[ecrea] Special Section in Mobile Media & Communication: News Consumption in an Age of Mobile Media (2015, Vol 3:2)

The OnlineFirst articles for a forthcoming Special Section in Mobile 
Media & Communication (2015, Vol 3:2) are out. The special section 
focuses on "News Consumption in an Age of Mobile Media" and contains 
five original articles and a guest editorial – all of which are 
OPEN-ACCESS for 6 months from now.



The social, cultural, and technological phenomenon of mobile news is an 
important area of mobile media development, marking a paradigmatic shift 
in the accessibility and use of news in everyday life. The special 
section brings together a selection of five original articles authored 
by scholars from a range of countries on three continents. The reader 
will note several themes in the different papers. Playing on 
alliteration, these can be seen to be the thematic areas of patterns, 
people, place, and participation. The introduction to the Special 
Section by Oscar Westlund -  News consumption in an age of mobile media: 
Patterns, people, place, and participation - introduces these four 
areas, and is followed by brief summaries of how the five articles in 
the special section contribute to the field. These will be published in 
the following order, with full reference details and abstracts below:




Thorson, T., Karaliova, T., Shoenberger, H., Kim, E., & Fidler, R. 
(2015). News use of mobile media: A contingency view. Mobile Media & 
Communication, 1-19, doi:0.1177/2050157914557692



ABSTRACT:

A mobile contingency model is introduced and used to guide hypotheses 
about how the

strength of people’s habits for using an incumbent medium (here, print 
newspapers),

their degree of adoption of a newer medium (mobile devices), and their 
attitudes about

the importance of professional news sources, influence their use of 
mobile devices

for communication functions including entertainment, interpersonal 
communication,

following news, financial transactions, and e-commerce. Secondary 
analysis of a 2012

U.S. national phone survey is employed. Older respondents use mobile 
devices less for

all functions, including following news, tend to be loyal print 
subscribers, and highly agree

that it is important for news to be produced by professional news 
sources. However,

when the effect of age is controlled, higher levels of education, and to 
a lesser extent,

income, still significantly predict agreement about the importance of 
professional news

sources. The results demonstrate the crucial impact of news attitudes, 
and are largely

supportive of the mobile contingency model. The most important practical 
implication

is that newspaper companies should be targeting their mobile 
applications not to their

subscribers, but rather to nonsubscribers who have adopted mobile 
devices, are highly

educated, and have higher incomes.





Chan, M. (2015). Examining the Influences of news use patterns, 
motivations, and age cohort on mobile news use: The case of Hong Kong. 
Mobile Media & Communication, 1-17, doi: 10.1177/2050157914550663



ABSTRACT:

Adopting perspectives from media displacement, complementary uses, and 
uses and

gratifications theories, this study examines the relationships and 
dynamics between

mobile news use and use of other mediums for accessing the news. 
Findings from a

national sample in Hong Kong, which has among the highest mobile phone 
penetration

rates in the world, found support for all perspectives. Those in the 
18–34 and 35–

54 cohorts were mostly multiplatform users of news, yet subgroup 
analyses reveal

different patterns of complementary uses and displacement. Moreover, 
results showed

that different gratifications predict mobile hard news use and mobile 
soft news use.

Implications and future prospects for mobile news are discussed.





Van Damme, K., Courtois, C., Verbrugge, K., & de Marez, L. (2015).What's 
APPening to news? A mixed-method audience-centered study on mobile news 
consumption, Mobile Media &Communication, 1-18, doi:10.1177/2050157914557691



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.





Villi, M., & Matikainen, J. (2015). Mobile UDC: Online media content 
distribution among finnish mobile users. Mobile Media & Communication, 
1-16, doi: 0.1177/2050157914552156



ABSTRACT:

This paper examines the significance of user-distributed content (UDC) 
for news

consumption, thereby offering an innovative take on mass communication 
and the

participatory audience. From the viewpoint of media organizations, UDC 
is a process by

which the mass media converge with online social networks through the 
intentional use

of social media and other platforms and services in an effort to expand 
the distribution

of media content. In order to focus specifically on mobile news 
consumption, this

paper sheds light on the novel phenomenon of mobile user-distributed 
content (mobile

UDC). Mobile UDC is manifested in mobile users’ ability to share online 
media content

on a perpetual and ubiquitous basis. The study utilizes the results from 
a survey carried

out with Finnish Internet users. The main finding is that mobile 
Internet users are more

active in UDC than those who do not use the Internet with mobile 
devices. It is thus

argued that mobile UDC, as a developing concept, can be used to explain 
the practices

that are characteristic of mobile online news consumption.





Martin, J. (2015). Mobile political news and electoral participation: A 
bridge for the democratic divide. Mobile Media & Communication, 1-20. 
doi: 0.1177/2050157914550664



ABSTRACT:

This study explores the role of mobile news in democracy by examining 
individual-level

variations in mobile election news use based on demographics, 
socioeconomic indicators,

and mobile media activity breadth, and, in turn, how mobile news use is 
associated with

political participation. Nationally representative data from a 
random-sample survey of

American adults (N= 2,250) in the 2010 general election were analyzed to 
better explain

who mobile election news users are, how they compare to nonusers, and 
whether mobile

news use was associated with voter turnout and mobile campaign donation. 
Findings

underscore the significance of mobile media use and mobile news as 
phenomena of

emerging importance in the election campaigns, and important 
differential patterns in the

relationships of sociodemographics, mobile media, and electoral 
participation are discussed.

By providing a nuanced accounting of the socioeconomic and demographic 
profile of

mobile election news users and how those individuals differ from 
nonusers, this study

enriches explanations of how societal privilege and the benefits of 
political engagement are

related in complicated ways to individual-level variations in consuming 
and using mobile

election news. Notably, for racial minorities, mobile media may provide 
a bridge across the

digital-driven democratic divide and a more effective means of engaging 
with digital election

information than other ICTs. Analysis also extends what is known about 
how citizens use

mobile news to engage with increasingly personalized election campaigns. 
Results indicate

that mobile election news use was a significant positive predictor of 
the odds of having

voted and whether individuals used their mobile devices to make 
contributions during the

campaign. These findings support arguments that the unique qualities of 
mobile devices are

contributing to new and different pathways to political engagement while 
also retaining

significance in relation to traditional forms of offline political 
participation.





The full reference and link to the guest editorial is:

Westlund, O. (2015). News consumption in an age of mobile media: 
Patterns, people, place, and participation, Mobile Media & 
Communication, 3(2), 1-9, doi:10.1177/2050157914563369.



Yours Sincerely



Oscar Westlund


--
OSCAR WESTLUND
PhD, Associate Professor

UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG
Department of Journalism, Media and Communication
Box 710, 405 30 Göteborg
University website: 
http://www.jmg.gu.se/english/contact/co-workers/westlund_oscar/
Personal website: www.oscarwestlund.com



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