The primary aim of the research project presented in this thesis was to develop and test a comprehensive psychological model of interaction experience with news Web sites. Although news media have been publishing on the Web increasingly since the second half of the 1990s and news sites have become a favoured source of news for many, there is a lack of knowledge about news sites in terms of interaction-experience constructs and their structural relationships. The project aimed to examine people’s use of news sites from the perspective of interaction-experience research by developing a model and, based on this model, to provide guidance for designers of news sites. The project comprises three research phases: (1) exploratory phase, (2) modelling phase and (3) experimental phase. In the exploratory phase, a review of literature and an exploratory study of interaction experience with news Web sites were conducted. The latter explored how users of a particular news site interact with the site and which aspects of their experience they report. Data for the exploratory study were collected with an online questionnaire and by recording participants’ use of a news site under think-aloud instructions. In the modelling phase, an online questionnaire was used to collect answers to psychometric scales that were selected based on the literature review and the exploratory study. A measurement model was formulated to test the relationship between measurement items and the measurement scales, and structural models were formulated to test hypotheses related to the structural relationships of variables. Following the test results, a model of interaction experience with news sites was formulated to predict outcome measures of interaction experience from variables measuring aspects of interaction experience. Components of interaction experience, in turn, were predicted from measures of perceived news-site characteristics. In the experimental phase, an experiment was conducted to test the model of interaction experience with news sites in a controlled setting. Additionally, measures of person- and context characteristics were included in the prediction of components of interaction experience. The model of interaction experience with news sites was supported and accounted for a medium to substantial amount of variance in outcome measures. Finally, design guidance was derived from the model to advance interaction-experience knowledge, and conclusions were drawn regarding the model, in relation to existing research.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Newspapers across the world, and more particularly here in South Africa, are in trouble due to dropping circulation figures and reduced income from advertisements. Technology, although impacting on the printed product, should not be seen as a threat, but rather as an opportunity. New and novel ways need to be explored to generate revenue from newspaper websites, by increased subscription figures, as well as other ways of monetizing content. Revenue from advertisements is still important in the online environment, but online news services can generate money in other ways by monetizing online news content through different payment models, advertorial content and e-commerce. In this study, the needs of users of an Afrikaans regional newspaper’s website will be explored and cues taken from the results of an online survey in order to better understand what it is that online news users want and what they are willing to pay for it, which is, by all accounts, not a lot.

The term "young adults" is often used loosely without a clear definition of who this demographic is. This study defines young adults by examining generational differences, their beliefs, uses and nonuses of media, news interests, wants, values for following the news, and expectations and reading experiences of news stories. The uses and gratifications approach and expectancy-value theory provided a framework for this study. Three methodological approaches were used: a secondary data analysis of three national surveys, focus groups and an experiment. The secondary data analysis findings showed the youngest age group (18-24) is leading the new news routine online with news aggregator sites, major and local news sites. The two youngest age groups (18-24 and 25-29) differ from each other and older age groups in their worries, goals, perspectives, beliefs, news interests, media uses, nonuses and political knowledge, and should be studied separately. Stances on social issues and technology are not as clearly defined by age. The findings suggest one's life stage is behind some of the differences. Since no published study to date has conducted focus groups exclusively with nonreaders of print newspapers ages 18-29 to examine their news consumption and nonuses of print newspapers, the present study broke new ground. The findings showed these young adults want searchable, effortless, shorter, more local, accessible anytime news. Both groups (18-24 and 25-29) wanted less negative news, but the younger group justified crime coverage. A few younger group participants expressed a difficult time reading the news and a bias in coverage, especially politics. The experiment used storytelling devices in an attempt to make news writing more digestible, interesting, relevant to young adults' lives, and informative. The findings showed "chunking" text improved perceived comprehension. The device of adding background information, context and a definition improved text recall. The experiment also examined expectations that young adults have prior to reading hard news. For a politics story, experimental group participants expected to understand the story less and have less of an interest than they did. Using these findings, this study suggests ways to get more of this audience (18-29) to tune into the news. / text

Social media has created a two-pronged dilemma for the journalism world. On one side is an attack of the basic notions of identity and authority for an age-old profession while on the other side supporting journalists by making available an endless amount of new tools and resources for them to work with. This thesis establishes and examines the online community of practice that has formed in the crosshair of the two sides, where the future of newspapers is a hotly debated subject. Using innovative data collection, the conversations of 20 experts is studied qualitatively through computer mediated discourse analysis to examine and explore the debate while providing consideration of the key issues to allow for an in-depth study.

