1. the temptation of customization
Online News & Society
the temptation of customization
Ester de Waal,
Zeppelin University, 7 October 2008

2. Internetworldstats
the long tail

3. A challenge to the public sphere
News online:
A challenge to the public sphere
The Internet offers a great quantity and diversity of political and socially relevant information for public scrutiny and opens possibilities for deliberation, but,
it also fragments discourse by allowing great control to customize the available information.
The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less (Schwartz, 2005)

4. “unanticipated encounters,
involving topics and points of view that people have not sought out and perhaps find quite irritating,
are central to democracy and even to freedom itself”
Sunstein (2004)

12. User control vs. professional guidance
The multi-layered format of online newspapers encourages users to pursue their own path and select information that matches their interests.
Traditional newspapers typically guide their readers and surprise them with topics beyond their interests.

13. Input (media content) Print Online
Information selection based on
Own interest &
professional guidance
Own interest
(user control)
Type of exposure
Planned exposure & accidental exposure (reliable surprises)
Planned exposure (selective scanning)
Route of information processing
Central (high elaboration) & peripheral (low elaboration)
Central
Type of learning
Active learning & passive or incidental learning
Active learning
Output
(knowledge)
Long-term, profound or in-depth knowledge & short-term, less profound knowledge or awareness
Long-term, profound knowledge

14. “high-choice media decrease encounters with news and with political content in particular” Prior (2005)

15. Method & measurements Telephone survey
December 2002, n=1000; January 2005, n=400 (panel)
Perceived agenda (awareness)
Media exposure, generic (frequency & duration) & specific (exposure to particular content, e.g. politics)
Demographics (age, gender, education)
Interests

16. Who are online news users?

18. Impact on the perceived range of topics
Frequency of use
(times per week)
Duration of use
(minutes per time)
Online newspapers +
(edu high)
Print
Newspapers
(interest low)
(interest average)

19. Impact on the perceived range of topics
All topics
Political topics
Online newspapers
Other news sites +

20. Online new sites do expand the public agenda,
given that they are:
well-structured (and surprise their users), and/or
used to satisfy the need for orientation (i.e. if users are motivated to find out about a variety of topics/what is going in society), and/or
other conditions?

21. The high-choice environment does not exclude broad-scope learning
Perceived agenda
Main findings:
Print newspapers are able to “trap” the less involved
Online newspapers increase the range of perceived topics , but only of higher educated people and if used for longer periods of time
Other news websites increase the range of perceived topics if users are simply exposed to them
The high-choice environment does not exclude broad-scope learning

22. Trends in media use displacement
Main findings:
Online newspapers are increasingly used at the expense of traditional printed newspapers, particularly among young people (substitutive use)
Other news sites are increasingly used complementary to traditional printed dailies (supplementary use)
Other news sites are increasingly used at the expense of newspaper websites (substitutive use)

23. All in all Society still profits from traditional newspapers
So far, online newspapers fail to expand awareness of public affairs issues
Are, on the internet, other news sites or better structured web editions of newspapers then our hope for the future?

24. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
e-paper

25. cool, they all do different tricks!

27. Search: google video: “day of the long tail”
Search: google video: “day of the long tail”
Search: google video: “the paradox of choice”