Online news consumption
What is it about?
People are less likely to read public affairs news, and this scenario is expected to be more prevalent in a controlled media environment in which the government has control over news selection for public consumption. In the age of the Internet, however, people have easy access to independent online news sources. So, could this predict consumption of public affairs news. We examine the role of mobile and social media use for news, along with other factors such as age, education level, perceived credibility and motivations for news, in explaining online consumption of public affairs news in Malaysia.
Why is it important?
Our findings show that there was an increase in mobile news consumption and social media use for news, but the increase has no significant effect on the consumption of public affairs news. The finding implies that people do read news online, but unfortunately public affairs news stories were less likely to attract their attention. Factors that predict online consumption of public affairs news in Malaysia are age (i.e: older generation or digital immigrants), perceived credibility and users' motivations for news.