News Distribution and Sustainable Journalism: Effects of Social Media News Use and Media Skepticism on Citizens’ Paying Behavior

IF 2.7 2区文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Mass Communication and Society Pub Date : 2023-02-01 DOI:10.1080/15205436.2023.2169164

M. Goyanes, Rebecca Scheffauer, Homero Gil de Zúñiga

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引用次数: 5

Abstract

ABSTRACT News organizations require sustainable business models with reliable revenue streams to perform their intended function in liberal democracies. Since the digital transition, however, many citizens have considerably shown high reluctance to pay for digital content, consequently jeopardizing journalists’ watchdog role and substantially eroding media independence. Based on a two-wave panel survey from the United States, this study seeks to investigate the antecedents of readers’ paying behavior for news, focusing on the role of social media news use and media skepticism. Findings reveal that users’ frequency of social media news use is associated with future paying behavior, while higher levels of media skepticism significantly inhibit readers’ payment. The analyses also show that while those reporting low media skepticism are initially more inclined to pay for news, high levels of social media news use function to largely overcome this gap. The study argues that the role of social media in delivering news should be redefined in light of the new paid content strategies implemented by news organizations.

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新闻分发与可持续新闻:社交媒体新闻使用和媒体怀疑对公民付费行为的影响

新闻机构需要可持续的商业模式和可靠的收入流来履行其在自由民主国家的预期职能。然而，自数字化转型以来，许多公民相当不愿意为数字内容付费，从而危及记者的监督作用，并严重损害媒体的独立性。基于一项来自美国的两波面板调查，本研究试图调查读者为新闻付费行为的前因，重点关注社交媒体新闻使用和媒体怀疑的作用。研究发现，用户使用社交媒体新闻的频率与未来的付费行为有关，而媒体怀疑程度的提高显著抑制了读者的付费行为。分析还显示，虽然那些对媒体怀疑程度较低的人最初更倾向于为新闻付费，但社交媒体新闻使用水平较高的人在很大程度上克服了这一差距。该研究认为，应该根据新闻机构实施的新的付费内容战略，重新定义社交媒体在传递新闻方面的角色。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Mass Communication and Society COMMUNICATION-

CiteScore

6.90

自引率

3.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Mass Communication and Society" mission is to publish articles from a wide variety of perspectives and approaches that advance mass communication theory, especially at the societal or macrosocial level. It draws heavily from many other disciplines, including sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, law, and history. Methodologically, journal articles employ qualitative and quantitative methods, survey research, ethnography, laboratory experiments, historical methods, and legal analysis.