the role motivations plays in influ-

encing newspaper reading and affecting political knowledge, among other things,

and therefore future studies are encouraged to examine how the four motivations

influence information processes, and how such differences may in turn influence

civic engagement and other democratic practices.

This study’s findings allow for novel categorizations of cable ‘‘soft news’’ pro-

grams. For example, while The Colbert Report and The Daily Show often fall

under the same ‘‘political comedy’’ genre, and are generally assumed to cater to

young audiences (Cao, 2008), this study finds subtle differences in motivations. For

example, whereas those with entertainment and opinion motivations were equally

driven to watch The Colbert Report, entertainment motivations lead to slightly

more consumption of The Daily Show. The implication of this finding is twofold.

First, it suggests different functions that these two ‘‘soft news’’ programs served

their audiences. Second, it suggests younger and non-White audiences were more

motivated to watch The Daily Show than The Colbert Report for entertainment. This

kind of motivational and demographic profiling are conceptually and professionally

meaningful because they help scholars and media professionals better understand

why audiences are consuming different news sources, as well as know who the

audiences are.

Future studies are encouraged to categorize news sources using this audience-

centric approach to address limitations that come with using content analysis (e.g.,

Brewer & Marquardt, 2007; Fox, Koloen, & Sahin, 2007), especially since the

content analysis approach has led to some differences in genre categorization,

and implicit in such disagreements are conceptual disparities (Hoffman & Young,

2011).10 Moreover, while it is important that we understand content characteristics

of different news sources, it is equally, if not more, important that we understand

the functions different news sources serve for their audiences especially given the

rise of audience power today.

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The representativeness of this study’s sample of the U.S. adult population con-

tributes to the generalizability of this study’s findings; however, panel studies are ul-

timately based on non-probability sampling, and thus future studies are encouraged

to replicate this study using surveys involving probability sampling or experiments.

With news information supply significantly outweighing news information de-

mand today, news audiences are in control of what they consume from a plethora

of news media choices for the first time in history. The rise of audience autonomy

(Napoli, 2011) and journalism’s dependence on having an audience call for the

need among media scholars and news professionals to better understand audiences,

raising the question—Who is using what type of news, and why? Answering this

question using a national survey, this study advances the uses and gratifications ap-

proach by empirically testing the theoretical link between audience motivations and

news consumption, and contributes to academic and professional understanding of

news audiences in contemporary media environment.

Notes

1For example, research finds that people have surveillance needs to monitor and find outwhat is going on in the world, and turn to both print and online newspapers to fulfill suchfunctions (e.g., Katz et al., 1973; Lin et al., 2005). Moreover, Katz et al.’s (1973) list of basichuman needs has also been applied to television news viewing (e.g., Rubin & Perse, 1987)and Internet uses (e.g., Sun, Rubin, & Haridakis, 2008).

2OSR is a member of the Association of Academic Survey Research Organizations (AASRO)and the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). OSR administeredsurveys by sending email notifications, and participation incentives were offered to its panelists.

3Which is the number of respondents who provided usable responses divided by the totalnumber of respondents who clicked into the survey.

4Prior (2009a, 2009b) finds that conventional, rate-based measurement of news mediaexposure contributes to overreporting (e.g., ‘‘how many days in the past week did you reada newspaper?’’). This study’s news consumption measures are less cognitively taxing andthus more conservative in their estimates, although overreporting remains a methodologicalchallenge in self-report media studies.

5The census reported 30%, 37%, and 33%, respectively.6The census reports 50%, 30%, and 20%, respectively.7The census also reports 49% male.8The census reports 64%, 16%, 12%, and 5%, respectively.9For example, Cable Sunday talk shows are the ‘‘most’’ frequented news outlet among

news audiences with information and opinion motivations.10For example, whereas Hmielowski, Holbert, and Lee (2011) define The Daily Show as

political satire, Cao (2008) categorizes it as political comedy, and Jon Stewart calls his ownshow ‘‘the most trusted name in fake news’’ (Anderson, 2009; Smolkin, 2007).

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Documents

News Audiences Revisited: Theorizing the Link Between Audience Motivations and News Consumption