Papers by Klaus Schoenbach
Communications
This study investigates the influence of season of birth on media use and media genre preferences... more This study investigates the influence of season of birth on media use and media genre preferences later in life. An impressive body of research in Europe and Japan shows that the month of birth has a significant impact on one’s temperament: People born in the winter of the northern hemisphere, for instance, tend to be less cheerful, lively and self-assured. Reasons seem to be the experience of less light, of coldness and of living mostly inside the home. Mood-management theory suggests that media entertainment may be used to compensate for that lack of cheerfulness and liveliness. In this explorative study, we assume that in countries north of the equator, but with extremely hot temperatures, summer is the season with fewer outdoor activities. So, there, individuals with more summer months in their first half year of life should be comparatively less cheerful – which they may regulate by using more media entertainment. Indeed, a secondary analysis of large-scale surveys in six count...
Europe at the Polls: The European Elections of 1999, 2002
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2012
With an abundance of TV channels available, viewers with no interest in politics might escape fro... more With an abundance of TV channels available, viewers with no interest in politics might escape from news watching completely. But whether this is true depends on how viewers deal with an increasing complexity. Do people follow their viewing motives and preferences even more or do unintentional choices prevail? Using people-meter data, the authors studied news exposure over the last 2
Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2011
ABSTRACT This study compared and integrated the influence of motivational and situational determi... more ABSTRACT This study compared and integrated the influence of motivational and situational determinants on news viewing behavior. Individual people-meter data allowed the unobtrusive study of news viewing situations. The finding is that the viewing context is much more important than motivations. However, interest in the news and politics can reinforce or reverse situational influences. For interested viewers, watching more TV in general mainly explains news viewing, while for less interested viewers, lead-out effects and social viewing are more relevant.
Communication Studies, 2009
Television viewing often is a sequence of a multitude of activities that can vary tremendously fr... more Television viewing often is a sequence of a multitude of activities that can vary tremendously from the moment the TV set is turned on until it is turned off again. Previous models of individual viewing behavior as well as empirical studies have focused on isolated aspects of viewing only, such as the frequency and duration of viewing or patterns of
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 08838151 2011 597466, Aug 31, 2011
ABSTRACT This study compared and integrated the influence of motivational and situational determi... more ABSTRACT This study compared and integrated the influence of motivational and situational determinants on news viewing behavior. Individual people-meter data allowed the unobtrusive study of news viewing situations. The finding is that the viewing context is much more important than motivations. However, interest in the news and politics can reinforce or reverse situational influences. For interested viewers, watching more TV in general mainly explains news viewing, while for less interested viewers, lead-out effects and social viewing are more relevant.
New Media & Society, 2010
... that still considerably more men than women get news online and also more younger people than... more ... that still considerably more men than women get news online and also more younger people than ... in (and consumption of) soft news seems to precede interest in (and consumption of) hard ... After all, it is rea-sonable that those specifically looking for news online are interested in ...
Mass Communication and Society, 2008
Traditional newspapers have shown to improve knowledge of politics and other societal issues and ... more Traditional newspapers have shown to improve knowledge of politics and other societal issues and to widen the perceived public agenda. But what about their online counterparts and other types of news sites on the Internet? The consequences of differences in presentation style are addressed. A large survey representative of the Dutch adult population has been used to examine how much print newspapers and online news expand the perceived public agenda, both in terms of its extent in general, and within politics in particular. Our results show that printed newspapers are more effective than online newspapers in increasing the overall number of perceived topics and the number of political topics, but only if readers are interested and rely on newspapers. Other types of news sites, however, seem to widen the overall and the political public agenda, even without specific interest and reliance of their users.
European Journal of Communication, 2005
Printed newspapers are known to widen the range of public topics, events and issues their audienc... more Printed newspapers are known to widen the range of public topics, events and issues their audience is aware of. There are reasons to assume that their online counterparts help increase their audience's perceived agenda to a lesser extent. The way print newspapers are structured and used is supposed to lure readers into reading stories they may not have been interested in beforehand. Online papers support more activity and control by their users; becoming aware of a narrower range of topics according to one's individual interests is more plausible. A representative survey of almost 1000 respondents shows it is more complicated than that. Both channels in fact contribute to widening the audience agenda. But whereas online newspapers show this effect only in the highest educated group of society, print newspapers are able to expand the horizon of those whose range of interests is at most average.
ABSTRACT Citizens in the Netherlands demand that news media are transparent and responsive to aud... more ABSTRACT Citizens in the Netherlands demand that news media are transparent and responsive to audiences. But above all, the population expects journalism to adopt a more professional manner of self-regulation in order to strengthen news quality. These are the main findings from a large-scale representative survey—the first of its kind—on audience perceptions of news media accountability. Additional results show that citizens are interested in news, but not in the workings of journalism. Only a minority wants to be actively involved in journalism and its accountability mechanisms. This explains why the audience supports a professional liability model of news media accountability rather than a model based on social dialogue.
Digital Journalism, Apr 24, 2014
ABSTRACT Today’s online news environment has made it easy to select outlets covering the topics o... more ABSTRACT Today’s online news environment has made it easy to select outlets covering the topics one is interested in and the political viewpoints one shares. Previous research often examined either the diversity of news content or the audience’s choices. This study of online news use in Austria does both to assess audience selectivity systematically. It first investigates the topics and bias of news sites based on a content analysis (N = 2069), before survey data (N = 2829) are used to investigate how far online news users select outlets that match their preferences. Content differences exist to some extent, but people hardly match them with their personal preferences. We conclude that, across the population, there is a substantive interest in general-interest digital journalism. In contrast to what selective exposure research suggests, factors other than interests and orientation might guide the choice for a specific news site.
International Journal of Communication, Mar 29, 2013
This paper analyzes the intermedia agenda-setting process of 34 newspapers, online news sites and... more This paper analyzes the intermedia agenda-setting process of 34 newspapers, online news sites and TV-news in a nationwide setting through semi-automatic content analysis and time series analysis. The findings suggest that the opinion leader role of a medium depends on issue specific characteristics such as obtrusiveness, mediating the intermedia agenda-setting process. Additionally, the traditional role of print media as intermedia agenda-setters may be challenged by online news sites, especially for issues with an online focus.
Journalism, 2015
ABSTRACT This article analyzes intermedia agenda-setting processes during a national election cam... more ABSTRACT This article analyzes intermedia agenda-setting processes during a national election campaign of 38 newspapers, online news sites, TV news programs, as well as a wire service, through semi-automatic content analysis and time series analysis. The theoretical assumption was that intermedia agenda-setting is determined by the production structures of certain media types, the opinion-leader role of specific media outlets, and issue-specific characteristics. The findings suggest that, despite previous evidence to the contrary, intermedia agenda-setting also occurs during election campaigns, with a short time lag of 1day. Additionally, a medium’s opinion-leader role depends strongly on issue-specific characteristics, such as obtrusiveness and proximity, mediating the intermedia agenda-setting process. And the traditional role of print media as intermedia agenda-setters is found to be challenged by online news sites.
Computer Physics Communications
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Papers by Klaus Schoenbach