Le marché de la publicité en ligne est un marché complexe, instable et en mutation. Notre thèse décrit et explique le fonctionnement de ce marché pour les sites de presse issus de l’imprimé. A partir d’une enquête qualitative, s’appuyant sur des entretiens semi-directifs auprès de professionnels occupant des postes à responsabilité dans les milieux de la presse et de la publicité sur le web, nous analysons la construction du marché et ses logiques de fonctionnement. Ces dernières interrogent la continuité du modèle publicitaire de la presse sur ce média. Notre objectif est de comprendre la manière dont la valorisation marchande de l’audience y évolue pour les sites issus de la presse imprimée. Les modes de quantification et de qualification de l’audience se transforment et marquent l’affrontement entre une logique issue de la publicité média et une autre relative au marketing direct, tirant parti du caractère interactif de la publicité en ligne. Trois dimensions complémentaires structurent notre travail : l’évolution de la relation marchande entre les éditeurs et les annonceurs et la manière dont elle est outillée (partie 1) ; l’inscription du marché dans un contexte socioéconomique imposant des contraintes spécifiques et une tension autour de modes de qualification alternatifs du produit publicitaire (partie 2) ; le rôle joué par l’appropriation des innovations techniques par certains acteurs ainsi que la mesure dans laquelle cette appropriation détermine, au moins en partie, l’évolution de l’activité publicitaire (partie 3). / The online advertising market is a complex, unstable and evolutive one. Our thesis describes and explains the way this market works for online news publishers from traditional news organisations. From a qualitative survey, based on semi-structured interviews with professionals in positions of responsibility in online news organisations and online advertising industry, we analyze the market construction and its operating logic. The latter questions the continuity of the news organisations advertising model online. Our goal is to understand how operates the audience markets valuation online for those traditional news market players. The audience quantification and qualification process are changing and show us conflicting logics between a logic imported from offline media advertising and another one from direct marketing, taking advantage of the interactive nature of online advertising. Three distinct but complementary points structure our work: the evolution of the market relationship between publishers and advertisers and how it is equipped (part 1); the inclusion of the market in a socio-economic context which imposes specific constraints and a tension between alternative modes of advertising product’s qualification (part 2); the role played by the appropriation of technological innovations by some players as well as the extent to which this appropriation determine, at least in part, the advertising business dynamics (part 3).

Measuring Internet performance for home users can provide useful information for improving network performance. Such measurements typically require users to install special software on their machines, a major impediment to use. To overcome this impediment, we designed and implemented several scripting techniques to predict Internet performance within the tightly constrained sandbox environment of a Web browser. Our techniques are integrated into a Web site project called "How's My Network" that provides performance predictions for common Internet activities, with this thesis concentrating on the performance of online news, social networks, and online shopping. We started our approach by characterizing news sites to understand their structures. After that, we designed models to predict the user's performance for reading news online. We then implement these models using Javascript and evaluate their results. We find out that news sites share common characteristics in their structures with outliers for some. Predicting the page load time according to number objects coming from dominant domain, the one providing the most number of objects, gives more accurate predictions than using total number of objects across all domains. The contributions of this work include the design of new approaches for predicting Web browser performance, and the implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of our approach to predict Web browser performance.

The aim of this study was to investigate the perception of personalization on news applications and to examine to what extent it is seen as an optimal solution for users to receive information. Due to the growth of online news and digital journalism the amount of information that is being published online is significantly higher nowadays than it has previously been. Therefore, a recommendation system called personalization has been introduced to choose content for the reader. Many concerns of personalization have already been brought to light, these concerns are believed to be contributing to filter bubbles and echo chambers. This study will investigate these concerns further in order to understand the users. The methodology used in the study were semi-structured interviews and an analysis based on the concerns brought forward by Borgesius et al. Six interviews were conducted with users and two were conducted with major news organizations in Sweden. The results of the study indicate that users fear personalization will cause filter bubbles and polarization due to them only being subjected to one perspective. The users are unaware as to how personalization works and therefore question why it is being introduced into news applications. Due to personalization being a new phenomenon news applications it is not yet seen as an optimal solution by users or news organizations. There are, however, many factors that can assist in its development such as transparency and awareness of the phenomenon.

This thesis examines the ways in which Reddit, a social news aggregator, functions as a tool that allows users to give and receive support and information during times of crisis. By exploring how Reddit was used in the aftermath of the Aurora shootings of July 2012 and the Boston bombings of April 2013, this thesis argues that Reddit has the potential to be a powerful and useful tool in times of crisis.

Social media has created a two-pronged dilemma for the journalism world. On one side is an attack of the basic notions of identity and authority for an age-old profession while on the other side supporting journalists by making available an endless amount of new tools and resources for them to work with. This thesis establishes and examines the online community of practice that has formed in the crosshair of the two sides, where the future of newspapers is a hotly debated subject. Using innovative data collection, the conversations of 20 experts is studied qualitatively through computer mediated discourse analysis to examine and explore the debate while providing consideration of the key issues to allow for an in-depth study.

The Arab spring has been called a social media revolution and social media have been given large importance and significant space in both academic discussions and analysis in the media. The main focus of this study was to examine whether social media have impacted the news reporting of the conflicts. A sample of articles from four different newspapers was examined, taken randomly from all relevant articles published on the newspapers websites between December 2010 and December 2013. A part of that sample was checked for news agency cable reliance and the entire sample were checked for material from social media. Three newspapers were found to rely heavily on news agency material. The New York Times was the exception, having only 4 percent of articles being based on news agency material. Social media material and quotes were found and were used in the report-ing in different ways, but only in 4 percent of articles. It was mainly used as a way to get protester commentary. Two of the included newspapers were China Daily and the New York Times. The differences between the respective reporting in these newspapers were also examined in yet an-other subsample consisting of 100 articles from each newspaper. Several differences be-tween the reporting were found, with China Daily for example presenting a framing more in favour of the government of Syria than the New York Times.