John Dimmick

Competition Between the Internet and Traditional News Media: The Gratification-Opportunities Niche Dimension

Over the last decade, the Internet has become one of the most popular vehicles facilitating a variety of communication and information-sharing tasks worldwide. Its growing popularity as a new medium of communication has resulted in changes in use of traditional media. The purpose of this study was to better understand the uses of online news compared with news use via traditional media. In light of the niche theory and the theory of uses and gratifications, a new medium survives, grows, competes, and prospers by providing utility or gratification to consumers. In doing so, it may have effects on existing media by providing new solutions to old needs or to more contemporary needs. Data were collected in a telephone survey with 211 respondents in the Columbus, Ohio (Franklin County), metropolitan area. The results clearly indicate that the Internet has a competitive displacement effect on traditional media in the daily news domain with the largest displacements occurring for television and newspapers. The findings also show that there is a moderately high degree of overlap or similarity between the niches of the Internet and the traditional media on the gratification-opportunities dimension. In addition, the results suggest that the Internet has the broadest niche on the gratification opportunities dimension, providing users satisfaction with more needs than any of the traditional media on this dimension.

The Gratifications of the Household Telephone Sociability, Instrumentality, and Reassurance

The article reports three studies of gratifications obtained from the household telephone by samples of respondents in Columbus (Franklin County), Ohio, and a statewide sample of Ohio. The first study consisted of open-ended qualitative interviews to ascertain reasons for using the household telephone. In the second study, gratifications questions were administered to a sample of 569 respondents from the Columbus area. A factor analysis clearly demonstrated the presence of two factors: sociability and instrumentality. Evidence suggestive of a third factor was obtained as well. In the third study, gratification questions were administered to a sample of 525 residents of the state of Ohio. A factor analysis clearly demonstrated the presence of a third factor: reassurance. Whereas the reassurance factor is a psychological-level variable, the sociability factor is linked to the process of social integration and the instrumentality factor is tied to a social process called coordination.

Home E-Mail : Relational Maintenance and Gratification Opportunities

This study explored the household use of electronic mail. In a telephone probability sample of 881 adults, 112 adults reported they used electronic mail. This sample provided four superordinate reasons for home e‐mail use: interpersonal relationships; personal gain; business; and gratification opportunities. Overwhelmingly, home e‐mail was reported to be used for interpersonal relationship reasons regardless of user demographics. The findings suggest that e‐mail is used for the maintenance of interpersonal relationships and that gratification opportunities play an important role in home e‐mail use.

News in the interstices: The niches of mobile media in space and time:

The recent growth of mobile channels has provided steadily increasing opportunities for individuals to access news and other mass-mediated content. Media ecological perspectives argue that the introduction of such new technologies can shift the existing biases in prevailing social systems. According to one ecological perspective, the theory of the niche, when new media technologies are successfully introduced into a domain, displacement may occur unless some alteration is made to the resource base. Interstices are conceptualized as the gaps in the routines of media users between scheduled activities. Through the use of a diary method, participants logged access to news using a variety of communication technologies, including mobile channels. Results indicated that traditional media occupied traditional niches with little evidence of displacement, while mobile channels occupied a new niche: access in the interstices.

The Conceptualization and Measurement of Diversity

This article defines dual-concept diversity as a two-dimensional construct that holds a central place of study in many fields, including communication. The authors present 12 measures of dual-concept diversity appearing in the literature and assess the differential sensitivity of these measures in capturing the two dimensions. After assessing each measure and eliminating measures that are redundant or computationally intractable, the article compares the remaining measures of diversity in a time series of 30 years of network radio programming. Graphic and statistical interrelationships are presented to facilitate comparison and choice between measures in future research.

The niches of interpersonal media: Relationships in time and space

According to the theory of the niche, media must differentiate themselves along resource dimensions that allow for their survival to compete and coexist within a resource space. Within this study, contacts with personal relationships are framed as a key resource domain over which channels of interpersonal communication (interpersonal media) compete to occupy niches within the resource spaces of social networks. One hundred and forty-two college undergraduates completed a time/space diary for a randomly assigned weekday in which they recorded their contacts or ‘bundles’ with members of their personal social network. Analysis of the data shows that interpersonal media coexist because they are differentiated from each other in the contacts they allow with different relationships at different times and locations. Although evidence is found regarding heavy competition among the media under analysis, each is used in different time/space/network relationship contexts.

LEVELS OF ANALYSIS IN MASS MEDIA DECISION MAKING A Taxonomy, Research Strategy, and Illustrative Data Analysis

The article proposes a taxonomy consisting of nine levels of analysis and two forms of influence which operate within and between levels. Together with a multilevel research strategy, the taxonomy and the types of influence form a framework for the analysis of complex media decision systems. Data from a national sample of reporters are used to illustrate the multilevel research strategy. The results indicate that experience and the industry in which the reporter works explain more variance in autonomy than organization size.

Competition between the cable and broadcast industries: A niche analysis

The authors show that although there is increasing competition between cable television, broadcast television, and radio, broadcast television remains a strong competitor and has not yet been displaced by cable television in the advertising market. Radio still remains competitive, but not to the degree of broadcast television. The authors suggest that cable television will not rapidly overwhelm and push broadcast industries out of the market.

Media Use and the Life Span: Notes on Theory and Method

This article is about change: specifically, the changes over the life course which are associated with changes in the uses and gratifications which individuals derive from the media of mass communication. The uses and gratifications approach has been the subject of much scholarly discussion and debate (Elliott, 1974; Carey and Kreiling, 1974; Swanson, 1979; Katz, 1979), and it is the dominant paradigm guiding the study of the audiences of mass communication. One of the unique virtues of the approach is its ability to reach out &dquo;effectively to a wide range of new theoretical developments in other disciplines&dquo; (Blumler and Katz, 1974: 15). In the following pages we will, first, provide a brief overview of the uses and gratifications paradigm. Second, we will offer a tentative view of the process by which the gratifications derived from the media and other activities change as a result of the alterations in need structure of the individual. Third, we will present a crude stage-theory which is an attempt to chart the points and regions in the life course at which changes in the need structure are prompted by alterations in biophysical and

`Extending Society': the role of personal networks and gratification-utilities in the use of interactive communication media

This study examined the relationship among personal network characteristics, gratification-utilities and the frequency of use of three interactive communication technologies (landline telephone, email and instant messaging). A conceptual framework is presented, providing a rationale for three hypotheses predicting positive relationships between personal network characteristics (size, intimacy and physical proximity), gratification-utilities and frequency of use.The participants were 286 college students, whom research shows are primary users of interactive media. Hypotheses 1 and 2, proposing a link between network characteristics and gratification-utilities with frequency of use, were supported, while Hypothesis 3, predicting a link between the prior two variables, was only partially supported. Frequency of use was associated more strongly with network characteristics than with gratification-utilities across the three technologies. Of the network characteristics, network size was significantly associated with gratification-utilities. Directions for future research are discussed.